API pricing protests caused Reddit to crash for 3 hours

Thousands of subreddits going dark broke Reddit's website, mobile app.

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[fenris_uy]

I'm really interested to see what happens if Reddit collapses. I'm hoping it's like a forest fire spurring new growth, but what I'm worried about is that it'll just empower bad actors (Facebook, notably, but I could see Discord seeing this as their Digg->Reddit moment) to pick up marketshare.

That alternative makes me shudder. I see Discord as a chat app, not a forum replacement, and I'm old school and like forums.

 

[Mechjaz]

Ars does not offer an API to my knowledge, and certainly not one that millions of people rely on, so I don't see how they could be affected in whatever way you are concerned about.

Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast, is the largest shareholder in Reddit.

 

[fenris_uy]

Ars does not offer an API to my knowledge, and certainly not one that millions of people rely on, so I don't see how they could be affected in whatever way you are concerned about.

Profitability, of course. The apps that rely on massive API usage don't give any revenue to Reddit, but also don't currently pay for access to Reddit data, either. The natural choice for Reddit is to charge for access to the API these apps are using to recoup some of that money.

Based on the planned prices, they are probably doing very simple calculations comparing the number of ads served for the amount of data presented by x number of API calls and how much ad revenue they expect that would earn them if it were from their site, and pricing the API access similarly.

If they just wanted the revenue, they would have provided an option for the apps to show the ads and not pay that much (any) for API access.

 

[Timoo]

In that situation, the free tie may need to go but it would still be sustainable...

Would it?
Apollo charging $9,99 per user per month for Reddit access, simply to cover API access cost?
I guess it will be very difficult to build a business model around that.
$2, maybe (unlikely, but maybe). But $10?

 

[Eurynom0s]

Single-system alternatives lower the barrier to entry. Here's a left-field example: email.

Back in the day, we had multiple, non-federated communications systems, some public (the internet), some private (online service providers, like GEnie, CompuServe, Prodigy, plus businesses' interal systems, not all of which were on the internet) and some a weird mix of the two (Fidonet?). This made it really hard to send a message from one person to another unless you had an account on each of them.

This sounds insane, but it's how email used to work, unless you were lucky enough to have an internet account, which wasn't common.

Email (instead of me saying SMTP, lets just say "email") won out by giving everyone a reasonable guarantee that they'd be able to reach everyone else, without worrying if, eg, you were both on CompuServ.

Can you imagine if email were invented today? You'd have Gmail, but it could only send to other Gmail accounts, and attempts to send to, eg, Outlook users, or Facebook users, would barely work. You'd have API limits, bad-faith moderation, sleazy attempts at moderation and lock-in, etc, etc. You'd have "enterprise" email that just sucked and cost a fortune. (and the scary thing is that we're very close to this being the reality of email in the 2020s, after decades of having an open system)

While we gained convenience, we gave up a lot when we moved from Usenet, listservs and even web forums to centralized systems like Reddit or Facebook. If there was any justice, what should have happened was that Usenet should have been improved to add the kinds of things that "saved" email from a Usenet's fate: federated reputation management and algorithmic spam filtering being the big two. It wouldn't have been perfect, but we wouldn't have the current situation, where human interaction is gatekeepered and monetized by tech bros.

The problem is, there was a big gap between the time that Usenet was "broken" and the time that technology developed to fix the problems. Email was essential enough to hang in until we could patch the holes in it's proverbial hull. News didn't quite make it in time.

I'm really interested to see what happens if Reddit collapses. I'm hoping it's like a forest fire spurring new growth, but what I'm worried about is that it'll just empower bad actors (Facebook, notably, but I could see Discord seeing this as their Digg->Reddit moment) to pick up marketshare.

I feel like Discord being the beneficiary here would be a pretty bad outcome given it's not indexed by search engines and it's miserable finding stuff even if you happen to be on the right server. And Discord becomes a UX nightmare once you're in more than a couple of servers. And as I posted earlier it's apparently burning down from the inside due to hiring a bunch of former Meta/Facebook managers so even if they do become the beneficiary it sounds like it may not be too long before people have to move on from Discord too.

 

[GenocideOwl]

Stupidity like this killed Digg and lead to the rise of Reddit.

What site will rise from the ashes of Reddit?




Totally agree.

Make it two weeks. Minimum. And THEN go read-only.

Been saying that about twitter as well. But no true competitor has risen yet. I am not sure why exactly no true competitor to reddit or twitter has risen quite yet, but it will likely happen eventually.

I mean I know why youtube doesnt have a true competitor, because the cost of the infrastructure to even start to try and attempt to compete is insane. I mean remember when Microsoft tried to make a competitor to Twitch and even with all their money failed pretty hard?



also if some super popular sub tries to permanently close(like say r/NFL or something big) then remember that Mods don't "own" those subs. Reddit admins will just remove the current mods and install new ones to run it.

