First of all, I post this as someone who is only modestly informed about the whole situation. I’m a casual user who moved here from Reddit mostly because of the blackout and I don’t have a super strong opinion about any of it.
I’m curious to learn though! Part of my curiosity is in the title - what’s the single worst thing the API changes have done (or will do)? Is it that they priced out Apollo? Is there another big third party app that’s getting killed?
All 3rd party apps are getting priced out. Only one remains that got an exception, and one (that I know of) will try to go subscribers-only.
But the actual bad part, is how Reddit has shown its true colors and bad faith. Users create all the content on Reddit. Moderators keep the ships running. App developers make that stuff available to everybody.
Together, these parties create literally all the value on Reddit.
Reddit does nothing but own the infrastructure.
And yet, they behave like they own everything, can dictate all the rules, and all the profits should go only to them.
Imagine the owner of an office building hosting multiple companies suddenly starts busting onto individual offices and companies and making a mess while drunk to their eyeballs. That’s Reddit.
So that’s bad, but also it has a bright side. Now that we know, we could leave and make our own little world. A better one.