Reddit API fee plan causes user revolt

Note that these changes don't only impact 3rd party apps -
  • the mods for many subs use the 3rd party apps to moderate (because the official one SUUUPER sucks for mod duties)
  • Bots that help keep subs clean will also die so look forward to oodles of porn and spam on your normally clean subs
  • People with accessibility needs will be utterly screwed (because the official app SUUUPER DUPER sucks for blind folks/people with other accessibility needs)
  • It's likely that old.reddit.com will be axed too
It's part of a bigger, stupider pattern that Reddit has had for ages and it really does seem tied in to the upcoming IPO. I suppose it's possible that Reddit has figured out that 3rd Party app users aren't valuable to them anyway so it's no great loss? I know 3rd Party people have reached out constantly to Reddit admins to even suggest allowing 3rd Party to show the normal (terrible) Reddit apps via their apps so revenue isn't "lost".

Bah. Blackout and if 3rd party apps die, maybe reddit will go the way of Digg.
 
I think its time for all the 3rd party reddit app developers and subreddit mods to come together to setup a competitor.

Once a company does this once, even if they backtrack, it only means they will do it more slowly next time.
 
As a api dev, few comments:

1. Apis,dbs etc are not free and there are costs involved that do scale.
2. Clearly a lot of folks are not using the main reddit app or website, that means for a "free" service, they are not getting compensation revenue with ads.
3. The question around the api metrics is a interesting one. If the figure is inflated, that's a problem. What doesn't make sense from both the article and reddit is the comment about Auth tokens, ips and "dorm rooms". The ip to the reddit api would either be direct from device with token or from a relay service, both of which may have multiple users on the ip but that makes no differance to the volume of calls which is what likely the reddit api tracks against the APP api token.

Lots of knee jerk and bad reactions.
 
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Kosmik said:
As a api dev, few comments:

1. Apis,dbs etc are not free and there are costs involved that do scale.
2. Clearly a lot of folks are not using the main reddit app or website, that means for a "free" service, theyvare not getting compensation revenue with ads.
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It might be a free service but all the content on Reddit is community created. Reddit is only as good as its user base. Pushing people away by pricing out 3rd party apps could very well kill the platform.
 
Cray said:
It might be a free service but all the content on Reddit is community created. Reddit is only as good as its user base. Pushing people away by pricing out 3rd party apps could very well kill the platform.
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There can be a argument about pricing. $ 0.24/1000 may be high but that's to be determined. The fact is, whether community content or not, there are costs and with no revenue by ads, how do you think it funds itself?

Take mybb as an example. This forum is free and highly interactive but the only means that rpm amd crowd have of getting money from the forum is ads or indirect through other means.

Old adage,if it's free, YOU are the commodity.

And BTW, I advocate quite strongly against Twitters api dev policy, not because the thought is wrong but because they are doing it hamfisted and stupidly. Reddit at least are starting right with the concept of consumption and scale. Price is a differant story.
 
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Kosmik said:
Take mybb as an example. This forum is free and highly interactive but the only means that rpm amd crowd have of getting money from the forum is ads or indirect through other means.
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But if mods (and many users) relied on 3rd party tools to effectively moderate and MyBB were making bad UI design decisions you can sort of understand the backlash if MyBB forced access and moderation via a shitty app.
 
saor said:
But if mods (and many users) relied on 3rd party tools to effectively moderate and MyBB were making bad UI design decisions you can sort of understand the backlash if MyBB forced access and moderation via a shitty app.
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I can understand the backlash but the whole "free" thing is naïve and ostrich. I see there is a reddit competitor that works by hosting content in a block chain style. Sure have someone cover the costs of that hosting or subsidies it but I can understand why a company needs to raise funds when their revenue is eliminated by the use of 3rd party apps. Personally, I think the api cost is high but I have no insight to their models or costing.

Also just to note, and I don't know for sure but myBB moderation is done on their platform by appointed representatives of the forum globally. Reddits are communities and many are monetized in some way, those moderators are not part of "reddit".

