Thoughts: The article does not mention any changes or delays to Reddit's proposed API fee pricing. It mainly focuses on addressing concerns of moderators about the impact of the API update on moderation tools and the potential closure of communities. Rating: 2

Hi everyone We wanted to ensure that you are aware that the API update does not impact moderation bots or sitewide tools to control spam or remove harmful content. You can find more details in this article in our help center. You may have seen posts or received messages from users telling these tools are going away or are somehow impacted, but this is not the case. We are also aware that some members of your mod team have expressed that they want to close your community indefinitely. We are reaching out to find out if this is the consensus reached by the mod team. Subreddits exist for the benefit of the community of users who come to them for support and belonging and in the end, moderators are stewards of these spaces and in a position of trust. Your users rely on your community for information, support, entertainment, and finding connection with others who have similar interests. Ensuring that communities are able to remain stable and actively moderated is incredibly important to the people seeking out these spaces to make and foster connections. If there are mods here who are willing to work towards reopening this community, we are willing to work with you to process a Top Mod Removal request or reorder the mod team to achieve this goal if mods higher up the list are hindering reopening. We would handle this request and any retaliation attempts here in this modmail chain immediately. Our goal is to work with the existing mod team to find a path forward and make sure your subreddit is made available for the community which makes its home here. If you are not able or willing to reopen and maintain the community, please let us know.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing controversy surrounding Reddit's API changes and CEO Steve Huffman's stance on the matter. It provides context about the protests and Huffman's attempts to address the situation. However, it does not mention any potential changes or delays to the proposed API fee pricing, which is the main focus of the forecasting question. Rating: 3 -- somewhat relevant

Many Redditors are still up in arms about Reddit's recent API changes, but CEO Steve Huffman isn't backing down. That's the gist (and, frankly, nearly all of the substance) of Huffman's interview with The Verge, published on Friday. A little context: Numerous Reddit communities are currently turned private, in protest of the platform's new API pricing structure, which threatens to kill many popular, third-party Reddit apps. These "blackouts" can happen as Reddit provides a platform for forum-like chats, but moderators on the platform have a fair degree of autonomy, including the power to set a subreddit to private, which makes it inaccessible to most users. Huffman tried to iron things out in an AMA (ask me anything) session on Reddit, but it only made things worse. Now, in his interview with The Verge, the CEO once again explained his position on the matter. SEE ALSO: Here's what the internet might look like without Reddit According to Huffman, continuing to provide free API access to every third party developer is out of the question, as some developers are making "millions" on their apps while costing Reddit "about $10 million in pure infrastructure costs." The CEO also says the company has made a deal with the developers building accessibility apps, and certain other "critical" apps, naming only Pushshift. But others, including the popular Reddit app Apollo, will have to start paying for access. Munch of the interview revolves around the timing of these changes and the short notice given to developers to adapt (Reddit announced the changes in April, right around the time when Twitter did a similar thing with its API). According to Huffman, the changes were a long time coming, and were internally discussed as far back as 2015. Ultimately, the CEO said Reddit decided it doesn't want to keep covering costs while third party apps profit from their data. "We did it when we did it. We could do it a year from now and we’d probably have the same conversation. We could do it five years ago, we'd be having the same conversation," said Huffman. As for the protests by Reddit's users, Huffman claimed they're already dying down — having already downplayed their impact. "We don’t have problems with protests. I think it’s important. That’s part of the democracy. It’s part of the democratic part of Reddit. But the users are not in support of it now. It’s like a protest in a city that goes on too long, and the rest of the citizens of the city would like to go about their lives," he said. Featured Video For You Alternative Social Networks to Replace Twitter, Facebook, and More Huffman acknowledged that a part of Reddit's community won't be fully satisfied with how things will go down, as their favorite third-party app might shut down (Apollo and Sync have already done so). He said the UI on these third-party apps is "simpler" while Reddit's own official app has become "too cluttered," and added company is working on that: "We will close those gaps as effectively as we can." Read the full interview on The Verge.

Thoughts: The article provides information about the ongoing protest and the impact of Reddit's API pricing changes on third-party apps. It discusses the potential shutdown of popular third-party apps and the company's plan to implement the pricing system on July 1. It also highlights the dissatisfaction among volunteer moderators and the impact on communal goodwill. Rating: 5

Over 8,400 subreddits went dark from June 12 through June 14 to protest new API pricing that is about to shutter many third-party Reddit apps. But now that the biggest uprising in Reddit history is slowing, what's next for Reddit? Despite weeks of heated debate, Reddit still plans to begin its API pricing system on July 1. The social media company has until now provided free API access, but—after claiming it didn't want AI chatbots to profit off Reddit's content for free—it announced pricing changes so dramatic that popular third-party Reddit app Apollo faced a $20 million annual bill. Apollo now plans to close ahead of the API changes; so do other third-party apps. With the blackout over on many subreddits, Reddit is banking on the outrage passing. But Reddit—once a thriving, distinct community—has depleted significant communal goodwill in this battle. Volunteer moderators remain apprehensive of a future without third-party apps, and thousands of subreddits still aren't public again. Reddit will try to grow revenue off a community whose most dedicated members remain anxious. The war continues Reddit's sudden rollout of high prices is a needlessly painful way of reminding the community who makes the rules, but Reddit has always had the right to make money off the platform it built. No one can stop Reddit from charging what it wants or boxing out third-party apps. But because Reddit is built on user-generated content, volunteer moderators, and thousands of unique and almost totally self-governed communities, it doesn't get to decide when the war is over. The argument will continue indefinitely—and for hundreds of subreddits, so will the blackouts. (Reddit declined to comment about the continuing protests to Ars Technica.) Advertisement A post on the r/ModCoord subreddit says that over 300 subreddits will "remain private or otherwise inaccessible indefinitely until Reddit provides an adequate solution." Included subreddits include high-trafficked communities like r/aww (34.1 million subscribers) and r/music (32.3 million). The number of subreddits still dark as of this writing, though, is much larger. According to the Reddark counter on Twitch, around 5,200 subreddits are still dark (about 60 percent of the number of subreddits that promised to join the original protest). This number is steadily declining, however. "More is needed for Reddit to act," the June 13 post on r/ModCoord says. For subreddits with difficulties going private due to the social value of their subject matter (such as r/StopDrinking), the post suggests "a weekly gesture of support" like "a weekly one-day blackout, an automod-posted sticky announcement" or "a changed subreddit rule to encourage participation themed around the protest." The same community that built Reddit is now weaponizing its unity in its fight against Reddit. Protestors are using Reddit to organize protests against Reddit. And they're using Reddit to share images illustrating how bad they think the platform will become.

Over 8,400 subreddits protested new API pricing from June 12-14, which could shut down many third-party Reddit apps. Despite the uproar, Reddit plans to implement the pricing on July 1. The company's move has strained its relationship with volunteer moderators and the community. Over 300 subreddits, including popular ones like r/aww and r/music, remain inaccessible. The ongoing protests suggest that Reddit may face continued resistance. The company's CEO remains firm on the changes, but the discontent within the community may force Reddit to reconsider or delay the implementation of the new API fee pricing.

Thoughts: The article provides information about Reddit CEO's stance on the protests and the API changes, including the lack of willingness to make changes to the pricing structure. It also mentions the significant cost implications for a third-party app developer. However, it does not explicitly state whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to its proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023. Rating: 4

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is not backing down amid protests against API changes made by the platform. In interviews with The Verge, NBCNews and NPR, Huffman defended business decisions made by the company to charge third-party apps saying the API wasn’t designed to support these clients. The Reddit co-founder also talked about protesting moderators, changing site rules, and profitability in these interviews. The platform is facing one of the strongest backlashes from the community, but the CEO seemingly doesn’t want to budge. What’s happening at Reddit? In April, Reddit announced that it is going to charge for its API, but didn’t announce any pricing. Earlier this month, Christian Selig, the developer of a popular Reddit client for iOS called Apollo, posted that he had a call with Reddit. API pricing quoted by them could cost him $20 million a year to run the app. Selig later said that, because the social network is not ready to make any changes to the pricing structure, he is forced to shut down Apollo. Other third-party developers of clients like Reddit is Fun and Relay for Reddit also said that they will shut down their apps on June 30. The only exception Reddit made was to allow free access to the API to non-commercial apps providing accessibility features. The company has made deals with apps like RedReader, Dystopia, and Luna and given them exemptions from its “large-scale pricing terms.” Thousands of subreddits went dark starting June 12 to protest those changes — it caused a brief outage as well. Meanwhile, Huffman took a strong stance in his AMA and took a dig at Apollo and Selig. As moderators didn’t see anything changing, many subreddits decided to extend the blackout. Protests and moderators In one of the interviews, Huffman even called protesting moderators “landed gentry.” “If you’re a politician or a business owner, you are accountable to your constituents. So a politician needs to be elected, and a business owner can be fired by its shareholders,” he said. “And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.” He added that he plans to make changes to moderator policies so users can vote them out. Currently, a higher-ranking moderator — or the company — can boot out moderators. Incidentally, a r/Apple moderator posted on Twitter (via 9to5Mac) that Reddit was threatening to remove moderators who are staging an indefinite blackout. Reddit is just digging the hole deeper and deeper. They are essentially threatening moderators of subreddits that are blacking out indefinitely that they will be removed. https://t.co/IeU3inmyf4 pic.twitter.com/HF4t3EO1JS — Aaron (@aaronp613) June 15, 2023 In a blog post published by Reddit, the company links to its Moderator Code of Conduct while saying “Dissent, debate, and discussions are foundational parts of Reddit” and it respects the right to protests. However, the rules state that the company can remove moderators if they are uncooperative. Despite these statements, Huffman said that Reddit wasn’t going to invest in paid moderators within the company or make decisions that centralize power. That indicates that the company is happy to have unpaid moderators monitor and maintain the communities. A study published last year estimated that they spend 466 hours per day on maintaining these communities. It said that if Reddit paid them $20 per hour, it would cost them $3.4 million annually. Third-party apps A major issue in focus during these protests has been the existence of third-party apps. Time and time Reddit has said that it will still offer free access to the data API — and the majority of the apps, like bots, won’t have to pay as they are not commercialized. In the past few weeks, Huffman has talked about commercialization and making Reddit profitable. One of the steps of this process involves charging for the API. In the latest set of interviews, he said that Reddit is “perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us” and talk about giving developers a longer transition period. Huffman’s gripe is that some of these apps make millions every year using Reddit’s data, and the company has to bear infrastructure costs of up to $10 million every year, he told The Verge. He told the publication that he was the person inside the company who was responsible for this policy change that affect these apps. Seemingly, the company has been discussing changes in API rules for years. “[Reddit’s API] was never designed to support third-party apps. We let it exist. And I should take the blame for that because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time. But I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities,” Huffman said. The numbers game On Thursday, Reddit posted a blog post indicating that 80% of the top 5,000 communities in terms of daily active users are now open. Huffman told NPR that protestors are a “small group that’s very upset” and the “greater Reddit community” is participating to support them. He added that, despite these protests causing “a fair amount of trouble,” there wasn’t a significant effect on the company’s revenue. However, reports suggested that some advertisers had paused campaigns during the blackout. The company has been pushing out more ad tools to attract advertisers. On the impact of third-party apps being shut down, Huffman said 97% of people use Reddit’s site or official app to access the platform — the company has a daily active user base of 57 million. The blog post also mentioned that 93% of moderator actions are taken through Reddit’s own tools and the company has promised to add more features to them. The post and Huffman’s comments are trying to indicate that protests are led by only a small set of users and don’t represent the sentiments of a larger user base. While there have been talks about Reddit going public, the CEO is focused on profitability first. He told The Verge that an IPO is “something we’d like to do someday” but there were “a few things I’d like to do with Reddit before we get there.” In response to Huffman’s comments, moderators are trying to find ways to make blackouts effective. Alternatively, some communities are also setting up servers on alternative sites like Lemmy and Kbin.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is standing firm on API changes despite protests. The platform announced plans to charge for API access, sparking backlash from third-party app developers. The developer of Apollo for Reddit, Christian Selig, revealed that the new pricing could cost him $20 million annually, leading to widespread discontent. Huffman has defended the changes, emphasizing the need for profitability. Thousands of subreddits have gone dark in protest, but Huffman has shown no signs of backing down. The company has made exceptions for non-commercial apps, but the majority of third-party developers are facing potential shutdown. Despite the uproar, Huffman has indicated that Reddit is unlikely to make changes to the pricing structure.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing protest and Reddit CEO's response to the blackout, which is a result of the proposed API fee pricing changes. It provides insight into the current situation and the CEO's stance on the matter. Rating: 5

The Washington Post Democracy Dies in Darkness TechHelp Desk Artificial Intelligence Internet Culture Space Tech Policy TechHelp Desk Artificial Intelligence Internet Culture Space Tech Policy Business Reddit CEO compares moderators to aristocracy as blackout stretches on The Reddit logo on a mobile device in 2020. (Tali Arbel/AP) Listen 7 min Share Comment on this story Comment Add to your saved stories Save Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is slamming protesters who have made large parts of the website inaccessible this week, comparing the unpaid volunteer moderators leading the blackout to wealthy land barons. In interviews Thursday, Huffman spoke out for the first time since the mass protest began this week over Reddit’s plans to charge money for third-party apps to gain access to its data. The change prompted several popular third-party apps — including Apollo, Reddit is Fun and Sync — to say they would shut down ahead of the July 1 price increase because they cannot afford to pay millions a year. The company’s move sparked backlash from Reddit moderators and users, who responded by taking down about 9,000 subreddit message boards for 48 hours. Some moderators have indicated their subreddits will remain blacked out indefinitely in protest. Advertisement Huffman, a Reddit founder, has downplayed concerns about the protest action, telling employees in an internal memo Monday that the blackout “will pass” like “all blowups on Reddit,” according to the Verge. Why have many Reddit communities gone private? The blackout, explained. Huffman targeted the moderators leading the blackout in an interview with NBC News on Thursday, saying he was looking to change site policies to allow subreddit users to depose moderators more easily. Reddit spokesman Tim Rathschmidt told The Washington Post on Friday that the comment had been taken out of context and that “Steve did not confirm we are moving in this direction.” Huffman compared the moderators to “landed gentry” and said they were not being held accountable. “If you’re a politician or a business owner, you are accountable to your constituents. So a politician needs to be elected, and a business owner can be fired by its shareholders,” he told NBC. “And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.” Advertisement Huffman also told the Verge that the protests “are not representative of the greater Reddit community.” More than 80 percent of Reddit’s top 5,000 communities remain open on a site with more than 57 million daily users, according to a fact sheet published by the company Thursday. The group of Reddit moderators organizing the blackout on the r/ModCoord subreddit wrote in a post that Huffman’s comments illustrated that “Reddit’s communication has been poor from the very beginning” about its plans to charge for data. “They have attempted to gaslight us that they want to keep third-party apps while they set prices and timelines no developer can meet. The blowback that is happening now is largely because Reddit launched this drastic change with only 30 days notice,” Reddit user BuckRowdy, a moderator of the subreddit coordinating the protest, wrote Thursday. “We continue to ask Reddit to place these changes on pause and explore a real path forward that strikes a balance that is best for the widest range of Reddit users.” Advertisement Reddit spokesman Rathschmidt told The Post that the site has been in touch with “a number of communities to clarify any confusion around our Data [application programming interface] Terms, platform-wide policies, community support resources, and timing for new moderator tools.” “We are not removing moderators who protest, nor are we taking over subreddits for participating in the blackout,” he said, adding: “Redditors want to reddit.” Parts of Reddit are staying dark. Our search results may suffer for it. The blackout is occurring at a crucial time for the social media giant, which was valued at $10 billion when it landed $1 billion in fundraising in August 2021. In April, Fidelity, the lead investor in that fundraising boom, announced that it had slashed its valuation in the company by 41 percent, according to TechCrunch. That same month, Reddit announced that it would start charging third-party sites for API access, framing the move as essential to respond to generative AI companies such as ChatGPT that could scrape sites and potentially duplicate content for nothing in return. Advertisement But the conversation surrounding the move shifted in late May, when Christian Selig, the developer behind Apollo, one of the most popular third-party apps, said Reddit would be charging him an estimated $20 million a year for data access. Third-party apps such as Apollo are often ad-free, meaning the decision by Reddit essentially ended Selig’s business. Share this article Share “I don’t see how this pricing is anything based in reality or remotely reasonable,” Selig wrote May 31. “I hope it goes without saying that I don’t have that kind of money or would even know how to charge it to a credit card.” Selig announced last week that Apollo would shut down June 30 before the pricing change goes into effect. Several other third-party apps followed with similar announcements to close before July 1. “The hurdles placed on third-party apps by Reddit just aren’t a feasible obstacle to overcome,” Tony Lupeski, the developer of ReddPlanet, wrote. Advertisement Since then, Huffman has faced blowback for how the company has handled the decision to charge for data. The rallying cry for the coordinated backlash was consistent: “Don’t Let Reddit Kill 3rd Party Apps!” The blackout even caused Reddit to crash temporarily because the site could not handle all of the subreddits going private. Huffman acknowledged to the Verge that he took a “beating” in an Ask Me Anything post he did on the platform last week in which he defended Reddit’s plans. But he maintains it is not Reddit’s responsibility to help keep third-party apps alive. “It costs a lot of money to run an app like Reddit,” he told NBC. “We support ours through ads. And what we can’t do is subsidize other people’s businesses to run a competitive app for free.” Huffman told NPR that the blackout effort was led by “a small group that’s very upset, and there’s no way around that.” He said that the protest created “a fair amount of trouble” but that it did not cost the company much money. Advertisement “We made a business decision that upset them,” Huffman said. “But I think the greater Reddit community just wants to participate with their fellow community members.” Some moderators say, however, that the problem is much larger than the CEO is making it out to be. Some have said the moderators’ high-level control on the subreddits comes from the hours of free labor they have put into managing the message boards. Reddit user SpicyThunder335, a moderator of six subreddits and the forum coordinating the protest, wrote that more than 300 subreddits “have already announced that they are in it for the long haul, prepared to remain private or otherwise inaccessible indefinitely until Reddit provides an adequate solution.” In his interviews, Huffman said the blackout could be a good thing for a company that will turn 18 years old in the coming days. “I think it’s time we grow up and behave like an adult company,” Huffman told NPR. As the July 1 change approaches, how long the blackout will last is unclear. Reddit user Karmanacht summed up the mission of the moderator group in a few words: “The protest is not currently likely to end very soon.” Share Sign up

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is facing backlash over the company's plans to charge for third-party app access to its data. The move has prompted a mass protest, with more than 8,000 Reddit communities going dark. Huffman has compared the unpaid volunteer moderators leading the blackout to wealthy land barons and downplayed concerns about the protest. However, the protest has caused Reddit to crash temporarily, and some moderators have indicated their subreddits will remain blacked out indefinitely. The blackout is occurring at a crucial time for the social media giant, which was valued at $10 billion when it landed $1 billion in fundraising in August 2021. Huffman has faced blowback for how the company has handled the decision to charge for data, and the blackout has caused significant trouble for the company. Some moderators have said they are prepared to remain private or otherwise inaccessible indefinitely until Reddit provides an adequate solution. As the July 1 change approaches, how long the blackout will last is unclear. The protest is not currently likely to end very soon.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing protest and Reddit CEO's stance on the new policy of charging third-party developers for API access. It provides insight into the company's decision and the impact on third-party developers and users. Rating: 5

