Further Thoughts on Reddit's API Changes

I mentioned in my last reading log that Reddit looked to be making changes to its API pricing and wanted to put down some more thoughts on the matter.

Reddit recently announced that they were going to significantly increase their pricing for use of the API. This came out after Christian Selig had a meeting with Reddit. Selig is the developer behind my preferred way to browse Reddit, Apollo for iOS. The changes mean that he will be facing a potential $20 million yearly bill. Him and other Reddit app developers will be facing some hard decisions.

The issue there is that Reddit is alienating many of its users. I’ve tried their mobile app. To say that it’s a subpar experience probably gives it too much credit. Their website redesign is even worse. It’s slow and often lags for me. I still use old.reddit.com when I browse on the web. Because of this, I use Apollo as my primary Reddit experience.

And while I don’t run or moderate any subreddits, I’ve been reading that the moderation tools Reddit provides on their mobile apps makes moderating difficult. Many mods rely on the 3rd party apps to help them moderate their subreddits. /r/blind also needs 3rd party apps since the official app is awful with regards to accessibility.

Now look, Reddit is free to charge whatever they like for use of their API, it’s their platform, they make the rules. I also wouldn’t expect them to make it free. It also doesn’t sound like Selig is unwilling to pay. The price is just extraordinarily high and unsustainable for the 3rd party app ecosystem. If that is the way that Reddit wants to go about doing things, then I guess there’s not much that we can do.

They’re going public with an IPO later this year and they’re probably figuring they need to squeeze every last cent out of its users through ads and tracking. 3rd party apps eat into this, so the easiest thing to do is to get rid of them. There already seems to be some funny business going on with some of the subreddit protsests.

At the end of the day, I don’t know how much of Reddit’s user base is like me and consumes Reddit through apps like Apollo. But I know I’m not alone, and I know there are plenty that might NEED accessible apps to even make use of the platform. If this does indeed go through and apps like Apollo go the way of the dodo bird, I’ll likely be leaving Reddit as well.

With that said, like with the loss of Twitter, I’ll need more interesting RSS feeds!