Some Reddit communities will extend mass protest indefinitely
The ongoing unrest at Reddit may continue for a long. Moderators of many popular subreddits have pledged to keep their communities private indefinitely. This mass protest against the company’s recent API policy changes was originally planned for 48 hours, which ended Tuesday.
A lot is going on at Reddit lately. The company recently announced plans to charge for access to its APIs, which have been free all this while. It wants to monetize the massive amount of data it has accumulated over the 18 years of its existence. This comes amid the growing LLM (Large Language Models) craze as several major tech companies rush to develop generative AI tools.
However, the prices Reddit has set for its APIs are said to be too high for the developers of third-party apps. The operating cost of some apps would be around $20 million, which is much higher than their annual revenue. Apps like Apollo, RIF (Reddit is Fun) Sync, and ReddPlanet are shutting down due to exorbitant prices. The changes also break some other functions on the platform.
The Reddit community has come together to protest against this change. More than 8,000 subreddits went dark or private on Monday, including several with over 20 million subscribers. While some went live again today, others are still private. According to a recent Reddit post, at least 300 subreddits have pledged to remain private indefinitely. These include r/aww and r/music, both with more than 30 million subscribers.
“Reddit has budged microscopically. The announcement that moderator access to the ‘Pushshift’ data-archiving tool would be restored was welcome. But our core concerns still aren’t satisfied, and these concessions came prior to the blackout start date,” the Reddit post by u/SpicyThunder335, a moderator for r/ModCoord, reads. “More is needed for Reddit to act.”
Reddit has shown little regard for this protest from its communities
Despite the mass protest from the Reddit community, the company has been largely unmoved. It hasn’t shown any signs of leniency, likely because the protest hasn’t affected its business. In a memo to employees earlier this week, Huffman said that the blackout hasn’t had a significant impact on the company’s revenue. He urged the staff to stay focused and stick to the plan, adding that this noise will pass.
“There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen… and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well,” Huffman said. “We absolutely must ship what we said we would”. Quite clearly, the Reddit CEO has little regard for public disappointment. He also publicly lashed out at third-party developers during his AMA with users last Friday. The onus is now on the Reddit community to force the company into action.
The ongoing unrest at Reddit may continue for a long. Moderators of many popular subreddits have pledged to keep their communities private indefinitely. This mass protest against the company’s recent API policy changes was originally planned for 48 hours, which ended Tuesday.
A lot is going on at Reddit lately. The company recently announced plans to charge for access to its APIs, which have been free all this while. It wants to monetize the massive amount of data it has accumulated over the 18 years of its existence. This comes amid the growing LLM (Large Language Models) craze as several major tech companies rush to develop generative AI tools.
However, the prices Reddit has set for its APIs are said to be too high for the developers of third-party apps. The operating cost of some apps would be around $20 million, which is much higher than their annual revenue. Apps like Apollo, RIF (Reddit is Fun) Sync, and ReddPlanet are shutting down due to exorbitant prices. The changes also break some other functions on the platform.
The Reddit community has come together to protest against this change. More than 8,000 subreddits went dark or private on Monday, including several with over 20 million subscribers. While some went live again today, others are still private. According to a recent Reddit post, at least 300 subreddits have pledged to remain private indefinitely. These include r/aww and r/music, both with more than 30 million subscribers.
“Reddit has budged microscopically. The announcement that moderator access to the ‘Pushshift’ data-archiving tool would be restored was welcome. But our core concerns still aren’t satisfied, and these concessions came prior to the blackout start date,” the Reddit post by u/SpicyThunder335, a moderator for r/ModCoord, reads. “More is needed for Reddit to act.”
Reddit has shown little regard for this protest from its communities
Despite the mass protest from the Reddit community, the company has been largely unmoved. It hasn’t shown any signs of leniency, likely because the protest hasn’t affected its business. In a memo to employees earlier this week, Huffman said that the blackout hasn’t had a significant impact on the company’s revenue. He urged the staff to stay focused and stick to the plan, adding that this noise will pass.
“There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen… and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well,” Huffman said. “We absolutely must ship what we said we would”. Quite clearly, the Reddit CEO has little regard for public disappointment. He also publicly lashed out at third-party developers during his AMA with users last Friday. The onus is now on the Reddit community to force the company into action.
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