It’s not that third party apps want to freeload and therefore have triggered this boycott. A big part of the reason people are upset is the handling of the monetization of the API. The pricing is absurd compared to what similar services charge and the timeline for third parties to switch over is extremely limited. There are many other ways they could have monetized their API without triggering this backlash. For example, they could restrict API usage to people who pay for Reddit Premium. Then, given sufficient time, third parties could rearchitect their workflow to support this.
Also, people are upset at how Reddit management, especially their CEO (Steve Huffman), has handled this transition. The potentially libelous comments regarding Christian Selig (Apollo developer) are just one of the many things people are upset about. The bungled communication and lack of transparency just continues to show that Reddit just wants to squeeze value out of the community without any genuine effort to make it better.
I can’t say for sure whether the boycott will work or not. But I definitely can say that there will be lasting consequences. This is a negative inflection point for Reddit as a community and as a community, especially if they forcibly remod communities that go dark.
The silver lining is that if Reddit does manage to squeeze an IPO out of this, we all have a new stock to short ;)
Why do you think Reddit wants to monetize via the API and not simply kill third party apps? They'd make a lot more money from ads à la Facebook than via subscriptions.
> But I definitely can say that there will be lasting consequences. This is a negative inflection point for Reddit as a community and as a community, especially if they forcibly remod communities that go dark.
No, there won't be lasting (negative) consequences. I've been a reddit user for a long time, almost since they started. There have been any number of controversies, from jailbait, to fatpeoplehate, to watchpeopledie, to incels, to the fappening, to thedonald, to finding the Boston bomber, to Ellen Pao, to the firing of Victoria, to gamergate, to wallstreetbets, and so on.
They had all been covered in the media but to the average user, they simply don't know nor care about these incidents. So many power users don't understand that the average user simply does not care about any of this. They just want to browse Reddit on their phone for the next 5 minutes.
Even for power users, I could see it being a pretty minor thing. Just speaking for myself - I don't really care about any of this as long as they keep "old" Reddit alive. I've been on Reddit over a decade at this point, and I'm there for a handful of text-based communities. I've never even posted images with Reddit's image uploader.
Some people have argued, in the abstract, that if they're willing to make changes to the API they'll probably kill "old" Reddit too, but idk. Some subreddit mods have posted traffic stats showing half of uniques are still coming through "old" Reddit. I don't see them killing it soon... but if they'll do I'll move on.
I have and will continue to use old reddit on my phone's browser as well, I really have no need or using mobile apps, official or otherwise; I use Joey for Reddit now on Android but that's just for convenience, I don't have to use it.
Also, people are upset at how Reddit management, especially their CEO (Steve Huffman), has handled this transition. The potentially libelous comments regarding Christian Selig (Apollo developer) are just one of the many things people are upset about. The bungled communication and lack of transparency just continues to show that Reddit just wants to squeeze value out of the community without any genuine effort to make it better.
I can’t say for sure whether the boycott will work or not. But I definitely can say that there will be lasting consequences. This is a negative inflection point for Reddit as a community and as a community, especially if they forcibly remod communities that go dark.
The silver lining is that if Reddit does manage to squeeze an IPO out of this, we all have a new stock to short ;)