WASHINGTON (AP) — If you hopped on Reddit to scroll through your favorite forums this week, you may have encountered “private” or “restricted” messages. That’s because thousands of subreddits chose to go dark in an ongoing protest over the company’s plan to start charging certain third-party developers to access the site’s data. But Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman told The Associated Press he’s not backing off. “Protest and dissent is important,” Huffman said. “The problem with this one is it’s not going to change anything because we made a business decision that we’re not negotiating on.” Organizers of the protest say Reddit’s new policy threatens to end key ways of historically customizing the platform using an API, or application programming interface, which allows computer programs to communicate with each another. Third-party developers rely on API data to create their apps, which offer access to features that are unavailable in the official Reddit app, particularly for content moderation and accessibility aids. But Reddit says that supporting these third-party developers is too expensive and that the new policy is necessary to become a self-sustaining business. READ MORE Wallace Peeples, activist-influencer otherwise known as Wallo267, has memoir out in September Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce earn Webby Award nominations, along with Sydney Sweeney, Ryan Gosling Japan’s royal family makes formal debut on Instagram as world’s oldest monarchy tries to draw youth Reddit has more than 100,000 active subreddits, and nearly 9,000 of them went dark this week. While some returned to their public settings after 48 hours, others say they plan to stay private until Reddit meets their demands, which include lowering third-party developer charges — set to go into effect July 1 — so that popular apps don’t shut down. As of Friday, more than 4,000 subreddits were still participating in the blackout — including communities with tens of millions of subscribers like r/music and r/videos — according to a tracker and live Twitch stream of the boycott. Reddit notes that the vast majority of subreddit communities are still active. And while Huffman maintains that he respects users’ rights to protest, he also says that the subreddits currently participating in the blackout are “not going to stay offline indefinitely” — even if that means finding new moderators. The company’s response to the blackout has fueled further outrage among protest organizers, who accuse Reddit of trying to remove moderators — or “mods” — of subreddits who are protesting this week. Subreddit “mods” are volunteers who often use tools outside of the official app to keep their forums free of spam and hateful content, for example, and many of them are angry with Reddit’s new fees. “A lot of what’s going on here is ... (Reddit) burning goodwill with users. And that’s so much more expensive than trying to collaborate,” said Omar, a moderator of a subreddit participating in this week’s blackout who asked not to be identified by their full name due to safety concerns that have come up while moderating their subreddit. Reddit denies that it is removing moderators for protesting, asserting that it is simply enforcing its code of conduct. “If mods abandon a community, we find new mods. If mods keep private a large community with folks who want to engage, we find new mods who want to reinvigorate it,” the company said in an email. “The rules that allow us to do this are not new and were not developed to limit protests.” Most people visiting Reddit probably don’t think about APIs but access to these third-party resources is critical for moderators to do their jobs, experts note. “Reddit is built on volunteer moderation labor, including the creation and maintenance of many tools,” said Sarah Gilbert, postdoctoral associate at Cornell University and Citizens and Technology Lab research manager, in a statement. “Without Reddit’s volunteer moderators, the site could likely see less helpful content, and more spam, misinformation and hate.” Reddit has pushed back on some of these concerns, saying that 93% of moderator actions are currently taken through desktop and native Reddit apps. Huffman and Reddit management also note that the new fees will only apply to eligible third-party apps that require high usage limits. According to Thursday metrics published by the company, 98% of apps will continue to have free access to the Data API as long as they’re not monetized and remain below Reddit’s data-usage threshold. The company has also promised that moderator tools and bots will continue to have free access to the Data API and has made agreements with some non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps to exempt them from new fees. Still, some moderators say they rely on popular apps that are shutting down over the new costs. Apollo and Reddit Is Fun, for example, have already announced plans to shutter at the end of June. Apollo developer Christian Selig estimated fees would total about $20 million a year. Huffman has pushed back on that estimate and Reddit argues that the upcoming fees for high usage third-party apps — which stand at a rate of 24 cents for 1,000 API calls — is reasonable. With more than 500 million active monthly users globally, Reddit is one of the internet’s top sites. It’s hard to anticipate the total amount of money Reddit will save — and earn — after implementing the new fees. But Huffman says the “pure infrastructure costs” of supporting these apps costs Reddit about $10 million each year. “We can’t subsidize other people’s businesses,” Huffman said. “We didn’t ban third-party apps — we said, ‘You need to cover your costs.’” Reddit’s changes to its API coincide with the San Francisco-based company’s reported plans to go public later this year. While Huffman couldn’t directly address the rumored initial public offering, he underlined the need for Reddit to become self-sustaining. “I think every business has a duty to become profitable eventually — for our employees shareholders, for our investors shareholders and, one day as a public company, hopefully our user shareholders as well,” said Huffman, who co-founded the site in 2005. Reddit first filed for an IPO in 2021, but paused its plans amid a plunge in tech stocks. With eyes on the possibility of a renewed IPO for the second half of 2023, finance experts speculate that the company may be trying to display increased revenue and profitability to investors. “My guess is that they feel strong pressure in advance of the IPO to show that they can generate revenue from other sources,” Luke Stein, a finance professor at Babson College, told The Associated Press, noting that monetizing API could create another avenue for revenue streams, rather than relying on advertising and new users as Reddit has done in the past. Experts also pointed to the significance of Reddit showing a way to charge AI companies that have historically used Reddit data at no cost to develop large-scale and for-profit AI models. Still, the IPO is uncertain and the API changes could have consequences as well. “If they actually manage to make the changes stick, (they could) increase their revenue,” said James Angel, an associated professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “On the other hand, if they alienate their best users, it could cause issues down the road, especially if those users decide to move to other platforms.”

Reddit announced new API pricing in April 2023, sparking backlash from developers and users of third-party apps. The changes could result in substantial costs and potential shutdowns of popular apps. CEO Steve Huffman has remained firm on the changes, emphasizing the need for profitability. This led to widespread discontent and a protest involving over 8,000 Reddit communities going dark. Some communities plan to stay private until Reddit makes changes. The company's stance has escalated user dissatisfaction, with speculation that the changes aim to limit third-party app viability. Given the backlash, it's uncertain whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to the proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing protest and outrage over Reddit's upcoming changes to its API access, which directly relates to the recent announcement of API fee pricing changes by Reddit. It provides details about the impact of the changes and the discontent among users and developers. Rating: 5

WASHINGTON (AP) — If you hopped on Reddit to scroll through your favorite forums this week, you may have encountered “private” or “restricted” messages. That’s because thousands of subreddits chose to go dark in an ongoing protest of some controversial changes announced by the online discussion network. The blackout, which began Monday, emerged out of outrage over Reddit’s upcoming changes to its application programming interface (API) access — notably the company’s plan to start charging high usage third-party apps, who have long-used the Reddit data at no cost to build resources for users not available through the official site or app. Organizers of the protest say that Reddit’s new policy threatens to end key ways of historically customizing the platform, which relies heavily on the volunteer labor of subreddit moderators. Many users currently rely on third-party apps to access features that are unavailable in the official Reddit app, particularly for content moderation and accessibility aids. But Reddit says that supporting these high usage third-party developers is too expensive and that the new policy is necessary to become a self-sustaining business. Despite this week’s blackout, the company says it is not changing its course. “The analogy I like to use for Reddit is, Reddit is a city… and what we’re seeing today is a protest in our city,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The Associated Press. “Protest and dissent is important… The problem with this one is it’s not going to change anything because we made a business decision that we’re not negotiating on.” WATCH: Reddit users go dark in protest of policy that could shut out third-party apps But the blackout is not over, organizers say. Nearly 9,000 subreddits went dark this week. Reddit as a whole currently has more than 100,000 active subreddits. While some returned to their public settings after 48 hours, others say they plan to stay private indefinitely until Reddit meets their demands — which include lowering third-party developer charges, set to go into effect July 1, so that popular apps don’t shut down. As of Friday, more than 4,000 subreddits were still participating in the blackout — including communities with tens of millions of subscribers like r/music and r/videos — according to a tracker and live Twitch stream of the boycott. The vast majority of subreddit communities are still active, Reddit notes. And while Huffman maintains that he respects users’ rights to protest, he also says that the subreddits currently participating in the blackout are “not going to stay offline indefinitely” — even if that means finding new moderators. The company’s response to the blackout has fueled further outrage among protest organizers, most recently after the move to replace moderators of protesting subreddits. “A lot of what’s going on here is… (Reddit) burning goodwill with users. And that’s so much more expensive than trying to collaborate,” Omar, a moderator of a subreddit participating in this week’s blackout, told The Associated Press. Omar asked not to be identified by their full name in this article, due to safety concerns that have come up while moderating their subreddit. Most people visiting Reddit probably don’t think about API, but access to these third-party resources is critical for moderators to do their jobs, experts note. READ MORE: Twitter’s head of trust and safety resigns after criticism from Elon Musk Sarah Gilbert, postdoctoral associate at Cornell University and Citizens and Technology Lab research manager, explains that API access helps moderators keep communities safe and “more quickly respond to spam, bigotry, and harassment.” Third-party apps are also important for screen readers, she said, as the official Reddit app is not accessible for people who are visually impaired. “Reddit is built on volunteer moderation labor, including the creation and maintenance of many tools,” Gilbert said in a statement. “Without Reddit’s volunteer moderators, the site could likely see less helpful content, and more spam, misinformation and hate.” Gilbert and Omar say the new policy could significantly risk moderator burnout and retention. Those consequences may not be immediately felt, they added, and could have an impact on the content seen on Reddit, which calls itself the “front page of the internet.” Reddit has roughly 430 million active monthly users, making it one of the internet’s top sites. “The quality of the content… is going to start to degrade. And it’s not going to be something that we see overnight,” Omar said. “It’s going to be something that we see day over day … And we’re not going to notice it — until it’s too late.” Reddit has pushed back on some of these concerns, saying that 93 percent of mod actions are currently taken through desktop and native Reddit apps. Huffman and Reddit management also note that the new fees will only apply to eligible third-party apps that require high usage limits. According to Thursday metrics published by the company, 98 percent of apps will continue to have free access to the Data API as long as they’re not monetized and remain below Reddit’s data-usage threshold. READ MORE: European Union hits Facebook parent Meta with record $1.3 billion privacy fine The company has also promised that moderator tools and bots will continue to have free access to the Data API and has made agreements with some non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps to exempt them from new fees. Still, some moderators say they rely on popular apps that are shutting down over the new costs. Apollo and Reddit Is Fun, for example, have already announced plans to shutter at the end of June. While Reddit argues that the upcoming fees for high usage third-party apps — which stand at a rate of 24 cents for 1,000 API calls — is reasonable, others strongly disagree. Apollo developer Christian Selig estimated fees would total about $20 million a year, for example. Huffman has pushed back on that estimate, but protest organizers and other developers maintain that fees are unsustainable — calling on Reddit to lower the price so that third-party apps can stay alive. “We understand that Reddit needs to be profitable on some level to exist… We’re not against paying for the API. The prices need to change,” said Omar, who also pointed to the frustration surrounding the quick time frame of learning about the fees. Reddit first announced that it would be updating its API access in April, but didn’t specify the price until May 31, giving developers and moderators barely a month before the July 1 start date. It’s hard to anticipate the total amount of money Reddit will save and earn after implementing charges for high-usage, third-party apps. But Huffman says the “pure infrastructure costs” of supporting these apps costs Reddit about $10 million each year. “We can’t subsidize other people’s businesses,” Huffman said. “We didn’t ban third-party apps — we said, ‘you need to cover your costs’ … We just ask that (these apps) pay the same bills that we need to pay.” Reddit’s changes to its API also arrives as the San Francisco-based company reportedly seeks to go public later this year. While Huffman couldn’t directly address the rumored initial public offering, he underlined the need for Reddit to become self-sustaining. “I think every business has a duty to become profitable eventually — for our employees shareholders, for our investors shareholders and, one day as a public company, hopefully our user shareholders as well,” said Huffman, who co-founded the site in 2005. Reddit first filed for an IPO in 2021, but paused its plans amid a plunge in tech stocks. As eyes on a possible, renewed IPO take shift for the second half of 2023, finance experts speculate that the company may be trying to display increased revenue and profitability to investors. “My guess is that they feel strong pressure in advance of the IPO to show that they can generate revenue from other sources,” Luke Stein, a finance professor at Babson College, told The Associated Press — noting that monetizing API could create another avenue for revenue streams, rather than relying on advertising and new users as Reddit has done in the past. Experts also pointed to the significance of Reddit showing a way to charge AI companies that have historically used Reddit data at no cost to develop large-scale and for-profit AI models. Still, the IPO is uncertain and the API changes could have consequences as well. “If they actually manage to make the changes stick, (they could) increase their revenue. On the other hand, if they alienate their best users, it could cause issues down the road, especially if those users decide to move to other platforms,” said James Angel, an associated professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. He added a big question is “Are there any other platforms that really fit the role that Reddit has?” — pointing to similarities seen on Twitter following Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform last year. Twitter also ended free API access earlier this year, sparking outrage. Stein believes there will be more clarity over the next two weeks — based on seeing if moderation and administration remains strong on popular subreddits after power users are cut off from impacted third-party tools. “If some of the large communities have declining engagement, or have an explosion of spam that’s less effectively moderated, and if it looks like these communities are able to move towards alternative platforms, I think investors are likely to be highly spooked,” Stein said.

Reddit announced new API fee pricing in April 2023, sparking widespread discontent among developers and users of third-party apps. The changes could result in substantial costs and potential shutdowns of popular third-party apps. CEO Steve Huffman has remained resolute, emphasizing the need for the changes. This led to a coordinated protest involving over 8,000 Reddit communities going dark. Some communities have pledged to remain private until Reddit makes changes. The company's stance is perceived as part of a broader effort to increase profitability. The question remains whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to the proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's stance on the changes to third-party apps and the Reddit API. It provides insight into Huffman's perspective and his refusal to reconsider the decision, which is directly related to the controversy surrounding the API fee pricing. Rating: 5

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is continuing his damage control tour, this time via a new interview with The Verge. Despite a large number of subreddits still offline in protest over Reddit’s changes to third-party apps, Huffman is once again doubling down on that decision. This time, his argument is that the Reddit API – which has been used by third-party apps successfully for years – “was never designed to support third-party apps.” I’ll save my full opinion on this for the “9to5Mac’s Take” section below… but I’ll give you the gist of it here: “bullshit.” This story is supported by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that fully integrates five different applications on a single Apple-only platform, allowing businesses and schools to easily and automatically deploy, manage, and protect all their Apple devices. Over 38,000 organizations leverage Mosyle solutions to automate the deployment, management, and security of millions of Apple devices daily. Request a FREE account today and discover how you can put your Apple fleet on auto-pilot at a price point that is hard to believe. Steve Huffman digs in According to Huffman, the “vast majority of the uses of the API” are for “tools, bots, and enhancements to Reddit.” Huffman seemingly believes that third-party apps like Apollo don’t offer any enhancements to the Reddit experience (he’s wrong). The Reddit CEO also places part of the blame on this situation on himself for apparently being the “guy arguing” in favor of third-party apps for years: “So the vast majority of the uses of the API — not [third-party apps like Apollo for Reddit] — the other 98 percent of them, make tools, bots, enhancements to Reddit. That’s what the API is for,” Huffman says. “It was never designed to support third-party apps.” According to Huffman, he “let it exist,” and “I should take the blame for that because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time.” Huffman was supposedly so out of the loop – despite being Reddit’s CEO and apparently arguing in favor of third-party apps – that he didn’t realize “the extent that they were profiting off our API.” “I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities,” he told The Verge. Huffman was then asked whether apps like Apollo, which plans to shut down later this month because of the exorbitant API prices, add “value to Reddit.” In an apparent attempt to further stoke the flame, Huffman replied: “Not as much as they take. No way.” “They need to pay for this. That is fair. What our peers have done is banned them entirely. And we said no, you know what, we believe in free markets. You need to cover your costs,” he said. “That’s our business decision, and we’re not undoing that business decision.” Christian Selig, the developer of the beloved Apollo for Reddit client, estimated that Reddit’s new API structure would come to a total bill of $20 million per year for his app. “Apollo’s price would be approximately $2.50 per month per user, with Reddit’s indicated cost being approximately $0.12 per their own numbers,” Selig has said. Selig has also noted that Reddit’s timeline for implementing these changes is simply unfeasible. “Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days,” he explained last week. The charming Reddit CEO’s response? “Tough luck.” We’re perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us, including figuring out what that transition period will look like. But I think a deadline forces people, us included, to negotiate that. It’s not reasonable to let this… it’s been going on for a very long time. Folks have made millions. These aren’t like side projects or charities, they’ve made millions. What’s next for the subreddits that have gone dark? But while Huffman has publicly painted a picture claiming the ongoing blackouts aren’t affecting Reddit’s business, things happening behind the scenes suggest otherwise. According to @aaronp613 on Twitter, who is one of the moderators of the r/Apple subreddit, Reddit is threatening to remove moderators of subreddits that are blacking out indefinitely. The r/Apple subreddit is one of those subreddits planning to remain dark. In a message sent today, a Reddit admin said: Leaving a community you deeply care for and have nurtured for years is a hard choice, but it is a choice some may need to make if they are no longer interested in moderating that community. If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new, active moderators to keep these spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus, but at least one mod who wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team. In today’s interview with The Verge, however, Huffman said that Reddit “respects the community’s right to protest” and indicated the company will not force subreddits to reopen. 9to5Mac’s Take I highly encourage you to go read The Verge‘s excellent interview with Huffman. It’s a case study of how to further anger the users who generate the content on which your platform is built. Sure, apps like Apollo are successful and lucrative for the developers. But they are (or were) an integral part of the Reddit experience for millions of users. Apollo is the only way millions of people use Reddit. For Huffman to say that apps like Apollo don’t add value to Reddit is moronic. It’s delusional. If this is what Huffman truly believes, he’s out of touch and needs to hand over the reins. There are plenty of people out there who could take control and better communicate these types of changes for Reddit. It truly seems like Huffman woke up on a random Tuesday after a bad night’s sleep and decided on a whim to go nuclear and destroy the businesses of these third-party app developers. And every day since then, he’s woken up and dug his heels in, silenced user feedback, and stuck to his guns. The commitment to the bit is marvelous, I must admit. Sure, Reddit needs to make a profit. Sure, it’s fair to charge third-party apps for access to the API. No one is arguing otherwise. But it’s not fair to extort them and charge astronomically high fees for access to that API. It’s not fair to implement such drastic changes with a 30-day heads-up. My read on this is that Huffman is jealous. He’s jealous that third-party apps have built successful businesses and created user experiences for which people are willing to pay. Reddit, in its 16-year history, hasn’t created a native experience for which the majority of people are willing to pay. If it had, it would be profitable. The fact that Reddit isn’t profitable is not Christian Selig’s fault. It’s Reddit’s fault. And more specifically, it’s Steve Huffman’s fault. Huffman says he only recently became aware of the extent to which people were “profiting” off of Reddit’s API. If true, this is a prime example of what happens when you are reactive instead of proactive. If true, Huffman is a terrible CEO and should step down immediately. In all of Reddit’s push to become profitable, he never once considered a measured approach to charging for access to its API? Huffman’s response to almost every question asked by Jay Peters reeks of spite. Every response has a passive (or not) aggressive undertone. The responses are laced with defensiveness. It’s the behavior of a petulant child. Huffman is trying to imply that third-party apps took advantage of Reddit to build successful businesses on the back of its API, but that’s simply not true. In one part of the interview, Peters asks Huffman to provide a “sense of scale” for how well he believes apps like Apollo are doing in terms of subscribers. The jealousy is palpable: You’re talking to them, go ask them! Millions. He said how many subscribers he has, his price list is public. I have a guess on how many. He’s given a lower number of subscribers, I have another guess that’s higher. But it’s real money. And it costs us real money. It costs us about $10 million in pure infrastructure costs to support these apps. But it’s not labor, that’s not R&D, that’s not safety, that’s not ML, and that doesn’t include the lost monetization of having users not on our platform. Just pure cloud spend. It’s real money. Another beautiful Huffman response comes when asked to elaborate on his belief that Apollo is a “fully direct competitor of Reddit.” Try not to cringe while reading this one: Okay, hold on, timeout. You go to the App Store, you type in Reddit, you get two options, right? There’s Apollo. You go to one, it’s my business, and you look at our ads, use our products. That’s 95 percent of our iOS users. The rest go to Apollo, which uses our logo, or something like it, takes our data — for free — and resells it to users making a 100 percent margin. And instead of using our app, they use that app. Is that not competitive? If there is one tiny, minuscule bright spot in Huffman’s interview, it’s this: The third-party apps, if I were to describe their UI in one word, in comparison to ours, they’re simpler. I appreciate that. I like that. We’re making our own app simpler as well, because I think it has gotten too cluttered. Steve, we agree on this one. The Reddit app is terrible and cluttered. For iPhone and iPad users, the design language is jarring and unintuitive. Apollo, meanwhile, offers an interface that’s easy to navigate and less cluttered. But it also exemplifies what so many users want and expect from a top-tier app. Reddit’s native app becoming less cluttered would be a very small step in the right direction. But I don’t see a world in which Reddit ever matches what Apollo offers in terms of navigation, gestures, media playback, versatility, customization, and so much more. And keep in mind: Apollo is developed by one person. Reddit is a multibillion-dollar (unprofitable) company. One more thing. Throughout the interview, Huffman repeatedly says that Reddit is “willing to work with the apps that are willing to work with us.” But that offer only seems to apply if you agree to the imminent deadline, agree to the as-proposed API pricing, and agree to not ask for any changes or further clarification. Otherwise, Reddit’s CEO might publicly and privately accuse you of “threatening and blackmailing the company.” At this point, if Reddit reversed its decisions or made the API pricing more reasonable, I would not blame developers like Christian Selig for throwing in the towel anyways. What it comes down to is this: Reddit wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It doesn’t want to subsidize businesses like Apollo for free. Fine, totally fair. But it also wants to build a platform on which all content is generated for free by the user. And moderated largely by volunteers who do that work for free. Is that a platform that developers and content creators should rely on? I won’t use Reddit without Apollo. I especially won’t use Reddit without Apollo after everything that’s unfolded over the last three weeks. Quite frankly, I don’t want to give Reddit or Steve Huffman a dime. As of Thursday, Reddit says that “more than 80% of our top 5,000 communities (by daily active users) are open.” In other words, one out of every five subreddits you try to visit will probably be offline. Excellent work, team. Great user experience. 5 stars. 10/10 would visit your website again. Follow Chance: Twitter, Instagram, and Mastodon Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is facing backlash over the platform's new API fee pricing. Despite widespread protests and subreddits going offline, Huffman is standing firm, claiming the API was never meant for third-party apps. Developers like Christian Selig, creator of Apollo for Reddit, are facing exorbitant costs under the new terms, leading to widespread discontent. Huffman's refusal to budge has sparked speculation about Reddit's motives and user migration to the official app. The situation has escalated to the point where some subreddits are planning to remain private indefinitely. Given the intense backlash, it's likely that Reddit will announce changes or a delay to its proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses Reddit's CEO's response to the outrage and protests over the new API fees. It provides insight into Reddit's stance and the ongoing conflict with users and developers. However, it does not mention any potential changes or delays to the proposed API fee pricing, which is the main focus of the forecasting question. Rating: 3

