“Welcome to gaslighting 101! Please take a syllabus from the pile you will [not] find by the door, which will [not] include your instructor’s contact information and office hours.”
To be fair, I doubt the journalists get any choice about how the company that owns their publication decides to waste money.
It’s possible this particular admin is not an asshole, but yeah, this whole move is a big pile of hypocritical garbage.
I think they actually did put in fine print saying they could remove about a dozen different kinds of things, including insulting specific people. So this is an example of general restrictions on content creation in /place rather than specific anti-protest action. But it’s still an example of Reddit sucking. If they don’t want free expression, they shouldn’t market this as an opportunity for free expression.
Same. It might take a minute to curate for the specific news you want, but there are plenty of communities providing substantive news at least daily.
I'd give it at least a day or two to see how things shake out, unless it's really important to you to have that community up all the time.
I think that's a good sign. It probably means the problem is being dealt with by admins. Any communities on the affected instances that have subscribers on other instances will be backed up on those other instances, so most of the content is safe no matter what. I just hope the users on those instances know they can come to others in the meantime.
It's not clear to me that this decision is financially healthy for Reddit. Even aside from the consequences of upsetting a lot of users (which has already made advertisers unhappy, since they prefer to advertise to people who aren't upset; there's been a noticeable decrease in ad spending on the site lately), Reddit only makes money from this move if anyone actually pays for the API, and/or they can force more people to use the official app. Whether they get more takers for the app, I don't know. We'll find out next week. But I don't think a lot of people are going to pay for the API. Most third-party apps can't, and neither can a lot of people who might use the API for research.
Basically, only big companies can afford the new prices, and if big companies pay, Reddit will make a profit. But big companies don't become big companies by paying for overpriced commodities. API access for sites that have similar content costs a lot less than what Reddit wants. So, of the big companies that could pay, Microsoft is quietly modifying its products to avoid paying (you can't upload from their hardware directly to Reddit anymore, for example). Google is introducing a service that is meant to take traffic away from Reddit, I doubt they'll want to buy overpriced API data. AIs have already slurped up a lot of Reddit data, and can just scrape the site if they want more. The API is not the only way for bots to get access to Reddit's data, just the easiest. Probably someone is going to pay for API access, at least in the short term, but I really don't see this going well in the long run. People just don't buy products that cost more than they're worth. Even if Reddit's data was worth the inflated price they're asking, the API is not the only way to get that data. And I am pretty sure it's not that valuable to anyone except the people who can't afford it.
Third party apps are the only ones who need API access to survive, and therefore the ideal customers for Reddit's API, but Reddit would rather fish for the customers that aren't there than do business with the customers that are. Or, were, until a few weeks ago. Now--not so much. Christian Selig could have put a significant chunk of change in Reddit's pocket on an ongoing basis if they'd negotiated a decent price, since Apollo was doing well, and Selig wanted to work with them, but no, Reddit had to ask a price Selig literally couldn't pay, so Reddit gets nothing, users lose Apollo, and no one is happy. Infinity is going to try to make it work, but I doubt that'll be much money for Reddit, and I doubt it'll last more than a year, tops.
To be fair, in theory, charging for API access would give Reddit an additional revenue stream, which is probably what Huffman told investors. But no company that actually makes money from selling API access does it at this price point, or without, y'know... trying to keep customers instead of chasing them off. This is how Twitter did it, and Twitter is losing more money on a regular basis than Reddit has ever made. But it's not my business, so what do I know... [/Kermit drinking tea]
I personally wouldn't try to work with Reddit, if I were a developer, but another factor here is that walking away from a project might be a big risk for someone who doesn't have a backup plan. Christian Selig is a high-profile figure who can afford to walk away from a project. He will be able to rebuild his career quickly and easily, and he knows it. The developer of Infinity likely doesn't have as many opportunities, and may also not feel comfortable taking that risk. I don't know much about her, but if she's not making a whole lot as is, she may legitimately not be able to afford going without an income source for weeks or months. It may be less about making a profit by doing this than about avoiding a catastrophic loss. Selig has admitted he's going to be losing a six-figure amount of money ($250,000, iirc) from shutting down after selling year-long subscriptions. I suspect everyone who has or had a Reddit app looking for alternative income sources, but I don't blame her for trying to make Infinity work for a little while longer.
That would be an intelligent step to take, but since when has Reddit ever been able to implement new, user-friendly features? There have probably been plenty of employees who have recommended good features over the years, wherever they got the ideas, and been shot down. With Huffman throwing a hissy fit the way he is, I would say they're even less likely to successfully bring out new features than they have been in the past.
Same, their coverage has made me feel way less terrible about all of this. Just knowing someone is out there calling Reddit on their BS makes it easier for me to accept that Reddit is no longer a safe place for me and move on.
Thank you for your hard work, and for keeping us updated on the situation.