Technology

If it wasn't for the amount being much higher than most other companies charge, and what it costs Reddit itself to do the same, and a 30-day timeframe with which to get around those changes on top of it, I think that they would have been much better received. The third-party app developers didn't any problems with paying for things like Imgur APIs, and would have happily paid up for Reddit's, if they had the time to implement it, and didn't have to deal with the exorbitant cost.

However, I do think that Spez made things much, much worse. If Reddit didn't make a discussion, and just put out the announcement, people would have shrugged, and moved on. His AMA, and everything else after was just throwing fuel onto the fire, which was further boosted by Reddit admins suddenly wading into the fray, something that they had not done previously, even rom the perspective of moderator tyranny. The previous response tended to always be "we're sorry to hear that, but you can just go and create your own community if you have an issue with them", unless the problem was bad enough it got press attention.

I definitely wouldn't be as upset as I am right now. I would consider paying to be able to continue to use the service.

However, right now, I wouldn't come back to Reddit even if they called of the whole thing and decided to leave free access to the API. I have zero trust in Reddit after all that happened. To be honest I'm kinda glad it all went down like this. At least we got to know their real colors.

I would be happy to pay a fair price to remove ads and gain access to 3rd party apps. They should just bake that into the Reddit Gold perks.

At the current price he wants? Yes. Because it would still represent an attempt to kill off all third party apps. Reddit wants to look like the good guys in having a price structure, but it is a transparent bit of trickery. Because the whole thing isn't about API costs to Reddit, but gathering all the data to sell about its users and to push ads. Reddit is attempting an IPO. And shareholders will demand a path to profitability, unlike Silicon Valley investors.

Would honesty and transparency made the protests smaller? On some fronts yes. But many Reddit users would have been pissed with the model they want to use (facebook). So maybe the protests still would have been as widespread. But we could have skipped the whole, "Reddit CEO disrespecting unpaid mods and Reddit users" phase.

I'm not entirely sure why Reddit was going to charge outlandish fees for the third-party APIs. Looks like none of the apps are actually going to pay them, so he's not getting anything out of it. It's really a combination of pushing them out of the market and then being a smug little bitch that really nailed it in the coffin for a lot of people.

Reddit needing to make $ to maintain the resources is understandable.

There were other ways to generate revenue without being greedy.
For example, users pay for awards like gold etc on Reddit. This concept could have expanded to a marketplace for 3PA stickers. If 3PA apps have stickers that they were pushing as additional revenue for the developers, Reddit could have stepped in and developed a marketplace to host and promote them for the developers as well. It would be a similar model to the Google Play and Apple App stores taking a commission for in app purchases. It doesn't have to be in the vicinity of 30% either. It's not a perfect example by any means, so don't flame me or the idea.

I deleted all of my accounts, posts and comments after the clusterfuck of an AMA. The interviews Huffman gave the following week to The Verge and other media sites totally reinforced my decision not to go back. I still go back to get some tech resources that I need but it's through alternative addresses so I don't add to their analytics stats.

Reddit killed internet fora. By being easier and cheaper, while making no profit.

If they suddenly do want to make profit?
The terms change, there are alternatives.

That is exactly what he said. It's just not remotely what he intended. Bad faith etc.

Well, that might have helped, but Paint Hufferman decided to insult us all and treat us as useless, even parasitic freeloaders when WE are the ones who, in concert, built that goddamned site. He was never going to show any respect for us or what we've accomplished... to him, we're livestock. Fuck him with a hot lead pipe.

Two things would have done it for me. They could have offered a user token subscription that I could port to all my accounts. Sure there could be token sharing with that method, but for a "modest" user cost, I might have been tolerable of it. They would have had to open the third party apps at the same time, but it would have bought time. The second thing would have been extending advertising through the third party app. That might discourage users of the free third party app, but it would also have given time to readjust the market price. Maybe the compromise would be that the free app could still be free of Reddit ads, but it wouldn't be customizable or would be limited in the number of additional subreddits with certain ones that were fixed to those free accounts. The key in both cases would be to work at making Reddit still available to those third party apps via the API and not the way it was brought to those developers. Lose the third party support, lose the support of moderators who have learned to be efficient with their way of using the site, lose the site.

Didn't reddit used to be profitable? I think we should start by asking what decisions they made that reduced their profitability. Is it the video player that nobody asked for? Deciding to self-host images? Developing an app that nobody wants to use? It seems to me like they put themselves in this position.

It wasn't what they did it was how they did it. If they wanted to I'm sure they could have worked out a compromise where everyone stayed happy.

A good way to foster resentment is to profit off a bunch of mods and devs donating time for love of community and then spit in their face by forcing them out. I think it's one the most blatantly asshole things I've ever seen a corporation do, one for the history books.

I do wonder if it will really make a difference. I think it might be their undoing. Social media users are a somewhat fickle bunch and can move on to the next big thing, that's historically been the case.