Tech Reddit CEO says people will get over outrage as it threatens to replace mods behind protests Site’s users have been closing down its forums for days in response to controversial new fees Andrew Griffin Article bookmarked Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile Don't show me this message again ✕ A picture taken on 5 October, 2021 in Toulouse shows the logo of Reddit social media displayed by a by a tablet and a smartphone (Getty Images) Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyTech email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Reddit is not backing down from its controversial new fees, its chief executive has said as protests against the decision continue. Those behind the protests could be removed from the forums they administer, even in cases where the communities inside of them have supported the action, the company has suggested. Reddit has fallen into chaos in recent days after the moderators of many of its most popular communities took those subreddits “dark” in protest. It has meant that users have been unable to see posts from those communities for days. The action was a response to new plans from Reddit to charge for access to its API, which allows developers such as those behind third-party apps to see data from Reddit. Many developers have said those charges would make their apps unsustainable, and the most popular ones including Apollo have announced they will shut down. Even before that happened, moderators on the site had committed to take their forums offline in protest against the changes, which they said would make Reddit harder to use. Reddit is largely administered by unpaid volunteer moderators, who are able to make changes to those forums without needing permission from Reddit’s staff or management. Since the changes were announced, Reddit’s chief executive Steve Huffman has stayed committed to them. He has repeatedly claimed that it is unfair for developers to have access to that data for free since it costs Reddit money to host the site. Now Mr Huffman has undertaken another round of interviews in which he has shrugged off the protest, argued that it will pass, and claimed that only a small group of users are upset about the change. “It’s a small group that’s very upset, and there’s no way around that. We made a business decision that upset them,” he told NPR. “But I think the greater Reddit community just wants to participate with their fellow community members.” He said that the protest was affecting “everyday users” but that most of them were not involved in the changes. He also indicated that the protest had not cost much in financial terms, but had created “a fair amount of trouble”. He said that 80 per cent of the top 5,000 subreddits have gone back online. But many other communities have committed to continuing the protests indefinitely, and may go back offline if Reddit does not respond to their complaints. Reddit has also suggested that moderators who are involved in the protest could be removed from their position, and presumably replaced with new users who would bring the forums back online. In a post on Reddit’s support forum for moderators, an administer pointed to “rule 4”, which requires that moderators are active in the communities that they run. While the company refused to explicitly link its mention of that rule with the protest, it has also refused to rule out the fact that it could be used to remove those protestors from their position. Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told The Vergethat such a move would not be to do with the protest – but that those involved in it could be breaking the rule nonetheless. More about Reddit 1 / 1 Reddit says users will get over outrage, causing further outrage Reddit says users will get over outrage, causing further outrage A picture taken on 5 October, 2021 in Toulouse shows the logo of Reddit social media displayed by a by a tablet and a smartphone Getty Images ✕ Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Subscribe Already subscribed? Log in Most Popular Popular videos

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing user protests and CEO Steve Huffman's stance on the API pricing changes, which directly relates to the controversy surrounding Reddit's API fee pricing. It provides insight into the current situation and Huffman's position on the matter. Rating: 5

Tech / Interview / Apps Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview / We spoke with Huffman for nearly 30 minutes about the platform’s API changes and ongoing user protests. Share this story Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge | Photo by Greg Doherty / Variety via Getty Images Reddit is fighting for its soul. Many users are in revolt over API pricing changes that will shut down some of the most popular third-party Reddit apps, and they’re furious at CEO Steve Huffman after last week’s AMA that made it clear the platform wouldn’t budge. Huffman has argued the changes are a business decision to force AI companies training on Reddit’s data to pony up, but they’re also wiping out some beloved Reddit apps, and thousands of subreddits have gone dark for days in protest. On Thursday, Reddit offered me an interview with Huffman (who goes by u/spez on Reddit). I’ve already published one story from my conversation about how Reddit was apparently never designed to support third-party apps. But here is a lightly edited transcript of the entire interview — which, at times, was contentious. Steve Huffman: One of the most important points I’d like to make today is that Reddit is a platform built by its users. My favorite analogy for Reddit is that of a city. Cities are physical things, but they’re really these living organisms created by their citizens. I think Reddit is very much the same. We’re a platform and tech company on one hand, but on the other it’s a living organism, this democratic living organism, created by its users. Those democratic values run deep at Reddit. Every once in a while in cities, there’s a protest. And I think that’s what we’re seeing exactly right now. We, even in disagreement, we appreciate that users can care enough to protest on Reddit, can protest on Reddit, and then our platform is really resilient enough to survive these things. I’ll turn it over to you to jump into the details. But big picture, that’s how we look at this moment. Jay Peters: What I’m reading [from a fact sheet published Thursday] is that it seems Reddit is saying the blackouts didn’t have much impact on your decision making. Is that the case? In this case? That’s true. We’ve had blackouts in previous times where there’s a little more room for movement. But the core of this one is the API pricing change. That’s our business decision. And we’re not undoing that business decision. And we were clear about that going into this, which is was one of the reasons why I think our users probably are annoyed at this blackout, because there wasn’t anything to gain. We were also clear that we were willing to work with the apps that are willing to work with us, and that’s not changed. Now the two biggest, they threw in the towel. That was unexpected, but we’re still talking to the others. And, you know, we’ll see where that goes. “They threw in the towel.” Before the blackout, we were trying to be as clear as possible that the mod tools were not affected. That’s a common thing that’s been thrown around; the mod tools are not affected. The accessibility apps have access, we’ve got deals now with three of them — RedReader, Dystopia, and Luna — and the vast majority of our API users are within our free limits. And Pushshift is coming back online for mods. So I think most of the stuff that mods wanted, and day to day users wanted, are there. What’s not happening is us continuing to subsidize businesses built on taking our data for free. That’s not changing. You said that two threw in the towel: that’s Apollo, and which other? RIF. And I think Sync said they’re shutting down as well, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah, they did. [Apollo developer] Christian Selig said that Reddit told him in January that there’ll be no API changes coming this year. When did that shift? When did Reddit decide to make these changes? And what was the impetus? Well, we’ve been talking about this forever. I think one of the ironies is I was probably the only guy at Reddit defending these apps for a long time. But the impetus for these changes is like, we took a close look at our data, our API usage, where it’s going, how much it costs, and it’s just not sustainable. And so we told them that back in April, that changes were coming, that they’re going to have to pay to cover their costs. Which actually, I think he and others accepted. You know, we’ve had a lot of conversations with him and others privately, one on one, and some on the site. What they didn’t like is the price, but the price is the price. It just happens to be expensive to run an app like Reddit. Why are folks being kind of rushed to do this? My understanding is from the April announcement that the prices weren’t actually set yet, and Christian and others didn’t really have an understanding of the costs until the end of May. Why wait so long to roll out the prices to them, and why hold to this month long deadline, instead of a little bit more breathing room for some developers to adapt? We’re perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us, including figuring out what that transition period will look like. But I think a deadline forces people, us included, to negotiate that. It’s not reasonable to let this... it’s been going on for a very long time. Folks have made millions. These aren’t like side projects or charities, they’ve made millions. One is owned by an ad network. They have no contract with us. Our peers just turn them off. Reddit’s the only company that allows these sort of competitive products to exist, and we’ll allow them to continue to exist if it’s fair, if they’re on equal footing, which is paying for their data in the same way that we have to. And like I said, we’re still talking to the others. And we’ll see where that goes. It seems like a lot of these folks are smaller — maybe one person — and they’re just being forced to shut down. Are those the folks that are making millions? The ones we’ve talked about today, yes. Once they’ve thrown in the towel, they’re doing quite well. Can you give any sense of scale, how well they’re doing? You’re talking to them, go ask them! Millions. He said how many subscribers he has, his price list is public. [Selig did not deny the “millions” claim when reached for comment.] I have a guess on how many. He’s given a lower number of subscribers, I have another guess that’s higher. But it’s real money. And it costs us real money. It costs us about $10 million in pure infrastructure costs to support these apps. But it’s not labor, that’s not R&D, that’s not safety, that’s not ML, and that doesn’t include the lost monetization of having users not on our platform. Just pure cloud spend. It’s real money. In April, you spoke to The New York Times about how these changes are also a way for Reddit to monetize off the AI companies that are using Reddit data to train their models. Is that still a primary consideration here too, or is this more about making the money back that you’re spending on supporting these third party apps? What they have in common is we’re not going to subsidize other people’s businesses for free. But financially, they’re not related. The API usage is about covering costs and data licensing is a new potential business for us. Have you talked to the big AI companies about the changes? How have they taken to them? We’re in talks with them. How are those talks going? We’re in talks with them. I know Reddit filed confidentially for an IPO in December 2021. How’s that process going, and are these changes in service of assisting with that process in some way? You may notice there’s not a lot of companies going public right now. It’s something we’d like to do someday. I don’t know when the market will be more conducive to that, and there’s a few things I’d like to do with Reddit before we get there. I’d like to get there for a variety of reasons, which we can get into if you’re interested, but whether we go public or not is separate from building a sustainable business or building a business that can stand on its own two feet. I love our investors, but I don’t like depending on investors, and financial security is security. And look, I want to do that for our employees. I want to do that for investors. And one day I hope to count our users among our investors, but getting to breakeven is a priority for us in any climate. You want to bring the company financial security: is that $10 million going to make a big difference in Reddit’s costs to get to that breakeven and profitability point? We try to be efficient in every aspect of our business. As it happens, we also announced layoffs last week. For us, that’s even a more painful change. And look, there are lots of efficiencies all over our business to be gained. This is a big one, right? Giving a 100-percent free subsidy to competitors is not a good business strategy. Isn’t there a way you could at least give them longer and work a little bit more closely on negotiable terms for folks like Apollo or Sync or RIF? Some of their users are, I’m sure, power users of Reddit and want to see them succeed. I said we are working with everybody who is willing to work with us, which includes many of the other third party apps. The three you mentioned said they don’t want to work with us and they’re shutting down. I didn’t tell them to do that. We have had many conversations — well, not with RIF, he never wanted to talk to us — but with the others, we were having such conversations, and we’ll work with the others. A deadline is important, otherwise these things just linger and linger and linger. We see companies like Google or Apple giving, you know, three months, six months, a year for these sorts of deadlines. Tell me, which companies were Google and Apple subsidizing for 10 years that you’re thinking of? They weren’t subsidizing, but they work with their developers. They need apps for their platforms as well. Was there like a Google clone out there where they take all of Google’s data and run their own ads on it, that Google let survive for 10 years? Does that exist? Another app store that Apple allows to exist? I don’t know if I agree with the characterization that Apollo is a fully direct competitor of Reddit. Okay, hold on, timeout. You go to the App Store, you type in Reddit, you get two options, right? There’s Apollo. You go to one, it’s my business, and you look at our ads, use our products. That’s 95 percent of our iOS users. The rest go to Apollo, which uses our logo, or something like it, takes our data — for free — and resells it to users making a 100 percent margin. And instead of using our app, they use that app. Is that not competitive? I see it’s competitive, but Reddit offered these tools. Clearly there was an interest to work with third party developers at some point to build versions of the platform they wanted. We offer the API so the vast majority of our use of the uses of the API — so not these, the other 98 percent of them that make tools, bots, enhancements for Reddit — that’s what the API is for. “It was never designed to support third-party apps.” It was never designed to support third-party apps. We let it exist. And I should take the blame for that, because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time. But I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities. The ones that actually are doing good for our users — RedReader, Dystopia, Luna — like actually adding real value at their own cost? We’ve exempted. We’ll carry that cost. I want to stop you for a second there. So you’re saying that Apollo, RIF, Sync, they don’t add value to Reddit? Not as much as they take. No way. There’s not even a scenario where those apps pay for their data? That’s all I’m asking. We pay for our data, we pay for our hosting, they need to pay for theirs. That is fair. What our peers have done is banned them entirely. And we said no, you know what, we believe in free markets. You need to cover your costs. When you say peers, who are you referring to there? Facebook, Twitter, Snap. Other social media. You mentioned these changes have been in discussion for a long time. How long are you thinking? I know April is when we started doing public comms, and more regular private comms. Within the company? For as long as I can remember. Since you came back to Reddit in 2015? Yes. If the discussions have been going on for that long, why this exact moment in time, and why such a short deadline? Why any moment in time? We did it when we did it. We could do it a year from now and we’d probably have the same conversation. We could do it five years ago, we’d be having the same conversation. I guess what I still don’t quite understand is, if this has been thought about for a long time, is the goal just to meet this deadline and move on? Like just turn a new leaf from there? We don’t have to meet our deadline. We told folks hey, we need to come up with a plan, or we’re going to start billing you on July 1st. Anna Soellner, Reddit VP of Comms: I feel like you’ve been asking the same question over and over again. Steve Huffman: We say we work with people who want to work with us; you’re spending a lot of time with the one guy who doesn’t want to work with us. “That’s what this is about. It can’t be free.” I know I’m focusing a lot on that, but that’s where a lot of the protests in the community are focused. People appear to really love these apps. And, apparently, they think Reddit itself is not offering the experience they’re looking for. People talk about leaving the platform because they can’t use these apps. So if Reddit is going to shut down these apps, you’re going to lose people who loved Reddit, and that still doesn’t quite make sense. So I guess I’m wondering why hasn’t there been... 90-plus percent of Reddit users are on our platform, contributing, and are monetized either through ads or Reddit Premium. Why would we subsidize this small group? Why would we effectively pay them to use Reddit but not everybody else who also contributes to Reddit? Does that make sense? These people who are mad, they’re mad because they used to get something for free, and now it’s going to be not free. And that free comes at the expense of our other users and our business. That’s what this is about. It can’t be free. Do you imagine there are going to be other third party apps after these API changes? What do you see the future of third-party apps looking like? We’ll see. We’ll see. Like we try to charge so it works out to about $1 per user per month for reasonable API usage. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. That’s far cheaper than Premium, it’s far cheaper than what people are willing to pay. It’s less than what most third-party apps charge their users. So I think it’s workable. We’ll see where it goes. Now, some of these apps have to change business models, and so that’s more complex. Tim Rathschmidt, Reddit’s director of consumer and product communications: An angle no one else has been writing about is the desire and frustration with users that want their communities back. Especially being vocal about it. That’s just not something that’s really been covered. Steve Huffman: The blackouts are not representative of the greater Reddit community. Users may have been for this on Monday, they’re not for it now. How widely are you seeing that sentiment? If I go on r/all right now, at least as of about an hour ago, four of the five top posts are all about these blackouts. [Note: As I am working on this transcript, about three hours after my conversation with Huffman, those four posts are much farther down r/all. The highest of them is now ranked #13, instead of #2, 3, 4, and 5.] Let me see. Oh, you mean these posts that have no comments? Those ones? They’re highly upvoted by their communities. If there were comments on there, I bet I can tell you what those comments would say. They would say “knock this off, it’s annoying.” Because if you go to the other posts where comments are enabled, that’s what people are saying. That can’t be everywhere though, right? [Where people might be annoyed that a subreddit is still closed.] We can do this together. Let’s find one. We’re going to have to scroll for a while. I know there are examples [of subreddits where people are happy they’re open] in the fact sheet... Find a comment thread on a normal subreddit where the users aren’t saying this is annoying. You can do that offline. But that is the vibe on Reddit right now. It’s not even universal among mods. We’re talking to them. That’s what we’ve been doing all week. A lot of our mods don’t want to be dealing with this. I get it. Like, earlier this week, maybe it was different. “We don’t have problems with protests.” And we allow the protests. We don’t have problems with protests. I think it’s important. That’s part of the democracy. It’s part of the democratic part of Reddit. But the users are not in support of it now. It’s like a protest in a city that goes on too long, and the rest of the citizens of the city would like to go about their lives. I’m sure people are not as supportive of it as they might have been earlier in the week, because it has obviously been a huge inconvenience to using Reddit on a day-to-day basis. But how can we prove that, broadly, users are not in support of the Reddit protests when some of the top upvoted posts are protest posts? If comments were on for those posts... there’s a reason why they’re not allowing comments. That is a very un-Reddit thing to do. We don’t do that. I do my AMA. I take my beating. In that AMA... People were pissed. They were not happy. Yeah. And we took it. I would have a complete 180 different attitude if these posts had comments turn on. If the communities that were dissenting allowed dissent. You and I can argue about what we think they say. The reality is, the conversation is stifled in those areas and only those areas right now. What would you say to folks who do still support protests and want to see change? They’re not seeing that change. They’ll see a change. We made improvements to this whole thing. We exempted the critical apps. Pushshift, we made a deal with them. We found accessibility apps, did deals with them. Our mod roadmap is unchanged and aggressive. It’s just as aggressive right? We’re shipping the important stuff this month. We’ve given ourselves our own deadline there. And we’ve been hard at work at that for years. The third-party apps, if I were to describe their UI in one word, in comparison to ours, they’re simpler. I appreciate that. I like that. We’re making our own app simpler as well, because I think it has gotten too cluttered. So I accept the criticism. This is not about that, right? People have had their preferences. They liked those apps. They liked the tools. All of those things can be true. And also, we can make a business decision. We will close those gaps as effectively as we can. I’d like to see some of the third party apps figure out a sustainable business model. We’ll see if they do. Correction June 16th, 1:07AM ET: We incorrectly transcribed Huffman saying that Selig was probably the only person on Reddit defending third-party apps. Huffman actually said that he (Huffman) was probably the only person at Reddit defending them. We regret the error. Most Popular Most Popular The Matrix is coming back for a fifth movie WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook are back up and running after outages The App Store was down, along with Apple TV, Apple Podcasts, and Apple Music Huberman fans aren’t leaving the show behind Spotify’s price is reportedly going up again Verge Deals / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox weekly. 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Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has faced backlash over API pricing changes that will impact third-party Reddit apps. Despite protests and community blackouts, Huffman has remained firm on the changes, emphasizing the need to cover costs. The company has exempted critical apps and made deals with others, but some developers are still facing substantial costs. Huffman's stance has led to widespread discontent, with users expressing frustration and threatening to leave the platform. The company's resolute approach suggests that Reddit may not announce changes or a delay to the proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's response to the blackout protest and his consideration of allowing users to vote out moderators. However, it does not mention any potential changes or delays to the proposed API fee pricing, which is the focus of the forecasting question. Rating: 2

