this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
1203 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
59583 readers
3001 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'll see if I can make it more sense for you:
If you argue that the pathways that make up the internet should not be artifically restricted or gated as a means of shutting down competition, while at the same time turning around and shutting down your own public pathways, that's a huge problem.
Setting aside for the moment the fact that net neutrality has to do with IP traffic (layer 3, network) and not API availability (layer 7, application) --
Reddit's API is not a "public pathway." It is a private gateway into the reddit environment. They can charge whatever they like for it, because it is a part of their application.
The way they went about changing to their current fee model was undeniably shitty, and yeah, they're trying to prop up ahead of IPO. None of that has anything to do with net neutrality. You're wrong on this one, time to let it go.
Not saying that you are wrong, legally, and not to relitigate the whole thing again, but if you offer a public facing API and then you later on just withdraw it (or its functionality) altogether, that's something a business should not do to its customer base ever, for ethical and social contract reasons.
The Internet is not just defined by legal systems, it started with ethical social contract systems. More nebulous than legal, yes, but still, Society does follow them and expects companies to do so as well.
There's a world of difference between the road itself and the people who own the cars.