zlacker

>>stanis+(OP)
I don't really understand why it had to be this way. It's so easy to think of other ways this could have been handled. Even just announcing the same change with 6 months of lead time rather than 1 month would have gone over better. Or boil the frog and gradually introduce API restrictions. It's as if the CEO is purposefully being as belligerent as possible to rile people up.

>>extr+k4
Or they're broke and reddit is soon to be bankrupt.

But even so, if they had just said that, the outcome would be so much different. Because as of now it seems like they're fucking people over for the sake of fucking them over.

>>Commit+R4
An influx of capital would be easier by making everyone pay $10/mo to access the API via third-party clients. Would still be unpopular but would mean people could still have the experience they want to see from reddit.

but that's the issue - Reddit's been focusing on other forms of content only in the native Reddit app, like TikTok-esque live streams and promoted posts from subs you aren't subscribed to.

>>judge2+e7
They have a $4/month product ALL ready that removes ads and gives you more features. Making that a requirement to use the API is by FAR the simplest and most profitable option. Its also more profit then they're proposing to get from their API charges

>>a2tech+k8
Yeah I find it baffling that they didn't just do this

>>bwat49+J8
Most likely it's about control, not financials.

>>dasil0+W8
I found it interesting that spez admitted in his call with the apollo dev that the actual hosting cost for the api calls were pennies compared to the 'opportunity cost' of not having users use the official app. He basically admitted that harvesting data via the app and selling it to advertisers was reddit's bread and butter now.

>>wing-_+jh
People have to realize, from a standpoint of "how do I make all of the money?", this is the only way these sites can survive in a world of reasonably-high interest rates.

There are only so many people who would be willing to pay $x for a Reddit subscription. Would the quality of content and discussion go up? Absolutely, but that's not what Huffman and his VC backers care about. They care about _scale_, and if you can collect the information of every person who goes so far as to even click on a Reddit post that's a result in a Google search, you can have near-infinite scale. At that point, the question isn't "how do I get Joe Schmoe to pay for a Reddit subscription?", it's "How many ads can I cram into every GET request made to Reddit and maximize the price advertisers are willing to pay to be in that GET request?"