Share to Linkedin Topline Reddit CEO Steve Huffman fired back Thursday against the leaders of a days-long blackout on many of the site's subreddits in protest of planned changes to the company's API pricing, telling NBC and NPR a "small group" of users are driving the protest and the company is considering making it easier for users to kick out moderators. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman announced in an interview Thursday that Reddit would pursue changes ... [+] allowing users to vote out subreddit moderators, many of which are participating in a blackout protest against Reddit. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images) Getty Images Key Facts Huffman told NBC he plans to implement a system that would allow users to vote out the volunteer moderators who run subreddits—a proposed change that comes as many subreddits either remain dark or operate at a limited capacity in protest of reddit’s planned changes, drawing mixed receptions from the site’s users. Currently, Reddit moderators can only be removed from their positions by higher ranked moderators or by Reddit itself for policy violations or inactivity. The CEO said the “pathway out” of the current conflict “is actually more democracy.” Huffman didn’t specify when a new policy could go into effect, but he argued generally that moderators should be accountable to users rather than staying in place and wielding extensive power over their subreddits like “landed gentry.” The CEO said in a separate interview with NPR that the blackout—led by a “small group”—has not cost the company all that much but that it did create “a fair amount of trouble.” Reddit’s new API fees will charge third-party apps for access to site data—a change developers have said will force them to shut down due to the millions of dollars it would take to continue operating, but the company argues will prevent third-party companies from using Reddit’s content without paying for it or allowing ads. Reddit has said it will not go back on its planned changes, but Huffman noted the company is willing to negotiate with “most third-party developers,” according to NPR. Key Background The blackout over Reddit’s upcoming API changes took off Monday with more than 8,000 subreddits participating. This meant the millions of users who followed the pages either had limited access or no access to some of their favorite pages. The move has continued into Thursday, with more than 5,000 of the 8,000 subreddits that entered a blackout earlier this week remaining dark. The protest was planned to end Wednesday for most subreddits before an internal company memo published by The Verge was released. It revealed messages to Reddit employees informing them that the blackouts did not have a significant impact on revenue and that the company expected it to pass. The memo became a primary driver behind continued blackouts from subreddits, some of which have followed different timelines for their respective blackouts, which has raised the ire of some users. Contra Third-party developers like Apollo and Reddit is Fun, which produce apps that provide users with alternative Reddit interfaces, plan to shut down at the end of June due to the API pricing changes. Apollo founder Christian Selig said his team would incur costs of $20 million a year if the app was kept online after the changes are implemented. Huffman told NPR that although Reddit is willing to negotiate with most developers, negotiations with Apollo and Reddit is Fun have broken down. Further Reading Reddit Blackout Rolls On For More Than 5,000 Subreddits Past Planned End Date—Some Of Which Plan To Stay Dark Indefinitely (Forbes) Reddit CEO Steve Huffman: 'It's time we grow up and behave like an adult company' (NPR) Reddit CEO slams protest leaders, saying he'll change rules that favor ‘landed gentry’ (NBC)

Thoughts: The article discusses the recent protest on Reddit due to the company's decision to start charging for data. It provides insight into the discontent among Reddit users and the impact of the protest. However, it does not mention any potential changes or delays to the proposed API fee pricing, which is the main focus of the forecasting question. Rating: 3

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says a mass protest on Reddit did not change the company's plans to start charging for data, despite how it upended the popular site and turned thousands of discussion groups dark. "It's a small group that's very upset, and there's no way around that. We made a business decision that upset them," Huffman told NPR in his first interview since nearly 9,000 subreddits staged a 48-hour boycott. "But I think the greater Reddit community just wants to participate with their fellow community members." Reddit is used by some 57 million people every day to discuss all sorts of things, like news developments; share memes and favorite recipes; swap stock market tips; and chronicle public photos of bread stapled to trees. But on Monday, Reddit's unpaid volunteer moderators turned thousands of discussion groups private, making them inaccessible. It lasted for 48 hours, but some groups have extended the "blackout" period. The coordinated backlash had a rallying cry: "Don't Let Reddit Kill 3rd Party Apps!" Huffman said the action did not cost the company much, even though it managed to create "a fair amount of trouble," he said. Huffman characterized the Reddit protesters as a small but vocal cadre of angry users who are not in touch with the greater Reddit community. "The protest, what it really affects is the everyday users, most of whom aren't involved in this or the changes that spurred this," Huffman said. Huffman says he's willing to negotiate with third-party developers wanting to have "productive conversations" In April, Reddit announced new fees for allowing third parties to access the site's data. But this month, the company detailed what the cost would be, causing outcry among some of the third-party apps. While the fees will not hurt everyone, some third-party developers say the new bills from Reddit would be exorbitant. Christian Selig told NPR that the new charges could cost Apollo, which has just one part-time employee, around $20 million a year. Four of the most popular mobile Reddit apps, including Apollo, have announced they will be going out of business because of the new costly fees for accessing what is called the application programming interface (API), which allows different pieces of software to communicate with each other. Huffman said negotiations have broken down with two of the most popular apps, Apollo and Rif Is Fun (formerly Reddit Is Fun), but he said Reddit is willing to negotiate with most third-party developers. "The other third-parties apps we're in conversation with," Huffman said. "There are areas of opportunity to be more flexible, to give longer transition times," he said. "For folks who want to have productive conversations with us, we're here and we're having those conversations." Human beings talk about interesting things on Reddit. "We are not in the business of giving that away for free." Huffman said 97% of Reddit users do not use any third-party apps to browse the site. He said "the vast majority" of moderators also do not rely on third-party apps. Still, he said the company's plan was never to kill third-party apps. At the same time, Huffman acknowledged that if those users instead browsed with Reddit's own app, it would shore up the company's bottom line. "And the opportunity cost of not having those users on our platform, on our advertising platform, is really significant," he said. "At the end of the day, it's simply expensive to run an app like Reddit." Giving away a service for free, Huffman said, is not something Reddit would be able to do forever. "We've been subsidizing other business for free for a long time. We're stopping that. That is not a negotiable point," Huffman said. "We simply were in an unsustainable position." In some situations, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement, he said. For instance, Reddit results appearing in Google or Microsoft search results help drive traffic to Reddit, so both the search engines and Reddit get something out of it. But with artificial intelligence-powered large language models like Microsoft-backed ChatGPT and Google's Bard, a massive corpus of conversations is being hoovered up. And in return, Reddit receives very little, he said. "If they take our content and build businesses on it, that's an issue," Huffman said. "If they build businesses such that people come to Reddit less, that's an issue." Huffman said Reddit's back-end infrastructure includes separate server pools solely dedicated to handling the scraping that Google and Microsoft do from Reddit every day. "Reddit represents one of the largest data sets of just human beings talking about interesting things," Huffman said. "We are not in the business of giving that away for free." Huffman: We're 18 years old. It's time we grow up. Some subreddits, still upset that Huffman has not rolled back any of the announced changes or lowered the cost for accessing Reddit data, have extended the blackout beyond the initial 48-hour period. In their last update, organizers of the boycott wrote that "our core concerns still aren't satisfied," adding that "Reddit has been silent since it began, and internal memos indicate that they think they can wait us out." Huffman said that right now, 80% of the top 5,000 subreddits are back online. In 2021, Reddit filed paperwork for an eventual initial public offering but shelved those plans when technology stocks plummeted shortly afterward. Now, Reddit is reportedly eyeing an IPO for later this year. But Huffman said taking the company public was not part of the calculation that led to the new fees. He said it was more about survival. "It is essential for us to be a sustainable business, whether or not we go public," Huffman said. "Now, we would like to be a public company. Not the best market to be doing that. It's not top of our mind today as it has been in the past," he said. "We'll get there when we're ready, when the market is ready." Reddit, which was founded in 2005, has long relied on advertising. It, along with peer social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snap, YouTube and others, has been dealing with a slowdown in digital ad spending, which has pressured the companies to find new ways to generate revenue. Huffman said the reckoning that Reddit is now in the grips of has been long overdue. "We're 18 years old," Huffman said. "I think it's time we grow up and behave like an adult company." Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing blackout of more than 5,000 subreddits in protest of the changes to Reddit's API pricing policies. It provides information about the original end date of the blackout, the number of subreddits remaining dark, and the lack of a central organizing group for the blackout. It also briefly mentions the new changes to the API pricing, which is the central focus of the forecasting question. Rating: 4

Share to Linkedin Topline More than 5,000 subreddits have continued staying dark in protest of incoming changes to Reddit’s API pricing policies—despite dwindling participation and concern from users that the protest will not be effective. Subreddit blackouts have continued past their original end dates. (Photo Illustration by Rafael ... [+] Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Key Facts The Reddit blackout was initially set to end Wednesday for most subreddits, but more than 5,000 of the 8,000 that were down earlier this week have remained dark. The blackout does not have a central organizing group—the lack of which may contribute to differing blackout timelines. Under the new changes, third-party app developers that require high usage limits will be charged $0.24 for every 1,000 API calls, which enable applications to request data or services from a separate application—an integral process to services provided by third-party apps. Third-party apps like Apollo and Reddit is Fun plan to shut down their services on June 30 as a result of the changes—citing costs of up to $20 million if they were to keep their services running with the planned API changes. Despite thousands of subreddits staying dark, some Reddit users are saying the protest’s strategy is flawed, while others have said extending the blackout will only affect users and not Reddit itself. Reddit declined to comment on the continuation of the blackout. Key Background At the peak of the blackout, more than 8,000 subreddits went dark in support of the API protest—though Reddit told Forbes earlier this week it was not “planning any changes to the API updates” they previously announced. Before the protest was planned to end Wednesday for most subreddits, The Verge published an internal company memo from Reddit that informed employees the blackout would pass and was not having a significant impact on revenue—a development that became one of the primary motivations behind an indefinite blackout for many subreddits. The changes were first announced in April, and by this month, popular subreddits like r/music, r/sports, r/gaming and many more participated in a blackout that either restricted or completely stopped followers of their pages from interacting with them. Contra Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman addressed the API changes in an ill-received post last week. He cited Reddit’s need to keep operating as a self-sustaining business as the reason for the API changes, saying, “we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use.” Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told Forbes on Tuesday that the API call pricing was based on usage levels comparable to the company’s own costs. Further Reading Reddit Stands By Controversial API Changes As Subreddit Protest Continues (Forbes) Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’ (The Verge)

More than 5,000 subreddits remain dark in protest of Reddit's new API pricing policies, despite concerns about the protest's effectiveness. The blackout, initially set to end Wednesday, has continued indefinitely. The changes will charge third-party app developers $0.24 for every 1,000 API calls, leading to potential shutdowns for apps like Apollo and Reddit is Fun. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has defended the changes, citing the need for the company to be self-sustaining. The protest has sparked widespread discontent among users, but Reddit has not indicated any plans to alter the new API fee pricing.

Thoughts: The article discusses the protest by prominent Reddit moderators against the company's decision to raise the price of access to its data. It provides insight into the controversy and the reasons behind the price increase. However, it does not directly address whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to its proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023. Rating: 3

