I keep thinking this would have been a much better sell to devs and to users. I have always used Sync, and Boost. I tried the official app a few times, but really only used it for the chat feature. I didn’t want to pay for it, but (I am embarrassed to admit it) I would pay premium to keep my app. I think this would have worked out better for Reddit than the garbage they are pulling right now.
Would that have been a more reasonable solution in your opinion as well?
Hah, no. Are you asking if I want to pay for access to a platform that is already dependant on its users to create or aggregate content, while they are already making ad money off my eyeballs? Heck, no, never. If that site cannot make enough money on ads alone, while being one /were of the most visited non-porn sites on the internet, then maybe they should reconsider their other expenses. E.x. Is it really necessary to have a downtown office in an expensive us city, or pay out high CEO wages. I can only really conclude that they are being stupid about this. If they want me back, they are going to have to beg.
They took a 250m funding round and used it to build an nft site. reddit’s problems are 100% self created. Think about how ama’s used to be and how they managed to kill that. They could have had several revenue streams just based on ama’s.
But that is exactly the problem with third party apps …they don’t show ads so they make no add revenue on people using apps like Sync and Apollo or RIF… The official app does. I understand why they are trying to push people to their app, but the route they took was worst case scenario.
Third party app users generate content that make adds possible. Get out of here with this pitty reddit problems.
You’re ignoring the other effects of third party apps - which is to have significantly added to the number of users they have to show ads to in the first place.
Making their API free encouraged active development which increased user engagement. So it absolutely did increase their revenue because it helped to increase the popularity of their site in the first place.
This.
Put more explicitly:
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3rd party apps bring more people to the site, or keep them there longer.
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Those people create content in the forms of posts proper and comments— hell, even down to just voting— that feeds the site engagement for users through 1st party interfaces(the ones getting ads), keeping them there longer, and seeing more ads.
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Better moderation tools help mods keep online communities healthy, and the kinds of places we are happy to spend unhealthy amounts of time on.
Lest we forget how dumb reddit is, they didn’t have a mobile strategy in 2014, which necessitated buying Alien Blue.
If you look at the history of reddit, it has succeeded entirely in spite of management decision. Gotta say, even being on the site since 07-08, even I got this wrong. I expected reddit to do something dumb, I just didn’t expect them to do the most dumb thing.
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Users that likely will never see an ad of they only use the 3rd party app
Doesn’t matter. The more people who use reddit, the more additional people who will be attracted to reddit. Not only will a percentage of those people use platforms that do support ads, but both groups increase the engagement with reddit, which means more content being added, more discussions being had, more subreddits being created covering new topics.
Ultimately, it still contributes to reddit.
Why didn’t Reddit try to buy out these third party apps, then? They’d have had the superior functionality AND they could have added ads.
They did years ago. AlienBlue was the unofficial “official” app. It was the most popular Reddit app on the App Store. Reddit bought it and at first it was fine, but then Reddit decided it didn’t like supporting AB and its official app, so they shut AB down and forced everyone to their official app.
That’s not a problem with third party apps, that’s a problem with Reddit’s API that doesn’t send ads to third party apps. It’s entirely a problem of their own making, which they could have fixed years ago, but chose not to, and are now using as a fallacious excuse to shut off access.
Uhh … if I were developing a Reddit reader app, and if their API periodically shit ads into my user’s feed, you KNOW that feature #1 in my third-party app would be simply to ignore those blobs of crap.
They could easily have included it in the terms of use for the API - ‘thou shalt not strip out our ads’. The fact remains it wasn’t even possibly for third party apps to pickup the ads. Apollo/ RIF never asked for a free ride, just something fair.
Once upon a time, Reddit didn’t even have ads.
Three weeks ago, I totally would have… Apollo was life! Now, I don’t think anything could lure me back…
With Spez’s comments about how Reddit has all this data, and “we’re not going to just give that away for free”, I think anyone left on that platform is going to get sold so hard to anyone with two nickels to rub together, that they will effectively have zero privacy or anonymity… no thanks, Spez.
