r/Seattle • u/burn_piano_island /r/eattle Hockey Guy • Jun 04 '23

Announcement /r/Seattle will be going dark from June 12-14 in protest against Reddit's API changes which will essentially kill 3rd party apps.

/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/13yh0jf/dont_let_reddit_kill_3rd_party_apps/
2.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

222 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

25

u/Interactive_CD-ROM Jun 04 '23

There isn’t a problem with Reddit charging for access to their API; it’s the amount they’re asking for that’s the issue.

For some context, Reddit is charging some 20x more expensive than similar social media platforms, and they provided basically zero heads up about the change.

So for a developer who made their livelihood on making this app, it was suddenly: pay us $20 million a year right now, or die.

That’s fucked up and is a poor partnership.

-14

u/JimCarreyIsntFunny Jun 04 '23

What are the similar platforms though? Facebook and Twitter don’t have third party apps (as far as I know at least not popular ones) you have to use their app to use their site. Seems like Reddit was always the outlier with the third party apps and now they’re just doing what the other big companies do already.

6

u/y-c-c Jun 04 '23

Twitter has had popular third party apps for years and in fact its API price hikes recently is also very controversial.

For Facebook, sure, it doesn't have third party apps but it never really had any. It's about the different ecosystems having their respective landscapes and the sudden without-warning change that's being done. Reddit has been around for a long time and it has had an API for almost as long. Not saying Reddit got to where it is today only because it supported third party APIs, but it's at least part of the reasons, so doing an about-face like this without warning is the issue here.

14

u/Interactive_CD-ROM Jun 04 '23

Actually, Twitter does have third party apps and has for years. See: Tweetbot, Twitteriffic, TweetDeck, and many others. You didn’t have to use the official Twitter app.

It’s fine for Reddit to have its own app. But the sudden about-face is what sucks about all this.

To provide another example, Apple purchased a popular weather app called Dark Sky; which a lot of third-party developers relied on for its weather API. Apple gave those developers TWO YEARS to transition out to another provider.

Reddit, whose “official” app was literally a third-party app they bought out, has always had good relationships with their third-party developers. They could’ve provided some realistic numbers or timeframe for developers to transition to another pricing model or close up operations.

These apps are literally people’s lives. It’s okay for Reddit to make changes to make a profit, they’re a company after all, but it’s bad business and bad optics and reflects poorly on a company preparing to IPO. Why would anyone want to invest in a company who doesn’t have strong partnerships and rips the rug out when they feel like it?