this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
142 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37699 readers
280 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org
gyrfalcon@beehaw.org
rs5th@beehaw.org
Los@beehaw.org
coldredlight@beehaw.org
SemioticStandard@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@kbin.social
remington@beehaw.org
142
Do You Think There Would Have Been a Large Protest if Steve Huffman Just Said We're Charging to Use the API to Increase Revenue? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by curt@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
182 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I've been a long time Redditor and an Apollo user for about a year. I even paid for it. The main draw for me was the lack of advertising. In the back of my head I kept thinking that it couldn't last. Reddit is losing revenue from the lack of advertising views. It didn't

To me, Reddit's sky high pricing for the use of the API is intended to kill off apps like Apollo and for its users to move to the advertising filled web site or its own app, which I've never used.

If Huffman came out and said this was a revenue move right off would everyone be as upset as they are? Are people upset because Huffman completely mishandled the move or because they got their ad free experience turned off? If Reddit had an app the same quality as Apollo only with ads, would they be OK with it. I've only used Apollo so I can't speak to the other apps.

I can't blame Reddit for wanting to make money. It doesn't make a profit. Investors have to keep pouring in money to keep it going. They're going to want to see a return on their investment at some point. Usually they cash in on an IPO, but IPO's are generally only successful if the corporation looks like it will be profitable or at least the stock price continues to go up. That's how capitalism works.

In my case, I probably would have left regardless. I can't stand adds in my feed. I probably wouldn't have heard of lemmy or kbin if there hadn't been such an uproar. So I'm glad it went the way it did.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] megopie@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

Yah, no, a big part of this from the start was to force users on to their app. They want to go public and cash out but to do that they need to consolidate control of the platform. As it stands, users being able to customize their experience and choose how they interact with the sight through an open API undermines the companies ability to manipulate users experiences to suit the interests of investors and advertisers.

Getting rid of third party apps was always one of the central goals, not an accidental casualty, it was never going to be civil with that goal in mind.