Why would Reddit push users away from their app shortly before announcing API changes?
I can’t wrap my head around this, it seems so bizarre. The only reason I’m here now is because I joined Apollo right after Reddit changed its app to remove the sort by rising feature. It completely changed my experience on the app for the worse and I sought out an alternative, and I know I’m not the only one that had this complaint. I was a faithful Reddit user/poster on the official app for 6 years until just a few months ago. Why would they make their app less user friendly a few months before announcing the crazy API changes. They drove me away from their app and then drove me away from the site altogether.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? It just makes no sense to me
Because reddit is run by a bunch of greedy losers who want to go public, pump, dump, and fuck off to wherever the next Little Saint James is.
You will enjoy the experience the way we intend.
Counter to what many will want you to believe, I think there may be a business case to what they’re doing… but how they’re doing it is completely dumb.
Imagine you run Reddit. You’ve got 15+ years of history and baggage (I.E. those of us who knew which sub /u/spez moderated). You’ve got handful of loyal users that have been very resistant to changes. They’ve been vocal about the new UI where you can spam ads. They’ve been vocal against chat in favor of legacy PM. But you’ve got no way to convert them to the new and shiny features which helps you monetize better that you’d want to focus more effort on.
So what do you do? You sunset older interfaces like the i.reddit.com / .mobile interface. You cripple old reddit. You don’t give new features to the API. You continue to build your new site and acquire new users who’s entire experience had been the new system with nothing to compare to. Old users resistant to change will either be forced to convert or leave… until eventually you get only users in the new system.
Killing the API and third party apps is just a very aggressive step. They’re pruning their old user base for the new.
Is it the best way? Heck no. The older users are active contributors. Their solution aren’t up to speed yet. And they’ve literally thrown decade+ of goodwill down the toilet. But, they have metrics, and I’m sure their bean counters have guaranteed their leadership that they will survive… and they almost certainly will. Just look at Twitter still limping along despite the mass exodus. Just like Digg before Reddit, Reddit will survive and continue to exist. It will be very different than what you and I are used to both in terms of look and feel, functionalities, and communities. But it will survive.
I don’t think I would’ve approached it the same way. But maybe that’s why I’m not rich and running big companies. 🤷♂️
FWIW, Reddit had a revenue sharing deal with rif, at the very least. Apparently when spez returned as CEO he shut it down.
Let's be real: almost all of the subs' mods caved when they were threatened with loss of their precious power. A bunch of subs have been operating as business as usual this whole time. Give it a month, and scabs leading apathetic users (many of whom are children) will have settled the ruins and filled in the cracks.
Yes, after those of us who cares leaves, the gaps will be filled quickly, and eventually our existence wiped from the platform. This is why it is even more important for mods to re-open and direct the community to their new destinations, while maintaining the narrative while they still have the platform to do so. That window is rapidly closing, and I think by now it is clear Reddit Inc will not change their stance, no matter the public outcry and pressure.
A lot of the reopenings were decided with a user vote. I do think though that the people prepared to move on weren't around for the vote, so it skewed towards those who didn't care about the API drama.
I know /r/RPG wants more users to vote than they have any chance of getting before they'll consider further closures, and /r/Minecraft wanted to respect the users that voted, but caved as soon as the admins said they'd be removed, despite the poll.
I really just think they didn't want the API user base anymore. They want a tightly controlled ecosystem of vanilla content by vanilla users to sell to vanilla investors. TLDR they sold out, and the fact that we've moved on so quickly means we were ready to move on anyway.
To start, I don't agree with what Reddit are doing. However, to play devil's advocate, the company is losing money. They're not profitable. What if Reddit had to declare bankruptcy due to it? How do you propose they make money? Asking for donations? Even with offering Reddit Gold, or whatever pay-for entitlements, they aren't profitable.
ChatGPT is seemingly making a lot of money off of comments on Reddit, and Reddit are giving them that data for free. It makes sense, to me anyway, to charge OpenAI, Microsoft, et al., for access to that data. It seems third party app users were caught in the crossfire. Perhaps that was a lack of foresight, but perhaps it was a calculated (albeit incorrect) risk.
I know literally nothing but what the everlovingfuck are their costs? Most content (all until their shitting hosting site) is just aggregated to the site. All this content is free, moderation is free and theyre making ad money. Sure ads for reddit are probably super shit but its something. My best guess is its going to greedy little pig boy?
They increased their staff from around 700 to over 2000 in the last year or so, and their constant drive to turn from a link aggregate to a social media & hosting platform for every reposted image and video imaginable really hasn't helped either. Both of which probably have been done exactly to not be profitable, because then they have to pay taxes, instead the idea is to grow your value as far as it can go while bleeding investor money - last year Reddit was "valued" at 10 fucking billion - and then you sell it to some idiot and cash out. This whole API thing was also part of that plan, to gather everyone to their official site and apps to show advertisers how massive their reach is.
But because Spez is an idiot, he fucked it up.
3rd party apps did not get caught in the crossfire... reddit very specifically targeted them and has crafted the chatgpt narrative as a scapegoat. Chatgpt got the info they needed already reddit won't see a dime and knows this. What reddit wants is everyone on their app and thats their prerogative... I doubt they expected the backlash from longtime and even newer user, they probably anticipated some pushback from devs and maybe mods but this blew up in their face and rightly so... ugh I'm a bit sensitive over this sorry reddit was a home for me through 3rd party apps for a looooong time and I'm a tad upset over it.
I'm not convinced that spez' elevator goes all the way to his office.