But , to go back to your point , I think a case can easily be made for a moderator tool that's NOT part of the higher api cost. The point of that tool is management and modertaion, so not really revenue driving etc. A consumption tool is a different story. For example, our social media api plugins have a registered api app ( both Facebook and Twitter ) BUT they leverage the individual users login ( and hence their moderator or space owner status ). Reddit can do the same for moderation tools, that's exactly what ours does with those ecosystems.
 
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Kosmik said:
I can understand the backlash but the whole "free" thing is naïve and ostrich. I see there is a reddit competitor that works by hosting content in a block chain style. Sure have someone cover the costs of that hosting or subsidies it but I can understand why a company needs to raise funds when their revenue is eliminated by the use of 3rd party apps. Personally, I think the api cost is high but I have no insight to their models or costing.

Also just to note, and I don't know for sure but myBB moderation is done on their platform by appointed representatives of the forum globally. Reddits are communities and many are monetized in some way, those moderators are not part of "reddit".

But , to go back to your point , I think a case can easily be made for a moderator tool that's NOT part of the higher api cost. The point of that tool is management and modertaion, so not really revenue driving etc. A consumption tool is a different story. For example, our social media api plugins have a registered api app ( both Facebook and Twitter ) BUT they leverage the individual users login ( and hence their moderator or space owner status ). Reddit can do the same for moderation tools, that's exactly what ours does with those ecosystems.
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Well I hope there's some resolution soon. Already some subreddits have gone dark and it sucks having one of my first places to get information effectively going offline now.
 
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Solitude said:
qzgys69te84b1.jpg
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This.... I use the main app with an AD Blocker and have no problems.
 
Kosmik said:
Lots of knee jerk and bad reactions.
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Common Reddit community vibe though sadly.... As soon there's some sort of payment involved you are getting burned alive.
Kid spends his whole school holiday creating a useful app, humbly shares his creation on a reddit board in the correct niche, asks $5 for it, and expect comments like, "What a capitalist, it's always these big companies trying to make money off the back of others! Apps should be free."
 
Monday and it's already frustrating not having access to a lot of reddit.
/pulls out wayback machine...
 
charlieharper said:
Common Reddit community vibe though sadly.... As soon there's some sort of payment involved you are getting burned alive.
Kid spends his whole school holiday creating a useful app, humbly shares his creation on a reddit board in the correct niche, asks $5 for it, and expect comments like, "What a capitalist, it's always these big companies trying to make money off the back of others! Apps should be free."
Click to expand...
No need to be free, just not subscription model.
 
Kosmik said:
I can understand the backlash but the whole "free" thing is naïve and ostrich. I see there is a reddit competitor that works by hosting content in a block chain style. Sure have someone cover the costs of that hosting or subsidies it but I can understand why a company needs to raise funds when their revenue is eliminated by the use of 3rd party apps. Personally, I think the api cost is high but I have no insight to their models or costing.

Also just to note, and I don't know for sure but myBB moderation is done on their platform by appointed representatives of the forum globally. Reddits are communities and many are monetized in some way, those moderators are not part of "reddit".

But , to go back to your point , I think a case can easily be made for a moderator tool that's NOT part of the higher api cost. The point of that tool is management and modertaion, so not really revenue driving etc. A consumption tool is a different story. For example, our social media api plugins have a registered api app ( both Facebook and Twitter ) BUT they leverage the individual users login ( and hence their moderator or space owner status ). Reddit can do the same for moderation tools, that's exactly what ours does with those ecosystems.
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The problem isn't charging, it's the Twitter insane level that they are charging:
As for the pricing, despite claims that it would be based in reality, it seems anything but. Less than 2 years ago they said they crossed $100M in quarterly revenue for the first time ever, if we assume despite the economic downturn that they've managed to do that every single quarter now, and for your best quarter, you've doubled it to $200M. Let's also be generous and go far, far above industry estimates and say you made another $50M in Reddit Premium subscriptions. That's $550M in revenue per year, let's say an even $600M. In 2019, they said they hit 430 million monthly active users, and to also be generous, let's say they haven't added a single active user since then (if we do revenue-per-user calculations, the more users, the less revenue each user would contribute). So at generous estimates of $600M and 430M monthly active users, that's $1.40 per user per year, or $0.12 monthly. These own numbers they've given are also seemingly inline with industry estimates as well.

