Link to the Reddit AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/
Reddit’s unpopular decision to revise its API pricing in a move that’s forcing third-party apps out of business has taken a weird turn. In an AMA hosted today by Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman, aka u/spez on the internet forum site, the exec doubled down on accusations against the developer behind the well-liked third-party app Apollo, which the company had previously accused of operating inefficiently and not being a good “API” user.
Despite community backlash — which includes a site-wide protest from thousands of communities known as subreddits — Huffman’s AMA confirmed the company has no plans to revise its coming API changes. What’s more, Huffman continued his accusations against Apollo, calling out the developer, Christian Selig’s, “behavior and communications” as being “all over the place” and saying he couldn’t see Reddit working with the developer further.
Other third-party apps are also closing down, including Sync, RIF and Reddplant, to name a few.
But Huffman seemingly has an ax to grind with Selig in particular, first accusing the developer of extortion, per Selig’s extensive post on the situation between himself and Reddit.
No one takes issue with Reddit’s desire to not just survive, but be profitable. The issue is in just how greedy and shortsighted they are about the core product, to the point where pushing third-party devs out into the cold was thought to be the best solution rather than embracing them.
Want those sweet ad impressions? Make it an optional part of the API with the incentive of devs getting a cut of the ad revenue served by their apps. There’s a hundred different, pro-consumer ways this could have gone that would have made everyone happy, and they chose the worst one. Then proved they didn’t understand the problem with this half-assed, completely boneheaded, tone-deaf AMA.
Time and again history has shown that platforms that embrace developers thrive, while the tech graveyard is littered with cautionary tales of those that don’t.
Absolutely. There were any number of ways to approach this problem of sustainability from reddit's end. I get it, reddit costs money to run. I think most people won't cry foul over a few ads. I'll be happy as long as I can adblock them or pay a fair price to not see them. But for it all to work out, reddit would have to be run by rational, intelligent people. The sort who would give a reasonable notice period before major changes, and who wouldn't talk provably-false trash about the people they're screwing over.
I doubt whether this will be the dramatic sudden end of reddit. But I think it is definitely a sign that reddit's heyday is over, and it doesn't have much longer before it fades into obscurity.