'Unlike some of the 3P [third-party] apps, we are not profitable,' Steve Huffman says in defending the move to charge for high-volume API access.
  • @lhx
    178•6 months ago

    It’s not that you’re charging for API access; it’s that you’re charging US pharmaceutical industry pricing levels ($12,000 for something that should realistically be $200) and then only giving devs such a short time to implement changes. This was designed to kill 3PApps outright and everyone can see it. What an ass.

  • Aer
    124•6 months ago

    Of course they aren’t going back. We saw how arrogant spez was. There was no doubt in my mind he is just going to rely on the fact that most people are rarely committed enough to do anything.

    My expectation… Some will stay with the fediverse. Others will see the blackout as a “we did everything we could” and then go back, business as usual.

    I for sure will not be back. I like RIF and it is the only way I browse. With RIF gone so too am I.

  • @Overcast
    111•6 months ago

    Unlike some of the 3P [third-party] apps, we are not profitable

    It’s their own fault. They didn’t have to take hundred of millions of venture capital and hire thousands of people. They didn’t have to go try to become a XX billion dollars company fighting with Facebook and Tiktok.

    They could be profitable with a hundred engineers, a hundred support staff and reasonable ads. They could make delivering ads part of their API and have 3rd party apps serve them for them. They could let those 3rd party app handle the mobile markets since those solo devs are creating better apps than the hundreds of engineers at Reddit.

    I’m really annoyed that they are changing a winning formula to build something that nobody wants

    • @Hypersapien
      56•6 months ago

      There’s this toxic idea in the business world, that in order to be successful you can’t just make money and be profitable, but your profits have to keep increasing year after year. This kind of runaway, cancerous growth is poison to the country and the world.

    • @[email protected]
      37•6 months ago

      This is like if a Grocery chain said that they need to stop selling Lemons to little girls because the lemonade stands were profitable and they aren’t. The scale of the two businesses is not the same… none of these apps have millions of dollars in VC funds or thousands of employees.

      • @[email protected]
        29•6 months ago

        But Reddit doesn’t need these thousands of employees, they’re already getting the brunt of the workforce for free (the mods). Like the other guy said, one hundred engineers to manage the platform, 100 customer service to help the mods/do admin and off you go, you just need a few unobtrusive ads to finance that. But that’s way too open and won’t turn you into a billion dollar business nor get you any love from advertisers or VCs, let alone going IPO, so we are where we are.