Key Points Prominent Reddit moderators are locking down their subreddits in protest of the company's recent decision to raise the price of access to its data. The controversy highlights the increasingly fraught relationship between Reddit's leadership team, which has been marching towards an IPO, and its many outside supporters. Reddit has said the price increase was necessary because so much of its data is being used to train artificial intelligence models being developed by tech giants like Microsoft and Google. Budrul Chukrut | Lightrocket | Getty Images At midnight on Tuesday, the moderators of the Reddit community r/Gaming decided to go dark. Dac Croach, who goes by username Dacvak, and the subreddit's other leaders hit the private button, initiating a 48-hour shutdown for the group's more than 37 million members, along with anyone else who tried to access the community. They were joining a large-scale protest against Reddit, which was about to implement a business change that would dramatically increase the price for third-party developers to use the company's application programming interface, or API. In the preceding days, the r/Gaming moderators had run a poll indicating that users would support a shutdown. They discussed the results on Slack, and then went offline. The widespread protests of one of the internet's most-trafficked sites started early this week and quickly expanded to more than 8,000 subreddits, including the wildly popular r/Funny, with over 40 million members, along with r/Music and r/Science, each boasting over 30 million users. Croach and his peers weren't only standing in solidarity with Reddit's outside developers. They were also worried that the tools they use on a daily basis to run their groups may no longer be available if the creators of those services decide they can't afford Reddit's new pricing structure. Reddit's third-party apps are popular with moderators, who use them to organize their subreddits, block spam accounts, flag unsafe posts, find patterns of harassment and abuse and communicate with their members on the go. Other apps widely used by Reddit members help with browsing the site and with assisting disabled users, who can find services for improved accessibility. Croach told CNBC that, unlike Facebook , Twitter and Alphabet's YouTube, Reddit counts on independent developers, rather than employees, to provide essential services that make the platform operable for moderators and users. "Reddit not only has all of its content generated by users, but all of its moderation is done by volunteers," Croach said. "We're talking hundreds of thousands of volunteers putting in hours a day to keep the site safe, entertaining and enjoyable for community members. And it's tough to see that those people, when their voices are loud like this, are being ostensibly ignored." That sentiment is shared across much of the Reddit universe, based on CNBC's interviews with nearly a dozen moderators, some of whom oversee the biggest communities on the site. The controversy highlights the increasingly fraught relationship between Reddit's leadership team, which has been marching towards an IPO, and its many outside supporters, who have helped the company maintain over 100,000 active communities that attract over 500 million monthly global visitors. watch now If unresolved, the impact of a prolonged blackout could have ripple effects across the internet. Reddit is the sixth-most-visited website in the U.S., according to data from analytics firm Semrush – behind Google , Google-owned YouTube, and Facebook , but ahead of Amazon , Twitter and Yahoo. Its more than 100,000 active subreddits, on topics from gardening to comic books, provide mounds of content catalogued by Google and other search engines. Reddit previously said the coming price increase for access to its API was necessary because so much of its data is being used to train artificial intelligence models being developed by tech giants like Microsoft and Google. In addition to giving it compensation for using its trove of data, Reddit said the updated pricing model is "to ensure developers have the tools and information they need to continue to use Reddit safely, protect our users' privacy and security, and adhere to local regulations." The company added in a later post that it "needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use from our API." Christian Selig, who runs a popular third-party browsing app called Apollo, found out about the pricing change on May 31, when a Reddit representative called him. On the call, Selig figured out that he would owe Reddit about $20 million a year. Selig wrote in a post that Reddit is asking developers to pay $12,000 for every 50 million requests. He had 30 days to prepare for the changes or shut down altogether. He determined that he couldn't afford to keep Apollo alive. Selig announced he would shut down his app on June 30, the day before the changes were set to take effect. He emailed a Reddit representative and CEO Steve Huffman, outlining "small concessions that could be made that I think could make Apollo survive this, specifically around the timelines," Selig told CNBC. A Reddit spokesperson pointed CNBC to a recent blog post outlining the company's policies around its API and referenced Huffman's comments during a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything post. "We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private," Huffman said. "We are all responsible for ensuring Reddit provides an open accessible place for people to find community and belonging." Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, delivers remarks on 'Redesigning Reddit' during the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 8, 2017. Horacio Villalobos | Corbis | Getty Images With the Reddit moderator community in an uproar, Huffman reportedly sent a memo to employees on Monday, telling them that, "like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass." He predicted that most subreddits would be back online by Wednesday. The blackout continued through the week. Huffman told NBC News on Thursday that he wants the protests to end soon, but downplayed the significance of their impact on the company, saying that roughly 80% of Reddit's top 5,000 communities are back open. Huffman also said he's looking to change Reddit's moderator policy at an unspecified time so that users would be able to more easily vote out moderators if they disagreed with their decisions. A Reddit spokesperson said that Huffman was only outlining a hypothetical moderator proposal. On Friday, the company posted a message in r/ModCodeofConduct, a community of Reddit moderators, suggesting that if subreddits did not agree to lift the blackout, the company would work to find new moderators. "We are also aware that some members of your mid team have expressed that they want to close your community indefinitely," the post said, adding, "If there are mods here who are willing to work towards reopening this community, we are willing to work with you to process a Top Mod Removal request or reorder the mod team to achieve this goal if mods higher up the list are hindering reopening." While the initial protest was planned for just 48 hours, on Tuesday thousands of subreddits decided to extend their blackouts indefinitely. "No one enjoys this," Croach said. "No one wants to black out. No one revels in this. No one is happy about this. We're doing this because… we love everything about Reddit, and we genuinely feel like not only are these decisions potentially detrimental for the future of the site, but they're also just absolutely unfair to a lot of the people – including the third party developers – who volunteered their time for the site over the years… More than anything, we want a positive, peaceful outcome as quickly as possible, so things can just return to normal." The ripple effects Among the major U.S. internet companies, Reddit is unusual in that it's still private. The 18-year-old company first disclosed plans for an IPO through a confidential filing in late 2021. That was right when the extended bull market was coming to an end and just before Wall Street lost all interest in public listings from cash-burning tech companies. It's not clear at the moment when an IPO could happen. Huffman has "got a lot of decisions to make as he's trying to move the company public," said David DeWald, a community manager for the telecommunications company Ciena and a moderator of the r/Arcade1up subreddit who goes by the username HistorianCM. He said Reddit management likely made the decision to raise the price of its API out of financial necessity. As a private company, Reddit doesn't have to disclose its financials or provide revenue and profit projections. Reddit is an ad-supported business and, in the limited information it's provided to the public, the company said in mid-2021 that quarterly ad revenue hit $100 million for the first time. On Thursday, Huffman told NBC News that the still-unprofitable company's annual revenue is less than $1 billion. For many news publishers, corporate websites and image-sharing services, Reddit is a major driver of traffic because its users share so much content with one another. Shane McCarthy, chief marketing officer of enterprise software vendor Sandboxx, said many CMOs are surprised with how much referral traffic their website can get when one of their products is discussed in a particular Reddit community. Those sites could see a sudden decrease in traffic because of the blackout, McCarthy said, ultimately hurting their search rankings and driving up marketing costs. There are rumblings that it's already happening. The bigger problem for Reddit, according to McCarthy, is that the latest developments may deter new users from signing up, making it a less attractive place for advertisers to run campaigns. And if users delete content or archives in an act of protest, as one Reddit moderator told CNBC some are considering, "there's nothing there anymore," he said. Croach and other subreddit moderators said tensions have long existed between Reddit management and the company's vast network of volunteer contributors. The API charges represent the final straw, as they know the new pricing model doesn't work for some app developers who built tools that they use every day. "You have a lot of people, both professionals and general community members, who are running the numbers on this," Croach said. "A lot of people are kind of getting the same result, which is that the API pricing structure seems to be intentionally unsustainable for these smaller third-party developers." A Reddit user who goes by Meepster23 echoed Croach's views. Meepster23 is a senior moderator of the r/Videos subreddit, which has more than 20 million members. He said that despite Reddit's claim that the changes are about recouping costs, "their pricing seems to be based on revenue, not on cost at all." Following the protests in real time With their communities shut down, many moderators have turned to a subreddit and Discord group called ModCoord to express their frustrations and figure out next steps. ModCoord is made up of moderators of leading subreddits and has served as a way to help organize the community and disseminate information. Although ModCoord has been used for past Reddit protests, it's "not something that the moderators pull out lightly," said a Reddit user named Omar, who helps run the ModCoord subreddit and Discord community, in an interview. Like several moderators who spoke to CNBC, the person asked not to be credited with their full name for fear of online harassment. The community, "isn't under some delusion that we want the API to be free," Omar said, adding that the priority is to make access affordable. Reddark, a website that shows in real time which subreddits have gone private or read only, grew out of a community effort to chart the protests' impact, and now attracts thousands of people visiting the site to watch the actions unfold, the creators told CNBC. Reddark's director, known online as Tanza, called Reddit's API changes "ridiculous," and said many disabled users rely on third-party apps for enhanced accessibility features. A moderator of r/Unexpected, a subreddit with more than 10 million members, said its community was "dependent on third-party apps," adding that moderating communities from mobile devices could be nearly impossible after the changes. Jacqueline Sheeran, known as "MCHammerCurls," is the head moderator of r/Fitness, which has more than 10 million members. She said volunteer moderators are reliant on third-party apps for all sorts of safety features so they can flag key words, phrases and expressions. "There are legitimate health concerns, eating disorders, injuries," she said. "[It's about] trying to make sure that people are staying safe and healthy in their activities while also not being inundated by bots or spam accounts." watch now Although Reddit has promised that its API pricing change wouldn't affect third-party non-commercial accessibility apps or certain moderation tools, many Reddit moderators said that they are hesitant to trust the company. The moderators claim that Reddit has made promises in the past, such as providing them with high-quality internal moderation tools. However, they say Reddit's home-built software wasn't as good as outside services. Leading up to the protests, Dr. Sarah Gilbert, a moderator for the r/AskHistorian subreddit, said she was "kind of hopeful" that Reddit leadership would distinguish the company as one that takes into account the concerns of volunteers in making business decisions. "That would be such a powerful model for Reddit to take on and show," said Gilbert, who studies online communities as part of her work as a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University and research manager at the school's Citizens and Technology Lab. "It would have been a good thing for the social internet that we have for people to feel listened to and comfortable, but I don't know if the turning point is going to come too late or what's going to happen." Gilbert added that Huffman's recent comments about instituting possible policy changes that would let Reddit users more easily remove moderators are "highly concerning for a number of reasons." She said that while on the surface, Huffman's proposed policy changes "seem like it would work well," it's often that "voting alone can have some disastrous effects." "So, there's a real risk that mods are going to get voted out, simply for doing the work of moderation," she said. "In the short term, this means mods may be less likely to do important moderation work that protects their communities but may be unpopular, which will have a downstream effect of more disinformation, more hate, more spam, more harassment and more abuse on Reddit." Reddit user RamsesThePigeon, who moderates multiple subreddits, including r/funny and r/nottheonion, said the company appears to be "standing firm" in its belief that the price hike was the right call. But the conflict isn't helpful for either side, and everyone's time would be better spent "working toward the solution rather than against each other," he said. "I feel like a lot of people don't take the time to consider the other side, whether that's Reddit not considering its moderators and contributors, or the moderators and contributors not considering Reddit," RamsesThePigeon said. Regardless of the outcome, several moderators said that there's been a loss of trust that will be hard to repair. "I'm not certain that there would have been a completely perfect way to handle any of this," RamsesThePigeon said. "No matter what, there is going to be animosity on both sides, and that's just humanity for you." WATCH: The Reddit Revolt watch now

Thoughts: The article discusses Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's perspective on the API changes and his stance on third-party apps. It provides insight into Reddit's position on the issue, which is relevant to understanding the potential for changes to the API fee pricing. Rating: 5

Thousands of Reddit communities are still dark in protest of the API changes that are forcing some third-party developers to shut down their apps. It’s a startling change for many members of the Reddit community, but it’s one that Reddit CEO Steve Huffman tells The Verge that he’s fine with making. Those third-party apps, in his eyes, aren’t adding much value to the platform. Related Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview “So the vast majority of the uses of the API — not [third-party apps like Apollo for Reddit] — the other 98 percent of them, make tools, bots, enhancements to Reddit. That’s what the API is for,” Huffman says. “It was never designed to support third-party apps.” According to Huffman, he “let it exist,” and “I should take the blame for that because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time.” Huffman now takes issue with the third-party apps that are building a business on top of his own. “I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities.” “That’s our business decision, and we’re not undoing that business decision.” I asked him if he felt that Apollo, rif for Reddit, and Sync, which all plan to shut down as a result of the pricing changes, don’t add value to Reddit. “Not as much as they take,” he says. “No way.” “They need to pay for this. That is fair. What our peers have done is banned them entirely. And we said no, you know what, we believe in free markets. You need to cover your costs,” he says. Apollo developer Christian Selig recently did the math for us on The Vergecast, though, and suggested that covering Reddit’s asking price with only 30 days’ notice would have been nigh-impossible. Huffman didn’t have an answer for why the deadline was so short, beyond wanting there to be a deadline. “We’re perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us, including figuring out what the transition period will look like. But I think a deadline forces people, us included, to negotiate that.” I also asked if Huffman truly believes that the blackouts haven’t impacted his decision-making around the API pricing changes at all. “In this case? That’s true,” says Huffman. “That’s our business decision, and we’re not undoing that business decision.” You can read our full interview with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman here. Related Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’ Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit — and why users revolted How Reddit set itself up for a fall While the company does “respect the community’s right to protest” and pledges that it won’t force communities to reopen, Reddit also suggests there’s no need for that; more than 80 percent of the top 5,000 communities by daily active users are now open, according to a fact sheet shared by the company on Thursday. In the fact sheet, Reddit writes that there are more than 100,000 “active communities,” that the company sees 57 million “daily active uniques,” and that there are more than 50,000 daily active moderators. Reddit users have been in revolt after Apollo for Reddit developer Christian Selig revealed at the end of May that he’d be on the hook for $20 million per year under Reddit’s new terms. At the height of the protests last week, more than 8,000 subreddits had gone dark, and even though the protests were only supposed to last from June 12th to June 14th, many have extended their blackouts.

Reddit is facing backlash over its new API pricing, with thousands of communities protesting by going dark. CEO Steve Huffman is standing firm, stating that the changes are necessary for the company's profitability. However, developers and users are outraged, with Apollo for Reddit's Christian Selig facing a potential $20 million annual cost. Despite the protests, Huffman has not indicated any intention to reverse the decision. The situation has led to speculation about Reddit's motives and the impact on third-party apps. Given the widespread discontent, it remains to be seen whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to the proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's stance on the API changes and the potential impact on third-party app developers. It provides insight into the CEO's perspective and the impending implementation date of the pricing policy. Rating: 5

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The Verge that popular third-party app developers have made millions. He doubled down on the API changes that the platform is enforcing next month. "These aren't like side projects or charities. They've made millions," Huffman said. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time. Advertisement The clock is ticking toward July 1, the date that Reddit plans on implementing a change to the pricing policy of its application programming interface. In an interview with The Verge, Steve Huffman, Reddit's CEO, has doubled down on the policy change, which could cost popular third-party apps millions. These third-party apps give users access to the platform's content and communities, and are maintained by independent developers, who can customize the UI experience. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in .

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The Verge that popular third-party app developers have made millions and emphasized the upcoming API changes. The clock is ticking toward July 1, the date that Reddit plans on implementing a change to the pricing policy of its application programming interface. Huffman has doubled down on the policy change, which could cost popular third-party apps millions. These third-party apps give users access to the platform's content and communities and are maintained by independent developers. This has led to widespread discontent and protests from Reddit users and developers.

Thoughts: The article discusses the recent protest and blackout on Reddit due to the new policy of charging third-party apps to access data on the site. It provides insight into the concerns of the Reddit community and the potential impact on content moderation and accessibility. However, it does not provide any information about whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to its proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023, which is the focus of the forecasting question. Rating: 2

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of Reddit discussion forums have gone dark this week to protest a new policy that will charge some third-party apps to access data on the site, leading to worries about content moderation and accessibility. “Reddit is killing third-party applications (and itself),” multiple subreddits wrote in posts seen on the platform’s homepage this week. The new fees are part of broader changes to Reddit’s API, or application programming interface, that the company announced recently. Organizers of the blackout, which began Monday, say Reddit’s changes threaten to end key ways of historically customizing the platform — which relies heavily on the work of volunteer moderators. Subreddit “mods” often use tools outside of the official app to keep their forums free of spam and hateful content, for example, as well as improve accessibility. Nearly 9,000 subreddits went dark this week and more than 4,000 remained dark on Friday, including communities with tens of millions of subscribers like r/music and r/videos — according to a tracker of the boycott. While some returned to their public settings after 48 hours, others say they will stay private indefinitely, until Reddit meets their demands. But Reddit, a subsidiary of New York-based Advance Publications, is not changing course. CEO Steve Huffman says that supporting high-usage third-party developers to access its data is too expensive. The company also notes that the new fees will only apply to eligible apps that require high usage limits, and the majority of API users will not have to pay for access. Here’s what you need to know. WHAT IS API? AND HOW IS REDDIT CHANGING ACCESS TO THIRD-PARTY APPS? In short, an API allows computer programs to communicate with each another. Third parties have used Reddit’s free API access in the past, for example, to request data and build apps that work with the platform. But Reddit announced it would be changing its API access polices earlier this year. Starting July 1, Reddit plans to charge third-party apps requiring higher usage limits. “Running a product like reddit is expensive,” Huffman told The Associated Press, pointing to the millions of dollars Reddit spends on supporting high-usage, third-party apps. “I would like to be a self-sustaining company — it means we’re defensible…. and it that we can endure into the future. So that’s what we’re working towards.” Not all third-party apps will be charged, as the policy is based on usage levels, and some noncommercial, accessibility-focused apps can also continue with free access, the company said. Reddit also noted that API access will remain free for moderator tools and bots. WHY ARE SUBREDDITS PROTESTING THIS CHANGE? Reddit’s API changes have caused outrage — as many Redditors say they are concerned about losing long-used third-party resources. Popular third party apps, including Apollo and Reddit Is Fun, have already announced plans to shut down at the end of the month due to costs of the API changes — with Apollo developer Christian Selig estimating fees would total about $20 million a year. Reddit’s backbone of volunteer moderators who rely on these and similar apps will likely feel the brunt of the impacts, experts note. “While Reddit has promised that moderation tools will not be affected by changes to the API, many moderators rely on third party apps and access to data archives to effectively do their work,” Sarah Gilbert, postdoctoral associate at Cornell University and Citizens and Technology Lab research manager, said in a statement — later pointing to how risks of moderator burnout and essential retention. Gilbert added that API access helps moderators keep communities safe and “more quickly respond to spam, bigotry, and harassment.” Third-party apps are also important for screen readers, she said, as the official Reddit app is not accessible for people who are visually impaired. WHEN WILL THE REDDIT BLACKOUT END? Some subreddits participating in this week’s blackout returned to Reddit in 48 hours, but others say their protest isn’t over. Numerous subreddits have signaled that they planned to stay private until Reddit meets their demands — which include lowering the API charges for high usage, third-party developers so that popular apps can stay alive. But Huffman said he is holding firm. He also said that the subreddits currently participating in the blackout are “not going to stay offline indefinitely” — even if that means finding new moderators. The company’s response to the blackout has fueled further outrage among protest organizers. “We continue to ask reddit to place these changes on pause and explore a real path forward that strikes a balance that is best for the widest range of reddit users,” read a Thursday night post on subreddit dedicated to moderator coordination. Beyond Reddit, Twitter ended free API access earlier this year, in a move that also sparked outrage.

Thoughts: The article provides information about Reddit CEO's stance on the protests and the API changes, including the lack of willingness to make changes to the pricing structure. It also mentions the significant cost implications for a third-party app developer. However, it does not explicitly state whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to its proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023. Rating: 4

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is not backing down amid protests against API changes made by the platform. In interviews with The Verge, NBCNews and NPR, Huffman defended business decisions made by the company to charge third-party apps saying the API wasn’t designed to support these clients. The Reddit co-founder also talked about protesting moderators, changing site rules, and profitability in these interviews. The platform is facing one of the strongest backlashes from the community, but the CEO seemingly doesn’t want to budge. What’s happening at Reddit? In April, Reddit announced that it is going to charge for its API, but didn’t announce any pricing. Earlier this month, Christian Selig, the developer of a popular Reddit client for iOS called Apollo, posted that he had a call with Reddit. API pricing quoted by them could cost him $20 million a year to run the app. Selig later said that, because the social network is not ready to make any changes to the pricing structure, he is forced to shut down Apollo. Other third-party developers of clients like Reddit is Fun and Relay for Reddit also said that they will shut down their apps on June 30. The only exception Reddit made was to allow free access to the API to non-commercial apps providing accessibility features. The company has made deals with apps like RedReader, Dystopia, and Luna and given them exemptions from its “large-scale pricing terms.” Thousands of subreddits went dark starting June 12 to protest those changes — it caused a brief outage as well. Meanwhile, Huffman took a strong stance in his AMA and took a dig at Apollo and Selig. As moderators didn’t see anything changing, many subreddits decided to extend the blackout. Protests and moderators In one of the interviews, Huffman even called protesting moderators “landed gentry.” “If you’re a politician or a business owner, you are accountable to your constituents. So a politician needs to be elected, and a business owner can be fired by its shareholders,” he said. “And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.” He added that he plans to make changes to moderator policies so users can vote them out. Currently, a higher-ranking moderator — or the company — can boot out moderators. Incidentally, a r/Apple moderator posted on Twitter (via 9to5Mac) that Reddit was threatening to remove moderators who are staging an indefinite blackout. Reddit is just digging the hole deeper and deeper. They are essentially threatening moderators of subreddits that are blacking out indefinitely that they will be removed. https://t.co/IeU3inmyf4 pic.twitter.com/HF4t3EO1JS — Aaron (@aaronp613) June 15, 2023 In a blog post published by Reddit, the company links to its Moderator Code of Conduct while saying “Dissent, debate, and discussions are foundational parts of Reddit” and it respects the right to protests. However, the rules state that the company can remove moderators if they are uncooperative. Despite these statements, Huffman said that Reddit wasn’t going to invest in paid moderators within the company or make decisions that centralize power. That indicates that the company is happy to have unpaid moderators monitor and maintain the communities. A study published last year estimated that they spend 466 hours per day on maintaining these communities. It said that if Reddit paid them $20 per hour, it would cost them $3.4 million annually. Third-party apps A major issue in focus during these protests has been the existence of third-party apps. Time and time Reddit has said that it will still offer free access to the data API — and the majority of the apps, like bots, won’t have to pay as they are not commercialized. In the past few weeks, Huffman has talked about commercialization and making Reddit profitable. One of the steps of this process involves charging for the API. In the latest set of interviews, he said that Reddit is “perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us” and talk about giving developers a longer transition period. Huffman’s gripe is that some of these apps make millions every year using Reddit’s data, and the company has to bear infrastructure costs of up to $10 million every year, he told The Verge. He told the publication that he was the person inside the company who was responsible for this policy change that affect these apps. Seemingly, the company has been discussing changes in API rules for years. “[Reddit’s API] was never designed to support third-party apps. We let it exist. And I should take the blame for that because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time. But I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities,” Huffman said. The numbers game On Thursday, Reddit posted a blog post indicating that 80% of the top 5,000 communities in terms of daily active users are now open. Huffman told NPR that protestors are a “small group that’s very upset” and the “greater Reddit community” is participating to support them. He added that, despite these protests causing “a fair amount of trouble,” there wasn’t a significant effect on the company’s revenue. However, reports suggested that some advertisers had paused campaigns during the blackout. The company has been pushing out more ad tools to attract advertisers. On the impact of third-party apps being shut down, Huffman said 97% of people use Reddit’s site or official app to access the platform — the company has a daily active user base of 57 million. The blog post also mentioned that 93% of moderator actions are taken through Reddit’s own tools and the company has promised to add more features to them. The post and Huffman’s comments are trying to indicate that protests are led by only a small set of users and don’t represent the sentiments of a larger user base. While there have been talks about Reddit going public, the CEO is focused on profitability first. He told The Verge that an IPO is “something we’d like to do someday” but there were “a few things I’d like to do with Reddit before we get there.” In response to Huffman’s comments, moderators are trying to find ways to make blackouts effective. Alternatively, some communities are also setting up servers on alternative sites like Lemmy and Kbin.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is standing firm on API changes despite protests. The platform announced plans to charge for API access, sparking backlash from third-party app developers. The developer of Apollo for Reddit, Christian Selig, revealed that the new pricing could cost him $20 million annually, leading to widespread discontent. Huffman has defended the changes, emphasizing the need for profitability. Thousands of subreddits have gone dark in protest, but Huffman has shown no signs of backing down. The company has made exceptions for non-commercial apps, but the majority of third-party developers are facing potential shutdown. Despite the uproar, Huffman has indicated that Reddit is unlikely to make changes to the pricing structure.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing protest and Reddit CEO's response to the blackout, which is a result of the proposed API fee pricing changes. It provides insight into the current situation and the CEO's stance on the matter. Rating: 5

