Huffman has said, “We are not in the business of giving that [Reddit’s content] away for free.” That stance makes sense. But it also ignores the reality that all of Reddit’s content has been given to it for free by its millions of users. Further, it leaves aside the fact that the content has been orchestrated by its thousands of volunteer moderators.
touché
I kinda feel like you’re not wrong here, because tbh if it was just a matter of charging me for a premium membership and making me put in a key somewhere in rif to validate my api calls (as much as I really hate myself for saying this, too) I absolutely would’ve just considered reddit another sub like my Gamepass or Spotify that I happily added into my (meager) entertainment budget.
If Spez hadn’t gone after 3rd party app developers like this and instead had framed it as a ‘this is a growing pain part of reddit’s development, and in order to sustain growth/blahblahblah/whatthefuckever we need money from you 3rd party app using fuckers’ I honestly would’ve been like, “well, you’re a greedy fuck for ransoming the last decade+ of my online activity (basically) but ok, fine, I’ll buy premium to maintain the status quo.”
But wow, to mishandle such a huge deal THIS cataclysmically badly? And then double down on that, in some weird, tone-deaf defiance? Fuck you, man.
I may not have set it up or anything, but this was a test that /u/spez failed miserably - even after being allowed an open-book retake with the questions he missed marked.