For Apollo, the average user uses 344 requests daily, or 10.6K monthly. With the proposed API pricing, the average user in Apollo would cost $2.50, which is is 20x higher than a generous estimate of what each users brings Reddit in revenue.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3
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From an also API developer, at the reddit proposed API cost, it cannot be profitable if it's supposed to be within ad revenue income levels on the web client.

This is probably more to do with AI/bot scraping for their knowledge bases, and Reddit CEO wanting to get their cut.
 
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Johnatan56 said:
The problem isn't charging, it's the Twitter insane level that they are charging:

From an also API developer, at the reddit proposed API cost, it cannot be profitable if it's supposed to be within ad revenue income levels on the web client.
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I agree the pricing is bad but there needs to be some model for apps that expect others to host content and respond to api requests. Honest question, is Apollo free or is there some mechanism, more than likely ad insertion or some other means of paying for the app.

The problem here is actually the sheer volume of data consumed. So most free apis have a pretty low threshold, take ESP, they allow 50 requests per day or others but if you have thousands of users all hitting your servers and caches ( thats cdns, data stores like reddis etc , never mind the dbs themselves ), it all costs money.

Are both Twitter and Reddits models the right one? Twitters certainly not as they have no realistic concept of scale in their pricing and reddit is considering scale but that $0.28c/1000 seems high to me. However, I think gone are the days of folks being able to tap into mass social media without cost implications. I also think, anyone who fires up a competitor is going to run into the exact same problems. It's a pretty infantile commerce issue at the moment and it needs to be solved.

*edit* and my tinfoil point of view, lets not forget the "other" market for reddit and twitter : AI models and data. I still strongly believe that is one of the main drivers as well.
 
saor said:
Monday and it's already frustrating not having access to a lot of reddit.
/pulls out wayback machine...
Click to expand...

Most of Reddit is "dark"

Reddark

An open source website to watch subreddits going dark
reddark.untone.uk

6292/7265 subreddits are currently dark.​

 
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Kosmik said:
I agree the pricing is bad but there needs to be some model for apps that expect others to host content and respond to api requests. Honest question, is Apollo free or is there some mechanism, more than likely ad insertion or some other means of paying for the app.

The problem here is actually the sheer volume of data consumed. So most free apis have a pretty low threshold, take ESP, they allow 50 requests per day or others but if you have thousands of users all hitting your servers and caches ( thats cdns, data stores like reddis etc , never mind the dbs themselves ), it all costs money.

Are both Twitter and Reddits models the right one? Twitters certainly not as they have no realistic concept of scale in their pricing and reddit is considering scale but that $0.28c/1000 seems high to me. However, I think gone are the days of folks being able to tap into mass social media without cost implications. I also think, anyone who fires up a competitor is going to run into the exact same problems. It's a pretty infantile commerce issue at the moment and it needs to be solved.

*edit* and my tinfoil point of view, lets not forget the "other" market for reddit and twitter : AI models and data. I still strongly believe that is one of the main drivers as well.
Click to expand...
Would argue due to scale, Reddit can handle way lower costs per API request, ESP most users will do maybe a handful of requests per day at most, and your base isn't that big, and it still needs to be enough to support all the infrastructure and dev costs, so the minimum viable income/revenue needs higher costs per request.
For Reddit, as a percentage of revenue, dev costs would be lower, and they'd be able to scale more efficiently.

Apollo should be able to insert adds via e.g. AdMob, that should cover the cost of the API request, as they also display the add, and could use the premium to pay for the app/subsidize in case add revenue is not enough, but not at the scale of over 20:1.

You missed my edit, which is your last line, which I think is more why this, but at the same time, should just be cost of add as well.

Priapus said:
Most of Reddit is "dark"

Reddark

An open source website to watch subreddits going dark
reddark.untone.uk

6292/7265 subreddits are currently dark.​

Click to expand...
Note there are over 3/4 million subreddits, but it does cover most large public reddits.
 
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