The Washington Post Democracy Dies in Darkness TechHelp Desk Artificial Intelligence Internet Culture Space Tech Policy TechHelp Desk Artificial Intelligence Internet Culture Space Tech Policy Business Reddit CEO compares moderators to aristocracy as blackout stretches on The Reddit logo on a mobile device in 2020. (Tali Arbel/AP) Listen 7 min Share Comment on this story Comment Add to your saved stories Save Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is slamming protesters who have made large parts of the website inaccessible this week, comparing the unpaid volunteer moderators leading the blackout to wealthy land barons. In interviews Thursday, Huffman spoke out for the first time since the mass protest began this week over Reddit’s plans to charge money for third-party apps to gain access to its data. The change prompted several popular third-party apps — including Apollo, Reddit is Fun and Sync — to say they would shut down ahead of the July 1 price increase because they cannot afford to pay millions a year. The company’s move sparked backlash from Reddit moderators and users, who responded by taking down about 9,000 subreddit message boards for 48 hours. Some moderators have indicated their subreddits will remain blacked out indefinitely in protest. Advertisement Huffman, a Reddit founder, has downplayed concerns about the protest action, telling employees in an internal memo Monday that the blackout “will pass” like “all blowups on Reddit,” according to the Verge. Why have many Reddit communities gone private? The blackout, explained. Huffman targeted the moderators leading the blackout in an interview with NBC News on Thursday, saying he was looking to change site policies to allow subreddit users to depose moderators more easily. Reddit spokesman Tim Rathschmidt told The Washington Post on Friday that the comment had been taken out of context and that “Steve did not confirm we are moving in this direction.” Huffman compared the moderators to “landed gentry” and said they were not being held accountable. “If you’re a politician or a business owner, you are accountable to your constituents. So a politician needs to be elected, and a business owner can be fired by its shareholders,” he told NBC. “And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.” Advertisement Huffman also told the Verge that the protests “are not representative of the greater Reddit community.” More than 80 percent of Reddit’s top 5,000 communities remain open on a site with more than 57 million daily users, according to a fact sheet published by the company Thursday. The group of Reddit moderators organizing the blackout on the r/ModCoord subreddit wrote in a post that Huffman’s comments illustrated that “Reddit’s communication has been poor from the very beginning” about its plans to charge for data. “They have attempted to gaslight us that they want to keep third-party apps while they set prices and timelines no developer can meet. The blowback that is happening now is largely because Reddit launched this drastic change with only 30 days notice,” Reddit user BuckRowdy, a moderator of the subreddit coordinating the protest, wrote Thursday. “We continue to ask Reddit to place these changes on pause and explore a real path forward that strikes a balance that is best for the widest range of Reddit users.” Advertisement Reddit spokesman Rathschmidt told The Post that the site has been in touch with “a number of communities to clarify any confusion around our Data [application programming interface] Terms, platform-wide policies, community support resources, and timing for new moderator tools.” “We are not removing moderators who protest, nor are we taking over subreddits for participating in the blackout,” he said, adding: “Redditors want to reddit.” Parts of Reddit are staying dark. Our search results may suffer for it. The blackout is occurring at a crucial time for the social media giant, which was valued at $10 billion when it landed $1 billion in fundraising in August 2021. In April, Fidelity, the lead investor in that fundraising boom, announced that it had slashed its valuation in the company by 41 percent, according to TechCrunch. That same month, Reddit announced that it would start charging third-party sites for API access, framing the move as essential to respond to generative AI companies such as ChatGPT that could scrape sites and potentially duplicate content for nothing in return. Advertisement But the conversation surrounding the move shifted in late May, when Christian Selig, the developer behind Apollo, one of the most popular third-party apps, said Reddit would be charging him an estimated $20 million a year for data access. Third-party apps such as Apollo are often ad-free, meaning the decision by Reddit essentially ended Selig’s business. Share this article Share “I don’t see how this pricing is anything based in reality or remotely reasonable,” Selig wrote May 31. “I hope it goes without saying that I don’t have that kind of money or would even know how to charge it to a credit card.” Selig announced last week that Apollo would shut down June 30 before the pricing change goes into effect. Several other third-party apps followed with similar announcements to close before July 1. “The hurdles placed on third-party apps by Reddit just aren’t a feasible obstacle to overcome,” Tony Lupeski, the developer of ReddPlanet, wrote. Advertisement Since then, Huffman has faced blowback for how the company has handled the decision to charge for data. The rallying cry for the coordinated backlash was consistent: “Don’t Let Reddit Kill 3rd Party Apps!” The blackout even caused Reddit to crash temporarily because the site could not handle all of the subreddits going private. Huffman acknowledged to the Verge that he took a “beating” in an Ask Me Anything post he did on the platform last week in which he defended Reddit’s plans. But he maintains it is not Reddit’s responsibility to help keep third-party apps alive. “It costs a lot of money to run an app like Reddit,” he told NBC. “We support ours through ads. And what we can’t do is subsidize other people’s businesses to run a competitive app for free.” Huffman told NPR that the blackout effort was led by “a small group that’s very upset, and there’s no way around that.” He said that the protest created “a fair amount of trouble” but that it did not cost the company much money. Advertisement “We made a business decision that upset them,” Huffman said. “But I think the greater Reddit community just wants to participate with their fellow community members.” Some moderators say, however, that the problem is much larger than the CEO is making it out to be. Some have said the moderators’ high-level control on the subreddits comes from the hours of free labor they have put into managing the message boards. Reddit user SpicyThunder335, a moderator of six subreddits and the forum coordinating the protest, wrote that more than 300 subreddits “have already announced that they are in it for the long haul, prepared to remain private or otherwise inaccessible indefinitely until Reddit provides an adequate solution.” In his interviews, Huffman said the blackout could be a good thing for a company that will turn 18 years old in the coming days. “I think it’s time we grow up and behave like an adult company,” Huffman told NPR. As the July 1 change approaches, how long the blackout will last is unclear. Reddit user Karmanacht summed up the mission of the moderator group in a few words: “The protest is not currently likely to end very soon.” Share Sign up

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is facing backlash over the company's plans to charge for third-party app access to its data. The move has prompted a mass protest, with more than 8,000 Reddit communities going dark. Huffman has compared the unpaid volunteer moderators leading the blackout to wealthy land barons and downplayed concerns about the protest. However, the protest has caused Reddit to crash temporarily, and some moderators have indicated their subreddits will remain blacked out indefinitely. The blackout is occurring at a crucial time for the social media giant, which was valued at $10 billion when it landed $1 billion in fundraising in August 2021. Huffman has faced blowback for how the company has handled the decision to charge for data, and the blackout has caused significant trouble for the company. Some moderators have said they are prepared to remain private or otherwise inaccessible indefinitely until Reddit provides an adequate solution. As the July 1 change approaches, how long the blackout will last is unclear. The protest is not currently likely to end very soon.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing protest and Reddit CEO's stance on the new policy of charging third-party developers for API access. It provides insight into the company's decision and the impact on third-party developers and users. Rating: 5

WASHINGTON (AP) — If you hopped on Reddit to scroll through your favorite forums this week, you may have encountered “private” or “restricted” messages. That’s because thousands of subreddits chose to go dark in an ongoing protest over the company’s plan to start charging certain third-party developers to access the site’s data. But Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman told The Associated Press he’s not backing off. “Protest and dissent is important,” Huffman said. “The problem with this one is it’s not going to change anything because we made a business decision that we’re not negotiating on.” Organizers of the protest say Reddit’s new policy threatens to end key ways of historically customizing the platform using an API, or application programming interface, which allows computer programs to communicate with each another. Third-party developers rely on API data to create their apps, which offer access to features that are unavailable in the official Reddit app, particularly for content moderation and accessibility aids. But Reddit says that supporting these third-party developers is too expensive and that the new policy is necessary to become a self-sustaining business. READ MORE Wallace Peeples, activist-influencer otherwise known as Wallo267, has memoir out in September Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce earn Webby Award nominations, along with Sydney Sweeney, Ryan Gosling Japan’s royal family makes formal debut on Instagram as world’s oldest monarchy tries to draw youth Reddit has more than 100,000 active subreddits, and nearly 9,000 of them went dark this week. While some returned to their public settings after 48 hours, others say they plan to stay private until Reddit meets their demands, which include lowering third-party developer charges — set to go into effect July 1 — so that popular apps don’t shut down. As of Friday, more than 4,000 subreddits were still participating in the blackout — including communities with tens of millions of subscribers like r/music and r/videos — according to a tracker and live Twitch stream of the boycott. Reddit notes that the vast majority of subreddit communities are still active. And while Huffman maintains that he respects users’ rights to protest, he also says that the subreddits currently participating in the blackout are “not going to stay offline indefinitely” — even if that means finding new moderators. The company’s response to the blackout has fueled further outrage among protest organizers, who accuse Reddit of trying to remove moderators — or “mods” — of subreddits who are protesting this week. Subreddit “mods” are volunteers who often use tools outside of the official app to keep their forums free of spam and hateful content, for example, and many of them are angry with Reddit’s new fees. “A lot of what’s going on here is ... (Reddit) burning goodwill with users. And that’s so much more expensive than trying to collaborate,” said Omar, a moderator of a subreddit participating in this week’s blackout who asked not to be identified by their full name due to safety concerns that have come up while moderating their subreddit. Reddit denies that it is removing moderators for protesting, asserting that it is simply enforcing its code of conduct. “If mods abandon a community, we find new mods. If mods keep private a large community with folks who want to engage, we find new mods who want to reinvigorate it,” the company said in an email. “The rules that allow us to do this are not new and were not developed to limit protests.” Most people visiting Reddit probably don’t think about APIs but access to these third-party resources is critical for moderators to do their jobs, experts note. “Reddit is built on volunteer moderation labor, including the creation and maintenance of many tools,” said Sarah Gilbert, postdoctoral associate at Cornell University and Citizens and Technology Lab research manager, in a statement. “Without Reddit’s volunteer moderators, the site could likely see less helpful content, and more spam, misinformation and hate.” Reddit has pushed back on some of these concerns, saying that 93% of moderator actions are currently taken through desktop and native Reddit apps. Huffman and Reddit management also note that the new fees will only apply to eligible third-party apps that require high usage limits. According to Thursday metrics published by the company, 98% of apps will continue to have free access to the Data API as long as they’re not monetized and remain below Reddit’s data-usage threshold. The company has also promised that moderator tools and bots will continue to have free access to the Data API and has made agreements with some non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps to exempt them from new fees. Still, some moderators say they rely on popular apps that are shutting down over the new costs. Apollo and Reddit Is Fun, for example, have already announced plans to shutter at the end of June. Apollo developer Christian Selig estimated fees would total about $20 million a year. Huffman has pushed back on that estimate and Reddit argues that the upcoming fees for high usage third-party apps — which stand at a rate of 24 cents for 1,000 API calls — is reasonable. With more than 500 million active monthly users globally, Reddit is one of the internet’s top sites. It’s hard to anticipate the total amount of money Reddit will save — and earn — after implementing the new fees. But Huffman says the “pure infrastructure costs” of supporting these apps costs Reddit about $10 million each year. “We can’t subsidize other people’s businesses,” Huffman said. “We didn’t ban third-party apps — we said, ‘You need to cover your costs.’” Reddit’s changes to its API coincide with the San Francisco-based company’s reported plans to go public later this year. While Huffman couldn’t directly address the rumored initial public offering, he underlined the need for Reddit to become self-sustaining. “I think every business has a duty to become profitable eventually — for our employees shareholders, for our investors shareholders and, one day as a public company, hopefully our user shareholders as well,” said Huffman, who co-founded the site in 2005. Reddit first filed for an IPO in 2021, but paused its plans amid a plunge in tech stocks. With eyes on the possibility of a renewed IPO for the second half of 2023, finance experts speculate that the company may be trying to display increased revenue and profitability to investors. “My guess is that they feel strong pressure in advance of the IPO to show that they can generate revenue from other sources,” Luke Stein, a finance professor at Babson College, told The Associated Press, noting that monetizing API could create another avenue for revenue streams, rather than relying on advertising and new users as Reddit has done in the past. Experts also pointed to the significance of Reddit showing a way to charge AI companies that have historically used Reddit data at no cost to develop large-scale and for-profit AI models. Still, the IPO is uncertain and the API changes could have consequences as well. “If they actually manage to make the changes stick, (they could) increase their revenue,” said James Angel, an associated professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “On the other hand, if they alienate their best users, it could cause issues down the road, especially if those users decide to move to other platforms.”

Reddit announced new API pricing in April 2023, sparking backlash from developers and users of third-party apps. The changes could result in substantial costs and potential shutdowns of popular apps. CEO Steve Huffman has remained firm on the changes, emphasizing the need for profitability. This led to widespread discontent and a protest involving over 8,000 Reddit communities going dark. Some communities plan to stay private until Reddit makes changes. The company's stance has escalated user dissatisfaction, with speculation that the changes aim to limit third-party app viability. Given the backlash, it's uncertain whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to the proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing protest and outrage over Reddit's upcoming changes to its API access, which directly relates to the recent announcement of API fee pricing changes by Reddit. It provides details about the impact of the changes and the discontent among users and developers. Rating: 5

WASHINGTON (AP) — If you hopped on Reddit to scroll through your favorite forums this week, you may have encountered “private” or “restricted” messages. That’s because thousands of subreddits chose to go dark in an ongoing protest of some controversial changes announced by the online discussion network. The blackout, which began Monday, emerged out of outrage over Reddit’s upcoming changes to its application programming interface (API) access — notably the company’s plan to start charging high usage third-party apps, who have long-used the Reddit data at no cost to build resources for users not available through the official site or app. Organizers of the protest say that Reddit’s new policy threatens to end key ways of historically customizing the platform, which relies heavily on the volunteer labor of subreddit moderators. Many users currently rely on third-party apps to access features that are unavailable in the official Reddit app, particularly for content moderation and accessibility aids. But Reddit says that supporting these high usage third-party developers is too expensive and that the new policy is necessary to become a self-sustaining business. Despite this week’s blackout, the company says it is not changing its course. “The analogy I like to use for Reddit is, Reddit is a city… and what we’re seeing today is a protest in our city,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The Associated Press. “Protest and dissent is important… The problem with this one is it’s not going to change anything because we made a business decision that we’re not negotiating on.” WATCH: Reddit users go dark in protest of policy that could shut out third-party apps But the blackout is not over, organizers say. Nearly 9,000 subreddits went dark this week. Reddit as a whole currently has more than 100,000 active subreddits. While some returned to their public settings after 48 hours, others say they plan to stay private indefinitely until Reddit meets their demands — which include lowering third-party developer charges, set to go into effect July 1, so that popular apps don’t shut down. As of Friday, more than 4,000 subreddits were still participating in the blackout — including communities with tens of millions of subscribers like r/music and r/videos — according to a tracker and live Twitch stream of the boycott. The vast majority of subreddit communities are still active, Reddit notes. And while Huffman maintains that he respects users’ rights to protest, he also says that the subreddits currently participating in the blackout are “not going to stay offline indefinitely” — even if that means finding new moderators. The company’s response to the blackout has fueled further outrage among protest organizers, most recently after the move to replace moderators of protesting subreddits. “A lot of what’s going on here is… (Reddit) burning goodwill with users. And that’s so much more expensive than trying to collaborate,” Omar, a moderator of a subreddit participating in this week’s blackout, told The Associated Press. Omar asked not to be identified by their full name in this article, due to safety concerns that have come up while moderating their subreddit. Most people visiting Reddit probably don’t think about API, but access to these third-party resources is critical for moderators to do their jobs, experts note. READ MORE: Twitter’s head of trust and safety resigns after criticism from Elon Musk Sarah Gilbert, postdoctoral associate at Cornell University and Citizens and Technology Lab research manager, explains that API access helps moderators keep communities safe and “more quickly respond to spam, bigotry, and harassment.” Third-party apps are also important for screen readers, she said, as the official Reddit app is not accessible for people who are visually impaired. “Reddit is built on volunteer moderation labor, including the creation and maintenance of many tools,” Gilbert said in a statement. “Without Reddit’s volunteer moderators, the site could likely see less helpful content, and more spam, misinformation and hate.” Gilbert and Omar say the new policy could significantly risk moderator burnout and retention. Those consequences may not be immediately felt, they added, and could have an impact on the content seen on Reddit, which calls itself the “front page of the internet.” Reddit has roughly 430 million active monthly users, making it one of the internet’s top sites. “The quality of the content… is going to start to degrade. And it’s not going to be something that we see overnight,” Omar said. “It’s going to be something that we see day over day … And we’re not going to notice it — until it’s too late.” Reddit has pushed back on some of these concerns, saying that 93 percent of mod actions are currently taken through desktop and native Reddit apps. Huffman and Reddit management also note that the new fees will only apply to eligible third-party apps that require high usage limits. According to Thursday metrics published by the company, 98 percent of apps will continue to have free access to the Data API as long as they’re not monetized and remain below Reddit’s data-usage threshold. READ MORE: European Union hits Facebook parent Meta with record $1.3 billion privacy fine The company has also promised that moderator tools and bots will continue to have free access to the Data API and has made agreements with some non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps to exempt them from new fees. Still, some moderators say they rely on popular apps that are shutting down over the new costs. Apollo and Reddit Is Fun, for example, have already announced plans to shutter at the end of June. While Reddit argues that the upcoming fees for high usage third-party apps — which stand at a rate of 24 cents for 1,000 API calls — is reasonable, others strongly disagree. Apollo developer Christian Selig estimated fees would total about $20 million a year, for example. Huffman has pushed back on that estimate, but protest organizers and other developers maintain that fees are unsustainable — calling on Reddit to lower the price so that third-party apps can stay alive. “We understand that Reddit needs to be profitable on some level to exist… We’re not against paying for the API. The prices need to change,” said Omar, who also pointed to the frustration surrounding the quick time frame of learning about the fees. Reddit first announced that it would be updating its API access in April, but didn’t specify the price until May 31, giving developers and moderators barely a month before the July 1 start date. It’s hard to anticipate the total amount of money Reddit will save and earn after implementing charges for high-usage, third-party apps. But Huffman says the “pure infrastructure costs” of supporting these apps costs Reddit about $10 million each year. “We can’t subsidize other people’s businesses,” Huffman said. “We didn’t ban third-party apps — we said, ‘you need to cover your costs’ … We just ask that (these apps) pay the same bills that we need to pay.” Reddit’s changes to its API also arrives as the San Francisco-based company reportedly seeks to go public later this year. While Huffman couldn’t directly address the rumored initial public offering, he underlined the need for Reddit to become self-sustaining. “I think every business has a duty to become profitable eventually — for our employees shareholders, for our investors shareholders and, one day as a public company, hopefully our user shareholders as well,” said Huffman, who co-founded the site in 2005. Reddit first filed for an IPO in 2021, but paused its plans amid a plunge in tech stocks. As eyes on a possible, renewed IPO take shift for the second half of 2023, finance experts speculate that the company may be trying to display increased revenue and profitability to investors. “My guess is that they feel strong pressure in advance of the IPO to show that they can generate revenue from other sources,” Luke Stein, a finance professor at Babson College, told The Associated Press — noting that monetizing API could create another avenue for revenue streams, rather than relying on advertising and new users as Reddit has done in the past. Experts also pointed to the significance of Reddit showing a way to charge AI companies that have historically used Reddit data at no cost to develop large-scale and for-profit AI models. Still, the IPO is uncertain and the API changes could have consequences as well. “If they actually manage to make the changes stick, (they could) increase their revenue. On the other hand, if they alienate their best users, it could cause issues down the road, especially if those users decide to move to other platforms,” said James Angel, an associated professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. He added a big question is “Are there any other platforms that really fit the role that Reddit has?” — pointing to similarities seen on Twitter following Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform last year. Twitter also ended free API access earlier this year, sparking outrage. Stein believes there will be more clarity over the next two weeks — based on seeing if moderation and administration remains strong on popular subreddits after power users are cut off from impacted third-party tools. “If some of the large communities have declining engagement, or have an explosion of spam that’s less effectively moderated, and if it looks like these communities are able to move towards alternative platforms, I think investors are likely to be highly spooked,” Stein said.

