A standoff between the site and some of its most devoted users exposes an existential dilemma.

  • LiveLaughLoveRevenge@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    If they had charged API fees such that 3rd party apps would have had to charge a monthly fee to users…I would have probably just paid. And I know I’m not the only one.

    But they priced it intentionally to kill 3rd party apps, because they wanted to channel access through their garbage app with its “promoted” ads all over the place.

    It’s not about “free vs. not free” it’s about intentionally killing off the applications that made reddit likeable as a platform.

    • Singletona@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Also, as a disabled internet user, those APIs are of value for the sake of accessability. Given Reddi’ts own app is, and forgive me to use technical jargon here, steaming pile of bullshit even for those with perfect vision?

      Yea fuck you too spez.

    • delcake@lemmy.songsforno.one
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      1 year ago

      That’s why this whole debacle is so mystifying to me. If they would have tried to monetize the 3rd party space by way of charging a reasonable API price to the devs, it’s not hard to imagine that most serious Reddit users wouldn’t have any qualms with parting with a few bucks here and there to keep the status quo. I can’t imagine that Reddit is able to create a situation where they earn more from their advertising platform per user than having users simply pay to maintain the existing experience.

      The only theory I’ve heard that makes a lick of sense is that if Reddit fundamentally changes the site experience to pursue other monetization options (Hello Reddit NFTs), then 3rd party apps would’ve been able to just ignore implementing those features entirely.

      • bedrooms@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        My speculation is that they want to charge LLMs like ChatGPT, especially for training. Those devs basically want to access every conversation on Reddit.

          • bedrooms@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            What’s weird, it doesn’t make sense even then. I feel like it started as a simple miscalculation by Spez which he took personally. I mean, the part he insulted the Apollo dev is clearly that, but maybe the whole thing as well?

    • I_Miss_Daniel@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I think there’s a little more to it. If they’re trying to go the Meta way where dwell times and other such evil metrics are used, they need to have their own app for that level of info. It might be a requirement for their IPO or requested by their advertisers.

    • nieceandtows@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Even with the api fees, 3rd party apps are no longer allowed to show nsfw content. Would you still have paid a monthly fee?