Yeah, the problem rn is that Reddit is shitting on its users, sometime ago, I’d pay, but now I’m gone for good, even if they revert everything
If that had been the compromise, that users of this party apps needed to be premium, I’d have grumbled, but thought 50 a year is worth it to subsidize the costs of running the site without ads using the api.
Now, hell no. I’m transitioning the community I ran to lemmy, and trying to start communities here. Between lemmy, tildes, and royal road, I have everything I had on reddit.
Had they come out and said “hey guys, we really need to actually be making money here. We know it’s not ideal, but itll allow us to further invest in the site and its community”, there really wouldn’t have been a fuss. Sure people would have been upset, but most would’ve gotten it.
Instead they have to act like petulant children throwing a temper tantrum when they don’t get exactly what they want exactly when they want it.
I would have considered that at the start, but at this point they’ve damaged their ecosystem so much, and correspondingly Lemmy has grown a lot, so I don’t see why I would go back either way.
Yeah, the fact that he seems devoted to following musk’s business practices leaves litte faith for Reddit to ever get back on the right track again. Besides, I’m loving my time here at the fediverse and will probably start selfhosting my own private Lemmy server soon!
Yeah exactly. My trust and relationship with reddit has been damaged. Even if they roll back all the API pricing changes the damage is already done.
At the very least they would need to fire spez for me to think anything has changed or is going to get better.
If they had given us a heads up that we would need a subscription, early enough in advance.
If they didnt limit the content we could access.
If the price wasnt ridiculous - Im not paying Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Game Pass money to access a web forum.
Then sure.
But Spez fucked it up. Hes shown that he really doesnt care about the communities, the people that make it up, or even reddit itself. Hes too bent on making that IPO and bailing out as soon as he can.
Lol, not anymore.
I think if they’d framed it properly, in that by using Apollo I’m bypassing their ad revenue and costing them money, I’d see it as a reasonable compromise that I pay for Premium to support the company and carry on using Reddit in the way I preferred.
Now? Fuck u/spez
Yeah. Like two or three weeks ago if they said third party apps need to create a couple dollar per month subscription, then I probably would have bit. Now, with the current leadership? Nope.
No
No, the reason I left Reddit last week has little to do with with third party app issue. I left because the CEO has shown he isn’t interested in listening or addressing community concerns.
This. He’s just another arrogant authoritarian who doesn’t understand where Reddit’s value comes from. It’s the users who will decide if Reddit survives or not, NOT the CEO’s. We’ve seen this attitude before. Hollywood has been destroying franchises for years because they think they know better than the fans.
If you had asked me a month ago, I’d have said absolutely, as long as it keep Reddit alive.
Now? Absofuckinglutely not. I’m a firm believer in putting my money where my mouth is. I haven’t accessed Reddit (intentionally) since the 11th. And my original plan was to see how it all played out, and still probably browse only when I’m at my desk, on my laptop. Watching it all unfold, I’m absolutely disgusted with the choices they are making, and more so with how they are treating everyone, privately, and publicly.
I won’t be going back to Reddit. And I’m ok with that. It was honestly already a bit too……money-grubbing anyhow, and all this last week just solidified that for me.
The intentionally part is my only difficulty. I’d not realized until last week just how many search results were Reddit threads. I need to start excluding Reddit from my search results.
I wouldn’t have paid for, but i would have accepted much better. “API usage is ad free hence only premium users can access it” is much better than “API users are freeloaders that take more than they are giving, fuck them!”
lmao fuck no. I was on reddit for 12 years until recently, but at this point, there’s nothing they can do to win back my trust. Reddit is just another corporate giant these days, and has been for a long time. Huffman is the reason I no longer wish to support reddit in any form, and they can make promises all they want - I’ve happily jumped ship and will be staying here.
Hell no.
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No, bridge is already burnt.
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I went ahead, downloaded the official app just to rate it one star, and unmodded myself from all my subs.
Ooo now there’s an idea. You’re an inspiration.