Reddit announced new API fee pricing in April 2023, sparking widespread discontent among developers and users of third-party apps. The changes could result in substantial costs and potential shutdowns of popular third-party apps. CEO Steve Huffman has remained resolute, emphasizing the need for the changes. This led to a coordinated protest involving over 8,000 Reddit communities going dark. Some communities have pledged to remain private until Reddit makes changes. The company's stance is perceived as part of a broader effort to increase profitability. The question remains whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to the proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's stance on the changes to third-party apps and the Reddit API. It provides insight into Huffman's perspective and his refusal to reconsider the decision, which is directly related to the controversy surrounding the API fee pricing. Rating: 5

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is continuing his damage control tour, this time via a new interview with The Verge. Despite a large number of subreddits still offline in protest over Reddit’s changes to third-party apps, Huffman is once again doubling down on that decision. This time, his argument is that the Reddit API – which has been used by third-party apps successfully for years – “was never designed to support third-party apps.” I’ll save my full opinion on this for the “9to5Mac’s Take” section below… but I’ll give you the gist of it here: “bullshit.” This story is supported by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that fully integrates five different applications on a single Apple-only platform, allowing businesses and schools to easily and automatically deploy, manage, and protect all their Apple devices. Over 38,000 organizations leverage Mosyle solutions to automate the deployment, management, and security of millions of Apple devices daily. Request a FREE account today and discover how you can put your Apple fleet on auto-pilot at a price point that is hard to believe. Steve Huffman digs in According to Huffman, the “vast majority of the uses of the API” are for “tools, bots, and enhancements to Reddit.” Huffman seemingly believes that third-party apps like Apollo don’t offer any enhancements to the Reddit experience (he’s wrong). The Reddit CEO also places part of the blame on this situation on himself for apparently being the “guy arguing” in favor of third-party apps for years: “So the vast majority of the uses of the API — not [third-party apps like Apollo for Reddit] — the other 98 percent of them, make tools, bots, enhancements to Reddit. That’s what the API is for,” Huffman says. “It was never designed to support third-party apps.” According to Huffman, he “let it exist,” and “I should take the blame for that because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time.” Huffman was supposedly so out of the loop – despite being Reddit’s CEO and apparently arguing in favor of third-party apps – that he didn’t realize “the extent that they were profiting off our API.” “I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities,” he told The Verge. Huffman was then asked whether apps like Apollo, which plans to shut down later this month because of the exorbitant API prices, add “value to Reddit.” In an apparent attempt to further stoke the flame, Huffman replied: “Not as much as they take. No way.” “They need to pay for this. That is fair. What our peers have done is banned them entirely. And we said no, you know what, we believe in free markets. You need to cover your costs,” he said. “That’s our business decision, and we’re not undoing that business decision.” Christian Selig, the developer of the beloved Apollo for Reddit client, estimated that Reddit’s new API structure would come to a total bill of $20 million per year for his app. “Apollo’s price would be approximately $2.50 per month per user, with Reddit’s indicated cost being approximately $0.12 per their own numbers,” Selig has said. Selig has also noted that Reddit’s timeline for implementing these changes is simply unfeasible. “Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days,” he explained last week. The charming Reddit CEO’s response? “Tough luck.” We’re perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us, including figuring out what that transition period will look like. But I think a deadline forces people, us included, to negotiate that. It’s not reasonable to let this… it’s been going on for a very long time. Folks have made millions. These aren’t like side projects or charities, they’ve made millions. What’s next for the subreddits that have gone dark? But while Huffman has publicly painted a picture claiming the ongoing blackouts aren’t affecting Reddit’s business, things happening behind the scenes suggest otherwise. According to @aaronp613 on Twitter, who is one of the moderators of the r/Apple subreddit, Reddit is threatening to remove moderators of subreddits that are blacking out indefinitely. The r/Apple subreddit is one of those subreddits planning to remain dark. In a message sent today, a Reddit admin said: Leaving a community you deeply care for and have nurtured for years is a hard choice, but it is a choice some may need to make if they are no longer interested in moderating that community. If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new, active moderators to keep these spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus, but at least one mod who wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team. In today’s interview with The Verge, however, Huffman said that Reddit “respects the community’s right to protest” and indicated the company will not force subreddits to reopen. 9to5Mac’s Take I highly encourage you to go read The Verge‘s excellent interview with Huffman. It’s a case study of how to further anger the users who generate the content on which your platform is built. Sure, apps like Apollo are successful and lucrative for the developers. But they are (or were) an integral part of the Reddit experience for millions of users. Apollo is the only way millions of people use Reddit. For Huffman to say that apps like Apollo don’t add value to Reddit is moronic. It’s delusional. If this is what Huffman truly believes, he’s out of touch and needs to hand over the reins. There are plenty of people out there who could take control and better communicate these types of changes for Reddit. It truly seems like Huffman woke up on a random Tuesday after a bad night’s sleep and decided on a whim to go nuclear and destroy the businesses of these third-party app developers. And every day since then, he’s woken up and dug his heels in, silenced user feedback, and stuck to his guns. The commitment to the bit is marvelous, I must admit. Sure, Reddit needs to make a profit. Sure, it’s fair to charge third-party apps for access to the API. No one is arguing otherwise. But it’s not fair to extort them and charge astronomically high fees for access to that API. It’s not fair to implement such drastic changes with a 30-day heads-up. My read on this is that Huffman is jealous. He’s jealous that third-party apps have built successful businesses and created user experiences for which people are willing to pay. Reddit, in its 16-year history, hasn’t created a native experience for which the majority of people are willing to pay. If it had, it would be profitable. The fact that Reddit isn’t profitable is not Christian Selig’s fault. It’s Reddit’s fault. And more specifically, it’s Steve Huffman’s fault. Huffman says he only recently became aware of the extent to which people were “profiting” off of Reddit’s API. If true, this is a prime example of what happens when you are reactive instead of proactive. If true, Huffman is a terrible CEO and should step down immediately. In all of Reddit’s push to become profitable, he never once considered a measured approach to charging for access to its API? Huffman’s response to almost every question asked by Jay Peters reeks of spite. Every response has a passive (or not) aggressive undertone. The responses are laced with defensiveness. It’s the behavior of a petulant child. Huffman is trying to imply that third-party apps took advantage of Reddit to build successful businesses on the back of its API, but that’s simply not true. In one part of the interview, Peters asks Huffman to provide a “sense of scale” for how well he believes apps like Apollo are doing in terms of subscribers. The jealousy is palpable: You’re talking to them, go ask them! Millions. He said how many subscribers he has, his price list is public. I have a guess on how many. He’s given a lower number of subscribers, I have another guess that’s higher. But it’s real money. And it costs us real money. It costs us about $10 million in pure infrastructure costs to support these apps. But it’s not labor, that’s not R&D, that’s not safety, that’s not ML, and that doesn’t include the lost monetization of having users not on our platform. Just pure cloud spend. It’s real money. Another beautiful Huffman response comes when asked to elaborate on his belief that Apollo is a “fully direct competitor of Reddit.” Try not to cringe while reading this one: Okay, hold on, timeout. You go to the App Store, you type in Reddit, you get two options, right? There’s Apollo. You go to one, it’s my business, and you look at our ads, use our products. That’s 95 percent of our iOS users. The rest go to Apollo, which uses our logo, or something like it, takes our data — for free — and resells it to users making a 100 percent margin. And instead of using our app, they use that app. Is that not competitive? If there is one tiny, minuscule bright spot in Huffman’s interview, it’s this: The third-party apps, if I were to describe their UI in one word, in comparison to ours, they’re simpler. I appreciate that. I like that. We’re making our own app simpler as well, because I think it has gotten too cluttered. Steve, we agree on this one. The Reddit app is terrible and cluttered. For iPhone and iPad users, the design language is jarring and unintuitive. Apollo, meanwhile, offers an interface that’s easy to navigate and less cluttered. But it also exemplifies what so many users want and expect from a top-tier app. Reddit’s native app becoming less cluttered would be a very small step in the right direction. But I don’t see a world in which Reddit ever matches what Apollo offers in terms of navigation, gestures, media playback, versatility, customization, and so much more. And keep in mind: Apollo is developed by one person. Reddit is a multibillion-dollar (unprofitable) company. One more thing. Throughout the interview, Huffman repeatedly says that Reddit is “willing to work with the apps that are willing to work with us.” But that offer only seems to apply if you agree to the imminent deadline, agree to the as-proposed API pricing, and agree to not ask for any changes or further clarification. Otherwise, Reddit’s CEO might publicly and privately accuse you of “threatening and blackmailing the company.” At this point, if Reddit reversed its decisions or made the API pricing more reasonable, I would not blame developers like Christian Selig for throwing in the towel anyways. What it comes down to is this: Reddit wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It doesn’t want to subsidize businesses like Apollo for free. Fine, totally fair. But it also wants to build a platform on which all content is generated for free by the user. And moderated largely by volunteers who do that work for free. Is that a platform that developers and content creators should rely on? I won’t use Reddit without Apollo. I especially won’t use Reddit without Apollo after everything that’s unfolded over the last three weeks. Quite frankly, I don’t want to give Reddit or Steve Huffman a dime. As of Thursday, Reddit says that “more than 80% of our top 5,000 communities (by daily active users) are open.” In other words, one out of every five subreddits you try to visit will probably be offline. Excellent work, team. Great user experience. 5 stars. 10/10 would visit your website again. Follow Chance: Twitter, Instagram, and Mastodon Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is facing backlash over the platform's new API fee pricing. Despite widespread protests and subreddits going offline, Huffman is standing firm, claiming the API was never meant for third-party apps. Developers like Christian Selig, creator of Apollo for Reddit, are facing exorbitant costs under the new terms, leading to widespread discontent. Huffman's refusal to budge has sparked speculation about Reddit's motives and user migration to the official app. The situation has escalated to the point where some subreddits are planning to remain private indefinitely. Given the intense backlash, it's likely that Reddit will announce changes or a delay to its proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing user protests and CEO Steve Huffman's stance on the API pricing changes, which directly relates to the controversy surrounding Reddit's API fee pricing. It provides insight into the current situation and Huffman's position on the matter. Rating: 5