 

[LeftCoastRusty]

We’ll I’m done with Reddit unless they reverse position on 3rd party apps. I tried to use the Reddit iOS app a couple of days ago. It’s damn near useless.

I tried to report several usability issues to them from their app. The only email address I could find bounced back as unusable. Typical Reddit.

 

[InIgnem]

Why don't these sites - I said the same thing for Twitter - just charge users to use 3rd party apps? (And they could still charge a much smaller API access fee to developers). For sites I like to frequent, I would be willing to pay a small monthly fee (~$8?) to access the content the way I want to. Reddit gets its money, I don't have to view ads. At least then, we'd have the option. Instead, I'm forced to use a lesser quality app with a lesser quality experience, which means I just go "f-it" and do better things with my time. Yes, a lot of folks wouldn't pay, but it certainly generates more revenue than putting your thumb down on major developers and mods (who are also probably heavy users) who have years invested in your success and just running everybody out of town.

Honestly I could see the loss of a ton of mods from the site causing a bigger problem long term than the loss of certain reddits or apps - the self policing kept it from being what Twitter is becoming, and look how that's gone...

 

[Lunar Ronin]

Been saying that about twitter as well. But no true competitor has risen yet. I am not sure why exactly no true competitor to reddit or twitter has risen quite yet, but it will likely happen eventually.

I mean I know why youtube doesnt have a true competitor, because the cost of the infrastructure to even start to try and attempt to compete is insane. I mean remember when Microsoft tried to make a competitor to Twitch and even with all their money failed pretty hard?



also if some super popular sub tries to permanently close(like say r/NFL or something big) then remember that Mods don't "own" those subs. Reddit admins will just remove the current mods and install new ones to run it.

One reason no true competitor for Reddit and Twitter have risen is because more people are starting to wake up and realize that centralization is bad. Like Cory Doctorow said, it’s a circle of enshittification. The only way to break the cycle is decentralization. So the more tech oriented people are breaking out to Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, etc.

 

[crmarvin42]

Would it?
Apollo charging $9,99 per user per month for Reddit access, simply to cover API access cost?
I guess it will be very difficult to build a business model around that.
$2, maybe (unlikely, but maybe). But $10?

I use Apollo. I paid to unlock some features (1-time fee), but do not pay on an on-going basis to use the app. I didn't need to. WIth the current situation I would be willing to consider a monthly fee, but not 10/month for what is being given away for free via the official reddit app or by pulling up safari.

I'm not a mod or disabled, and so my willingness to pay is likely less than some other users to genuinely NEED the features of Apollo, as opposed to simply appreciating them. However, I doubt very many Apollo users are willing/able to pay $120/year for something that could be accessed for free.

This fee structure is not about recouping lost revenue due to the ad-free experience. After all, they are asking for roughly 20x/user what they make in ad revenue on their site. This is "Fuck you" pricing. Not because they are so opposed to Apollo et al per se, but because they see an opportunity with AI algorithm training. They want to charge AI trainers these high fees for access to the Reddit API, and cutting off Apollo et al is just a means to that end.

 

[Eurynom0s]

One reason no true competitor for Reddit and Twitter have risen is because more people are starting to wake up and realize that centralization is bad. Like Cory Doctorow said, it’s a circle of enshittification. The only way to break the cycle is decentralization. So the more tech oriented people are breaking out to Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, etc.

But in turn it's hard for anything to catch on when you don't have and by definition won't get a critical mass of users. No different than why Facebook has stuck around despite even the the general public having had bouts of strong inclination to get off Facebook.

And Mastodon has way too much friction on signup to expect the general public to make it all the way through, and Lemmy is apparently just Mastodon with a different skin? I think Bluesky stands a chance if they don't wait too long to open it up because it's got the users like journalists that made being on Twitter worthwhile, and is set up to onboard people to a default Bluesky instance and then let them think about moving over to a different federated server later should they be so inclined. Which I think is a key reduction in friction for the majority of people who probably don't want to have to think about that.

 

[Decoherent]

Go over to Lemmy or Squabbles

"Squabbles" may be the hardest site to find via search since Google decided to make a language called "Go"

 

[greevar]

Stupidity like this killed Digg and lead to the rise of Reddit.

What site will rise from the ashes of Reddit?




Totally agree.

Make it two weeks. Minimum. And THEN go read-only.

Mastodon, perhaps?

 

[instantrunoff]

For a while now, I've been appending my general web searches with "reddit" to get information from real people. Otherwise, too many search results are SEO-targeted nonsense. With a Reddit exodus, I don't know where to easily get real people's input online any longer. Especially with the subreddits private, web search results are essentially broken links.

 

[scrimbul]

Did anyone ever answer why there was no way to have a premium Reddit account through third party apps? That way Reddit gets paid, the app developer gets paid and the end user gets a better experience.

