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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 [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I can’t blame reddit for wanting to be profitable,either. They just went about it in the worst, most confrontational way possible. They insulted the people who gave reddit all of its content, and alienated their core users.

Even if Huffman had been nicer about it, though, no amount of diplomacy would make up for the fact that their API pricing is ridiculous. Nor would it make their complete inflexibility and stubbornness more palatable. The arrogance and disrespect they’ve shown is astounding. Trying to “fix” that with pretty words, but without actually changing their plans, would be like trying to polish a turd.

I think there would still be a massive protest. The only difference would be the tone.