Basically, title, here is a link to the Reddit thread for people curious: https://archive.ph/6mObB

I’m quite surprised with the neutral to positive reactions, which also show that some people will probably never leave Reddit.

  • @dhorkEnglish
    203•1 year ago

    It’s not about the money, though. If it was, they would have just said “third-party API access now requires Reddit Gold”, and a bunch of us would still have stayed there, giving them more money (and content) than they are making now.

    Instead, it’s about fundamentally remaking the site to actively drive conversations toward things people pay to hype, and not have those conversations spring up organically. Steering traffic is much harder to do when it can be accessed through third parties.

    They don’t want users creating content around what interests them. They want to charge users to interact with content that advertisers pay to host.

    • @[email protected]
      69•1 year ago

      They don’t want users creating content around what interests them. They want to charge users to interact with content that advertisers pay to host.

      Digg 3.0

    • @BaronVonBort
      42•1 year ago

      I was a very heavy Apollo user. I was ALREADY paying monthly for it and if Reddit would have released a reasonable API charge structure and worked with devs, I’d have been happy to pay more for it because I used it every day.

      They shot themselves in the foot trying to create a walled garden, now it’s just bots complementing each other in weirdly verbose comments back and forth.

      • @[email protected]
        -32•1 year ago

        so if there was an oxygen tax, would you be happy to pay for that? i think this is the problem, the reason why those who can keep the system for the balls (Pay me ten cents for this comment).

        • @BaronVonBort
          29•1 year ago

          This is an odd take.

          I don’t mind paying for services that I use that give me information and fun, especially one that I used daily (I pay $10/mo for streaming services I use maybe once or twice weekly).

          I DO mind when they decide to gouge and disrespect the user base. IMO, THAT’S the issue in today’s market - profits above all else, including your customers.

          Services aren’t free. Servers cost money. I get it. If I am a heavy user, I don’t mind paying a reasonable price for it (that reasonable price being close to the 2-5 a month I was already giving to the developer at the time.)

          • @[email protected]
            10•1 year ago

            Yeah, I was ready to pay 5 or 10 bucks a month, but the way they handled the situation is not acceptable. I just hope lemmy (or some other platform) gets enough of a critical mass that it becomes a viable alternative.

    • @[email protected]
      7•1 year ago

      That, and Reddit was being used to train AI. They saw that and decided they should shut off the API unless companies paid, and the hell with all the users harmed by the change.

    • JackbyDevEnglish
      4•1 year ago

      It’s funny that you say they’re driving conversations. Whenever I end up on Reddit because of a search I notice that only the top level comments and very rarely first responses to them are visible.