Oh well. I’ve deleted Apollo and logged out of browser Reddit. Can’t see myself going back now…

The simplest solution assumes Reddit is both working in good faith and needs to make a profit.

It's been demonstrable that the former isn't the case for some time now, but especially with the ramp up to the IPO news and what happened to Imgur to start with.

I have my doubts about how much authority Conde' Nast is going to leverage on this dumpster fire though.

 

[Sajuuk]

That alternative makes me shudder. I see Discord as a chat app, not a forum replacement, and I'm old school and like forums.

Yeah, Discord may be the current go-to for community management, but it's absolutely terrible for the web as an ecosystem of generally accessible information. It's an entirely proprietary service that categorically cannot be scraped, crawled, indexed, or archived outside of itself.

Personally, for the time being, I've decided to give Tumblr another try. It's been...alright, but certainly not as useful or as popular depending on specific topics.

 

[Tarod]

In a market like this where there's competing companies with broadly similar products, that if one prices themselves too high then their customers will just go to another.

I've always viewed Reddit as sort of a super-mega-old-school forum with a huge number of subforums. It's not like they're doing anything that hasn't been done for, well, since the beginning of the Internet. At the lowest level they're basically just a prettier, more functional version of Usenet.

And you are right -- totally right --, but they can change the way of running the company and how to earn money. Users will decide wether stay or not.

I don't like the decision, by the way, but here, in this marvelous page, I was aggressively downvoted just for giving my opinion This is the internet, I guess.

 

[sonicmerlin]

I don’t understand why they’re not profitable. Same with Twitter. They have such massive user engagement. Ads should be super profitable for them. How are they unable to stay in the green?

 

[GMBigKev]

I don’t understand why they’re not profitable. Same with Twitter. They have such massive user engagement. Ads should be super profitable for them. How are they unable to stay in the green?

People don't click on ads and lots of people use ad-blocking software because a hell of a lot of ads are actually malware.

 

[junktrunk]

Congratulations on your insight and reading comprehension.
View attachment 57587

And even with that, their reading comprehension is low. Reddit isn't owned by conde nast. Ars is owned by conde nast, and both conde nast and Reddit are owned by Advance. (Or majority shareholders anyway.)

 

[Lunar Ronin]

I don’t understand why they’re not profitable. Same with Twitter. They have such massive user engagement. Ads should be super profitable for them. How are they unable to stay in the green?

Because advertisements are no longer very profitable. It’s no longer the panacea it once was, especially as more and more users block them. The Internet is slowly but surely moving to a donation and payment model as advertisements alone no longer pay the bills.

 

[cstalt]

Everyone is assuming these fees are part of a pre-IPO move when they may be a sign that Reddit is in financial trouble and that their current backers are unwilling to put any more money in.

Then maybe they shouldn't have hired more than 1,000 new employees since COVID? They literally have a 50-engineer "machine learning" team. Hundreds of "product" employees. Zero reason for a link aggregator to bring on so many people.

 

[TekaroBB]

Because advertisements are no longer very profitable. It’s no longer the panacea it once was, especially as more and more users block them. The Internet is slowly but surely moving to a donation and payment model as advertisements alone no longer pay the bills.

Are there any good resources documenting how ineffective internet ads have become? Not that I am doubting, more that I'd love to see the numbers. Between the ease of using an ad blocker, the possibility malware threats, and the general shittyness of products advertised online, it's no surprise that the business is a little poisoned. I am quite sure I have never intentionally clicked on an ad in the past 15 years.

 

[thinkreal]

I want to know how thousands of subreddits going private caused an outage. On the surface that just doesn't make sense to me.

I guess that access control is some rather expensive functions, so adding heaps of checks to what is normally public traffic overwhelmed them

 

[ArcCoyote]

I guess that access control is some rather expensive functions, so adding heaps of checks to what is normally public traffic overwhelmed them

The term "accidentally exponential operation" comes to mind.

 

[Asvarduil]

Elon and Steve Huffman are on a pissing contest to see who can kill a social network faster.

Fast is but one quality. Elon is definitely going to take the win on "most dramatic kill of a social network". While I'm not sure what other qualities might earn their own awards, I'm sure we'll find out momentarily.

 

[jaywilliams]

Folks, this is why you need your own decentralized systems, like the Fediverse, as opposed to corporations owning your communities.

 

[andygates]

Also it was always harder to find those forums and harder to locate the "good" ones. Moderation was also a massive crapshoot back in those days as well.

And it was traditional that the one mod with all the keys had a meltdown every couple of years forcing everyone to move.

In that respect at least, reddit is oldschool.

 

[GMBigKev]

And it was traditional that the one mod with all the keys had a meltdown every couple of years forcing everyone to move.

In that respect at least, reddit is oldschool.

