I love my 3rd party Reddit app, but when their business model is either 1) don’t show Reddit’s ads and instead show their own ads, or 2) charge a fee to remove all ads (including Reddit’s) - it does feel like it was just a matter of time before this happened.
Reddit should have said Reddit premium users can use 3rd party clients / unlimited API calls. Messaging something like: If you want no-ads you have to pay Reddit (not someone else), but if you feel their client is better feel free to use it. The landscape for 3rd party clients would probably still dry up (who wants to pay 2x subscription fees), but it would have been better PR.
Reddit should have said Reddit premium users can use 3rd party clients / unlimited API calls. Messaging something like: If you want no-ads you have to pay Reddit (not someone else), but if you feel their client is better feel free to use it. The landscape for 3rd party clients would probably still dry up (who wants to pay 2x subscription fees), but it would have been better PR.