Tech / Interview / Apps Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview / We spoke with Huffman for nearly 30 minutes about the platform’s API changes and ongoing user protests. Share this story Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge | Photo by Greg Doherty / Variety via Getty Images Reddit is fighting for its soul. Many users are in revolt over API pricing changes that will shut down some of the most popular third-party Reddit apps, and they’re furious at CEO Steve Huffman after last week’s AMA that made it clear the platform wouldn’t budge. Huffman has argued the changes are a business decision to force AI companies training on Reddit’s data to pony up, but they’re also wiping out some beloved Reddit apps, and thousands of subreddits have gone dark for days in protest. On Thursday, Reddit offered me an interview with Huffman (who goes by u/spez on Reddit). I’ve already published one story from my conversation about how Reddit was apparently never designed to support third-party apps. But here is a lightly edited transcript of the entire interview — which, at times, was contentious. Steve Huffman: One of the most important points I’d like to make today is that Reddit is a platform built by its users. My favorite analogy for Reddit is that of a city. Cities are physical things, but they’re really these living organisms created by their citizens. I think Reddit is very much the same. We’re a platform and tech company on one hand, but on the other it’s a living organism, this democratic living organism, created by its users. Those democratic values run deep at Reddit. Every once in a while in cities, there’s a protest. And I think that’s what we’re seeing exactly right now. We, even in disagreement, we appreciate that users can care enough to protest on Reddit, can protest on Reddit, and then our platform is really resilient enough to survive these things. I’ll turn it over to you to jump into the details. But big picture, that’s how we look at this moment. Jay Peters: What I’m reading [from a fact sheet published Thursday] is that it seems Reddit is saying the blackouts didn’t have much impact on your decision making. Is that the case? In this case? That’s true. We’ve had blackouts in previous times where there’s a little more room for movement. But the core of this one is the API pricing change. That’s our business decision. And we’re not undoing that business decision. And we were clear about that going into this, which is was one of the reasons why I think our users probably are annoyed at this blackout, because there wasn’t anything to gain. We were also clear that we were willing to work with the apps that are willing to work with us, and that’s not changed. Now the two biggest, they threw in the towel. That was unexpected, but we’re still talking to the others. And, you know, we’ll see where that goes. “They threw in the towel.” Before the blackout, we were trying to be as clear as possible that the mod tools were not affected. That’s a common thing that’s been thrown around; the mod tools are not affected. The accessibility apps have access, we’ve got deals now with three of them — RedReader, Dystopia, and Luna — and the vast majority of our API users are within our free limits. And Pushshift is coming back online for mods. So I think most of the stuff that mods wanted, and day to day users wanted, are there. What’s not happening is us continuing to subsidize businesses built on taking our data for free. That’s not changing. You said that two threw in the towel: that’s Apollo, and which other? RIF. And I think Sync said they’re shutting down as well, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah, they did. [Apollo developer] Christian Selig said that Reddit told him in January that there’ll be no API changes coming this year. When did that shift? When did Reddit decide to make these changes? And what was the impetus? Well, we’ve been talking about this forever. I think one of the ironies is I was probably the only guy at Reddit defending these apps for a long time. But the impetus for these changes is like, we took a close look at our data, our API usage, where it’s going, how much it costs, and it’s just not sustainable. And so we told them that back in April, that changes were coming, that they’re going to have to pay to cover their costs. Which actually, I think he and others accepted. You know, we’ve had a lot of conversations with him and others privately, one on one, and some on the site. What they didn’t like is the price, but the price is the price. It just happens to be expensive to run an app like Reddit. Why are folks being kind of rushed to do this? My understanding is from the April announcement that the prices weren’t actually set yet, and Christian and others didn’t really have an understanding of the costs until the end of May. Why wait so long to roll out the prices to them, and why hold to this month long deadline, instead of a little bit more breathing room for some developers to adapt? We’re perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us, including figuring out what that transition period will look like. But I think a deadline forces people, us included, to negotiate that. It’s not reasonable to let this... it’s been going on for a very long time. Folks have made millions. These aren’t like side projects or charities, they’ve made millions. One is owned by an ad network. They have no contract with us. Our peers just turn them off. Reddit’s the only company that allows these sort of competitive products to exist, and we’ll allow them to continue to exist if it’s fair, if they’re on equal footing, which is paying for their data in the same way that we have to. And like I said, we’re still talking to the others. And we’ll see where that goes. It seems like a lot of these folks are smaller — maybe one person — and they’re just being forced to shut down. Are those the folks that are making millions? The ones we’ve talked about today, yes. Once they’ve thrown in the towel, they’re doing quite well. Can you give any sense of scale, how well they’re doing? You’re talking to them, go ask them! Millions. He said how many subscribers he has, his price list is public. [Selig did not deny the “millions” claim when reached for comment.] I have a guess on how many. He’s given a lower number of subscribers, I have another guess that’s higher. But it’s real money. And it costs us real money. It costs us about $10 million in pure infrastructure costs to support these apps. But it’s not labor, that’s not R&D, that’s not safety, that’s not ML, and that doesn’t include the lost monetization of having users not on our platform. Just pure cloud spend. It’s real money. In April, you spoke to The New York Times about how these changes are also a way for Reddit to monetize off the AI companies that are using Reddit data to train their models. Is that still a primary consideration here too, or is this more about making the money back that you’re spending on supporting these third party apps? What they have in common is we’re not going to subsidize other people’s businesses for free. But financially, they’re not related. The API usage is about covering costs and data licensing is a new potential business for us. Have you talked to the big AI companies about the changes? How have they taken to them? We’re in talks with them. How are those talks going? We’re in talks with them. I know Reddit filed confidentially for an IPO in December 2021. How’s that process going, and are these changes in service of assisting with that process in some way? You may notice there’s not a lot of companies going public right now. It’s something we’d like to do someday. I don’t know when the market will be more conducive to that, and there’s a few things I’d like to do with Reddit before we get there. I’d like to get there for a variety of reasons, which we can get into if you’re interested, but whether we go public or not is separate from building a sustainable business or building a business that can stand on its own two feet. I love our investors, but I don’t like depending on investors, and financial security is security. And look, I want to do that for our employees. I want to do that for investors. And one day I hope to count our users among our investors, but getting to breakeven is a priority for us in any climate. You want to bring the company financial security: is that $10 million going to make a big difference in Reddit’s costs to get to that breakeven and profitability point? We try to be efficient in every aspect of our business. As it happens, we also announced layoffs last week. For us, that’s even a more painful change. And look, there are lots of efficiencies all over our business to be gained. This is a big one, right? Giving a 100-percent free subsidy to competitors is not a good business strategy. Isn’t there a way you could at least give them longer and work a little bit more closely on negotiable terms for folks like Apollo or Sync or RIF? Some of their users are, I’m sure, power users of Reddit and want to see them succeed. I said we are working with everybody who is willing to work with us, which includes many of the other third party apps. The three you mentioned said they don’t want to work with us and they’re shutting down. I didn’t tell them to do that. We have had many conversations — well, not with RIF, he never wanted to talk to us — but with the others, we were having such conversations, and we’ll work with the others. A deadline is important, otherwise these things just linger and linger and linger. We see companies like Google or Apple giving, you know, three months, six months, a year for these sorts of deadlines. Tell me, which companies were Google and Apple subsidizing for 10 years that you’re thinking of? They weren’t subsidizing, but they work with their developers. They need apps for their platforms as well. Was there like a Google clone out there where they take all of Google’s data and run their own ads on it, that Google let survive for 10 years? Does that exist? Another app store that Apple allows to exist? I don’t know if I agree with the characterization that Apollo is a fully direct competitor of Reddit. Okay, hold on, timeout. You go to the App Store, you type in Reddit, you get two options, right? There’s Apollo. You go to one, it’s my business, and you look at our ads, use our products. That’s 95 percent of our iOS users. The rest go to Apollo, which uses our logo, or something like it, takes our data — for free — and resells it to users making a 100 percent margin. And instead of using our app, they use that app. Is that not competitive? I see it’s competitive, but Reddit offered these tools. Clearly there was an interest to work with third party developers at some point to build versions of the platform they wanted. We offer the API so the vast majority of our use of the uses of the API — so not these, the other 98 percent of them that make tools, bots, enhancements for Reddit — that’s what the API is for. “It was never designed to support third-party apps.” It was never designed to support third-party apps. We let it exist. And I should take the blame for that, because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time. But I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities. The ones that actually are doing good for our users — RedReader, Dystopia, Luna — like actually adding real value at their own cost? We’ve exempted. We’ll carry that cost. I want to stop you for a second there. So you’re saying that Apollo, RIF, Sync, they don’t add value to Reddit? Not as much as they take. No way. There’s not even a scenario where those apps pay for their data? That’s all I’m asking. We pay for our data, we pay for our hosting, they need to pay for theirs. That is fair. What our peers have done is banned them entirely. And we said no, you know what, we believe in free markets. You need to cover your costs. When you say peers, who are you referring to there? Facebook, Twitter, Snap. Other social media. You mentioned these changes have been in discussion for a long time. How long are you thinking? I know April is when we started doing public comms, and more regular private comms. Within the company? For as long as I can remember. Since you came back to Reddit in 2015? Yes. If the discussions have been going on for that long, why this exact moment in time, and why such a short deadline? Why any moment in time? We did it when we did it. We could do it a year from now and we’d probably have the same conversation. We could do it five years ago, we’d be having the same conversation. I guess what I still don’t quite understand is, if this has been thought about for a long time, is the goal just to meet this deadline and move on? Like just turn a new leaf from there? We don’t have to meet our deadline. We told folks hey, we need to come up with a plan, or we’re going to start billing you on July 1st. Anna Soellner, Reddit VP of Comms: I feel like you’ve been asking the same question over and over again. Steve Huffman: We say we work with people who want to work with us; you’re spending a lot of time with the one guy who doesn’t want to work with us. “That’s what this is about. It can’t be free.” I know I’m focusing a lot on that, but that’s where a lot of the protests in the community are focused. People appear to really love these apps. And, apparently, they think Reddit itself is not offering the experience they’re looking for. People talk about leaving the platform because they can’t use these apps. So if Reddit is going to shut down these apps, you’re going to lose people who loved Reddit, and that still doesn’t quite make sense. So I guess I’m wondering why hasn’t there been... 90-plus percent of Reddit users are on our platform, contributing, and are monetized either through ads or Reddit Premium. Why would we subsidize this small group? Why would we effectively pay them to use Reddit but not everybody else who also contributes to Reddit? Does that make sense? These people who are mad, they’re mad because they used to get something for free, and now it’s going to be not free. And that free comes at the expense of our other users and our business. That’s what this is about. It can’t be free. Do you imagine there are going to be other third party apps after these API changes? What do you see the future of third-party apps looking like? We’ll see. We’ll see. Like we try to charge so it works out to about $1 per user per month for reasonable API usage. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. That’s far cheaper than Premium, it’s far cheaper than what people are willing to pay. It’s less than what most third-party apps charge their users. So I think it’s workable. We’ll see where it goes. Now, some of these apps have to change business models, and so that’s more complex. Tim Rathschmidt, Reddit’s director of consumer and product communications: An angle no one else has been writing about is the desire and frustration with users that want their communities back. Especially being vocal about it. That’s just not something that’s really been covered. Steve Huffman: The blackouts are not representative of the greater Reddit community. Users may have been for this on Monday, they’re not for it now. How widely are you seeing that sentiment? If I go on r/all right now, at least as of about an hour ago, four of the five top posts are all about these blackouts. [Note: As I am working on this transcript, about three hours after my conversation with Huffman, those four posts are much farther down r/all. The highest of them is now ranked #13, instead of #2, 3, 4, and 5.] Let me see. Oh, you mean these posts that have no comments? Those ones? They’re highly upvoted by their communities. If there were comments on there, I bet I can tell you what those comments would say. They would say “knock this off, it’s annoying.” Because if you go to the other posts where comments are enabled, that’s what people are saying. That can’t be everywhere though, right? [Where people might be annoyed that a subreddit is still closed.] We can do this together. Let’s find one. We’re going to have to scroll for a while. I know there are examples [of subreddits where people are happy they’re open] in the fact sheet... Find a comment thread on a normal subreddit where the users aren’t saying this is annoying. You can do that offline. But that is the vibe on Reddit right now. It’s not even universal among mods. We’re talking to them. That’s what we’ve been doing all week. A lot of our mods don’t want to be dealing with this. I get it. Like, earlier this week, maybe it was different. “We don’t have problems with protests.” And we allow the protests. We don’t have problems with protests. I think it’s important. That’s part of the democracy. It’s part of the democratic part of Reddit. But the users are not in support of it now. It’s like a protest in a city that goes on too long, and the rest of the citizens of the city would like to go about their lives. I’m sure people are not as supportive of it as they might have been earlier in the week, because it has obviously been a huge inconvenience to using Reddit on a day-to-day basis. But how can we prove that, broadly, users are not in support of the Reddit protests when some of the top upvoted posts are protest posts? If comments were on for those posts... there’s a reason why they’re not allowing comments. That is a very un-Reddit thing to do. We don’t do that. I do my AMA. I take my beating. In that AMA... People were pissed. They were not happy. Yeah. And we took it. I would have a complete 180 different attitude if these posts had comments turn on. If the communities that were dissenting allowed dissent. You and I can argue about what we think they say. The reality is, the conversation is stifled in those areas and only those areas right now. What would you say to folks who do still support protests and want to see change? They’re not seeing that change. They’ll see a change. We made improvements to this whole thing. We exempted the critical apps. Pushshift, we made a deal with them. We found accessibility apps, did deals with them. Our mod roadmap is unchanged and aggressive. It’s just as aggressive right? We’re shipping the important stuff this month. We’ve given ourselves our own deadline there. And we’ve been hard at work at that for years. The third-party apps, if I were to describe their UI in one word, in comparison to ours, they’re simpler. I appreciate that. I like that. We’re making our own app simpler as well, because I think it has gotten too cluttered. So I accept the criticism. This is not about that, right? People have had their preferences. They liked those apps. They liked the tools. All of those things can be true. And also, we can make a business decision. We will close those gaps as effectively as we can. I’d like to see some of the third party apps figure out a sustainable business model. We’ll see if they do. Correction June 16th, 1:07AM ET: We incorrectly transcribed Huffman saying that Selig was probably the only person on Reddit defending third-party apps. Huffman actually said that he (Huffman) was probably the only person at Reddit defending them. We regret the error. Most Popular Most Popular The Matrix is coming back for a fifth movie WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook are back up and running after outages The App Store was down, along with Apple TV, Apple Podcasts, and Apple Music Huberman fans aren’t leaving the show behind Spotify’s price is reportedly going up again Verge Deals / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox weekly. 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Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has faced backlash over API pricing changes that will impact third-party Reddit apps. Despite protests and community blackouts, Huffman has remained firm on the changes, emphasizing the need to cover costs. The company has exempted critical apps and made deals with others, but some developers are still facing substantial costs. Huffman's stance has led to widespread discontent, with users expressing frustration and threatening to leave the platform. The company's resolute approach suggests that Reddit may not announce changes or a delay to the proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.

Thoughts: The article discusses Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's stance on the API changes and the potential impact on third-party app developers. It provides insight into the CEO's perspective and the impending implementation date of the pricing policy. Rating: 5

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The Verge that popular third-party app developers have made millions. He doubled down on the API changes that the platform is enforcing next month. "These aren't like side projects or charities. They've made millions," Huffman said. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time. Advertisement The clock is ticking toward July 1, the date that Reddit plans on implementing a change to the pricing policy of its application programming interface. In an interview with The Verge, Steve Huffman, Reddit's CEO, has doubled down on the policy change, which could cost popular third-party apps millions. These third-party apps give users access to the platform's content and communities, and are maintained by independent developers, who can customize the UI experience. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in .

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The Verge that popular third-party app developers have made millions and emphasized the upcoming API changes. The clock is ticking toward July 1, the date that Reddit plans on implementing a change to the pricing policy of its application programming interface. Huffman has doubled down on the policy change, which could cost popular third-party apps millions. These third-party apps give users access to the platform's content and communities and are maintained by independent developers. This has led to widespread discontent and protests from Reddit users and developers.

Thoughts: The article provides information about the ongoing protest and the impact of Reddit's API pricing changes on third-party apps. It discusses the potential shutdown of popular third-party apps and the company's plan to implement the pricing system on July 1. It also highlights the dissatisfaction among volunteer moderators and the impact on communal goodwill. Rating: 5

Over 8,400 subreddits went dark from June 12 through June 14 to protest new API pricing that is about to shutter many third-party Reddit apps. But now that the biggest uprising in Reddit history is slowing, what's next for Reddit? Despite weeks of heated debate, Reddit still plans to begin its API pricing system on July 1. The social media company has until now provided free API access, but—after claiming it didn't want AI chatbots to profit off Reddit's content for free—it announced pricing changes so dramatic that popular third-party Reddit app Apollo faced a $20 million annual bill. Apollo now plans to close ahead of the API changes; so do other third-party apps. With the blackout over on many subreddits, Reddit is banking on the outrage passing. But Reddit—once a thriving, distinct community—has depleted significant communal goodwill in this battle. Volunteer moderators remain apprehensive of a future without third-party apps, and thousands of subreddits still aren't public again. Reddit will try to grow revenue off a community whose most dedicated members remain anxious. The war continues Reddit's sudden rollout of high prices is a needlessly painful way of reminding the community who makes the rules, but Reddit has always had the right to make money off the platform it built. No one can stop Reddit from charging what it wants or boxing out third-party apps. But because Reddit is built on user-generated content, volunteer moderators, and thousands of unique and almost totally self-governed communities, it doesn't get to decide when the war is over. The argument will continue indefinitely—and for hundreds of subreddits, so will the blackouts. (Reddit declined to comment about the continuing protests to Ars Technica.) Advertisement A post on the r/ModCoord subreddit says that over 300 subreddits will "remain private or otherwise inaccessible indefinitely until Reddit provides an adequate solution." Included subreddits include high-trafficked communities like r/aww (34.1 million subscribers) and r/music (32.3 million). The number of subreddits still dark as of this writing, though, is much larger. According to the Reddark counter on Twitch, around 5,200 subreddits are still dark (about 60 percent of the number of subreddits that promised to join the original protest). This number is steadily declining, however. "More is needed for Reddit to act," the June 13 post on r/ModCoord says. For subreddits with difficulties going private due to the social value of their subject matter (such as r/StopDrinking), the post suggests "a weekly gesture of support" like "a weekly one-day blackout, an automod-posted sticky announcement" or "a changed subreddit rule to encourage participation themed around the protest." The same community that built Reddit is now weaponizing its unity in its fight against Reddit. Protestors are using Reddit to organize protests against Reddit. And they're using Reddit to share images illustrating how bad they think the platform will become.

Over 8,400 subreddits protested new API pricing from June 12-14, which could shut down many third-party Reddit apps. Despite the uproar, Reddit plans to implement the pricing on July 1. The company's move has strained its relationship with volunteer moderators and the community. Over 300 subreddits, including popular ones like r/aww and r/music, remain inaccessible. The ongoing protests suggest that Reddit may face continued resistance. The company's CEO remains firm on the changes, but the discontent within the community may force Reddit to reconsider or delay the implementation of the new API fee pricing.

Thoughts: The article discusses the ongoing blackout of more than 5,000 subreddits in protest of the changes to Reddit's API pricing policies. It provides information about the original end date of the blackout, the number of subreddits remaining dark, and the lack of a central organizing group for the blackout. It also briefly mentions the new changes to the API pricing, which is the central focus of the forecasting question. Rating: 4

Share to Linkedin Topline More than 5,000 subreddits have continued staying dark in protest of incoming changes to Reddit’s API pricing policies—despite dwindling participation and concern from users that the protest will not be effective. Subreddit blackouts have continued past their original end dates. (Photo Illustration by Rafael ... [+] Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Key Facts The Reddit blackout was initially set to end Wednesday for most subreddits, but more than 5,000 of the 8,000 that were down earlier this week have remained dark. The blackout does not have a central organizing group—the lack of which may contribute to differing blackout timelines. Under the new changes, third-party app developers that require high usage limits will be charged $0.24 for every 1,000 API calls, which enable applications to request data or services from a separate application—an integral process to services provided by third-party apps. Third-party apps like Apollo and Reddit is Fun plan to shut down their services on June 30 as a result of the changes—citing costs of up to $20 million if they were to keep their services running with the planned API changes. Despite thousands of subreddits staying dark, some Reddit users are saying the protest’s strategy is flawed, while others have said extending the blackout will only affect users and not Reddit itself. Reddit declined to comment on the continuation of the blackout. Key Background At the peak of the blackout, more than 8,000 subreddits went dark in support of the API protest—though Reddit told Forbes earlier this week it was not “planning any changes to the API updates” they previously announced. Before the protest was planned to end Wednesday for most subreddits, The Verge published an internal company memo from Reddit that informed employees the blackout would pass and was not having a significant impact on revenue—a development that became one of the primary motivations behind an indefinite blackout for many subreddits. The changes were first announced in April, and by this month, popular subreddits like r/music, r/sports, r/gaming and many more participated in a blackout that either restricted or completely stopped followers of their pages from interacting with them. Contra Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman addressed the API changes in an ill-received post last week. He cited Reddit’s need to keep operating as a self-sustaining business as the reason for the API changes, saying, “we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use.” Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told Forbes on Tuesday that the API call pricing was based on usage levels comparable to the company’s own costs. Further Reading Reddit Stands By Controversial API Changes As Subreddit Protest Continues (Forbes) Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’ (The Verge)

More than 5,000 subreddits remain dark in protest of Reddit's new API pricing policies, despite concerns about the protest's effectiveness. The blackout, initially set to end Wednesday, has continued indefinitely. The changes will charge third-party app developers $0.24 for every 1,000 API calls, leading to potential shutdowns for apps like Apollo and Reddit is Fun. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has defended the changes, citing the need for the company to be self-sustaining. The protest has sparked widespread discontent among users, but Reddit has not indicated any plans to alter the new API fee pricing.

Thoughts: The article discusses Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's perspective on the API changes and his stance on third-party apps. It provides insight into Reddit's position on the issue, which is relevant to understanding the potential for changes to the API fee pricing. Rating: 5

Thousands of Reddit communities are still dark in protest of the API changes that are forcing some third-party developers to shut down their apps. It’s a startling change for many members of the Reddit community, but it’s one that Reddit CEO Steve Huffman tells The Verge that he’s fine with making. Those third-party apps, in his eyes, aren’t adding much value to the platform. Related Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview “So the vast majority of the uses of the API — not [third-party apps like Apollo for Reddit] — the other 98 percent of them, make tools, bots, enhancements to Reddit. That’s what the API is for,” Huffman says. “It was never designed to support third-party apps.” According to Huffman, he “let it exist,” and “I should take the blame for that because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time.” Huffman now takes issue with the third-party apps that are building a business on top of his own. “I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities.” “That’s our business decision, and we’re not undoing that business decision.” I asked him if he felt that Apollo, rif for Reddit, and Sync, which all plan to shut down as a result of the pricing changes, don’t add value to Reddit. “Not as much as they take,” he says. “No way.” “They need to pay for this. That is fair. What our peers have done is banned them entirely. And we said no, you know what, we believe in free markets. You need to cover your costs,” he says. Apollo developer Christian Selig recently did the math for us on The Vergecast, though, and suggested that covering Reddit’s asking price with only 30 days’ notice would have been nigh-impossible. Huffman didn’t have an answer for why the deadline was so short, beyond wanting there to be a deadline. “We’re perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us, including figuring out what the transition period will look like. But I think a deadline forces people, us included, to negotiate that.” I also asked if Huffman truly believes that the blackouts haven’t impacted his decision-making around the API pricing changes at all. “In this case? That’s true,” says Huffman. “That’s our business decision, and we’re not undoing that business decision.” You can read our full interview with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman here. Related Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’ Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit — and why users revolted How Reddit set itself up for a fall While the company does “respect the community’s right to protest” and pledges that it won’t force communities to reopen, Reddit also suggests there’s no need for that; more than 80 percent of the top 5,000 communities by daily active users are now open, according to a fact sheet shared by the company on Thursday. In the fact sheet, Reddit writes that there are more than 100,000 “active communities,” that the company sees 57 million “daily active uniques,” and that there are more than 50,000 daily active moderators. Reddit users have been in revolt after Apollo for Reddit developer Christian Selig revealed at the end of May that he’d be on the hook for $20 million per year under Reddit’s new terms. At the height of the protests last week, more than 8,000 subreddits had gone dark, and even though the protests were only supposed to last from June 12th to June 14th, many have extended their blackouts.

Reddit is facing backlash over its new API pricing, with thousands of communities protesting by going dark. CEO Steve Huffman is standing firm, stating that the changes are necessary for the company's profitability. However, developers and users are outraged, with Apollo for Reddit's Christian Selig facing a potential $20 million annual cost. Despite the protests, Huffman has not indicated any intention to reverse the decision. The situation has led to speculation about Reddit's motives and the impact on third-party apps. Given the widespread discontent, it remains to be seen whether Reddit will announce changes or a delay to the proposed API fee pricing before July 1, 2023.