I usually ended up with a mod who went to college and just forgot about the site which soon ran rampant with spam...

 

[Marcus Andreus]

Not to get all, "This is the year of Linux on the desktop" but I could actually seeing ActivityPub federated services doing well here. A big obstacle is that both Lemmy and kbin are, like, super early in development compared to where Mastodon was at the Elon-pocalypse. And Mastodon wasn't particularly ready for everything Twitter users wanted. There have been some teething issues with scaling already in the last two days.

On the other hand, Reddit escapees are already more prepared to deal with things like community-run moderation than Twitter users were on Mastodon.

Plus, I personally think it's kind of cool that I can follow a Lemmy community (subreddit) from my Mastodon account.

 

[andygates]

I don’t understand why they’re not profitable. Same with Twitter. They have such massive user engagement. Ads should be super profitable for them. How are they unable to stay in the green?

It's certainly part of why they want to kill 3rd party apps: the official app is a firehose of them.

 

[Dzov]

Because advertisements are no longer very profitable. It’s no longer the panacea it once was, especially as more and more users block them. The Internet is slowly but surely moving to a donation and payment model as advertisements alone no longer pay the bills.

Moving to a user subscription model could well solve this fiasco as long as it's a fair price. You want free? Use their ad-supported free app. You want to use a third party app? Pay for your membership.

 

[Alfonse]

Moving to a user subscription model could well solve this fiasco as long as it's a fair price. You want free? Use their ad-supported free app. You want to use a third party app? Pay for your membership.

The problem is this: their app sucks.

It sucks for disabled people. It sucks for doing any significant amount of moderating. And it sucks in general.

While many people use 3rd party apps to get around ads, a huge number of them use 3rd party apps because they have no other choice. To meaningfully interact with Reddit as they need to (moderation, being visually impaired, etc), they must use these apps because the official app doesn't offer what they need. 3rd party Reddit apps are not a luxury to a large number of users; they're a necessary tool for interacting with the platform at all.

A subscription model doesn't fix this. It simply presents those users with a choice. Pay up (more), or don't meaningfully use the platform. And if enough moderators are forced to do the latter, Reddit dies.

 

[Dzov]

The problem is this: their app sucks.

It sucks for disabled people. It sucks for doing any significant amount of moderating. And it sucks in general.

While many people use 3rd party apps to get around ads, a huge number of them use 3rd party apps because they have no other choice. To meaningfully interact with Reddit as they need to (moderation, being visually impaired, etc), they must use these apps because the official app doesn't offer what they need. 3rd party Reddit apps are not a luxury to a large number of users; they're a necessary tool for interacting with the platform at all.

A subscription model doesn't fix this. It simply presents those users with a choice. Pay up (more), or don't meaningfully use the platform. And if enough moderators are forced to do the latter, Reddit dies.

Would it be possible to serve those same ads through the third party browsers and enforce their visibility? Or is there no room for compromise? Surely you don't expect Reddit to be 100% free?

 

[rm]

Plus, I personally think it's kind of cool that I can follow a Lemmy community (subreddit) from my Mastodon account.

I like Mastodon and personally, I find none of the issues people harp on meaningful to me. I am sure the issues are real to them but I have a hard time relating. In time I am sure some of that at least will be addressed but I could see the interoperability standards being what makes it compelling rather than its limitations being deal breakers.

I don't know how it is for others but I regularly encounter the barriers/silos with these proprietary systems. If they worked like email, where I select my front end to the system and then I have no concerns with what email service someone else uses things would be better.

 

[malor]

Would it be possible to serve those same ads through the third party browsers and enforce their visibility? Or is there no room for compromise? Surely you don't expect Reddit to be 100% free?

Not presently. The API has no way to expose ads to clients. No matter how polite or well-meaning a third-party client author might be, he or she simply cannot display ads from Reddit in their app.

I don't think anyone expects reddit to be entirely free.

 

[s73v3r]

Not only does Reddit deserve this, they earned it. I, being one of millions, that get banned for something close to free speech and some ashole mod feeling punchy that day... fuck reddit and its policies, plus this grab for money.

Why don't you tell us exactly what the topic of that "free speech" was that got you banned?

 

[angrydurf]

They really need to cash in on that sweet, "TikTok/YouTube vid of some guy playing minecraft while reading Reddit threads." revenue stream.

 

[islane]

That alternative makes me shudder. I see Discord as a chat app, not a forum replacement, and I'm old school and like forums.

Couldn't agree more, Discord would be a terrible replacement.

I like Discord but it's no good for referencing anything but the latest news and comments in a particular channel. Just yesterday I had to go to Discord to reference bug reports that a developer had (sadistically) put there. 30 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. Discord is terrible in terms of sharing information, technical discussions, tutorials, etc. In that sense, even Reddit was a bad replacement for the tech forums it largely killed off.