Reddit Will Start Charging Big Companies for API Access

Vorastra

Vorastra

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gizmodo.com

Reddit Will Start Charging Big Companies for API Access

The move comes at a time when AI startups and big tech stalwarts are developing AI using Reddit's huge library of user content.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com

Reddit execs have noticed that everyone is getting rich off of AI but them. The company announced on Tuesday that it will start charging businesses for using its application programming interface (API) which allows users to download and process data from person-to-person conversations. as it plans to go public on Wall Street later this year.
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The company says large tech companies like Google or OpenAI will no longer be able to use its API to train artificial intelligence chatbots and enhance guidance to accelerate their AI services without coughing up the dough.
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Reddit formatting seems broken on MyBB for some reason.

Despite seemingly every article making it out like only big companies will be affected, this is misleading.
It'll affect third-party app devs.

Click the links. Explains the API changes from a third-party app dev.

  • For NSFW content, they were not 100% sure of the answer, but thought that it would no longer be possible to access via the API, I asked how they balance this with plans for the API to be more equitable with the official app, and there was not really an answer but they did say they would look into it more and follow back up. I would like to follow up more about this, especially around content hosting on other websites that is posted to Reddit, as well as different types of NSFW content (a text post marked NSFW due to a gory moment in a story, for instance).
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Comment:
No NSFW-marked content is complete and utter bullshit. Marking things NSFW is common, like for as you said, gory stories etc. People mark things as NSFW as a joke on Reddit. Really hope they don’t go through with that.

Other than that, this seems fine. Reddit has to make money and I’m cool with a subscription. As long as they don’t ban third party apps, we’re good.
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I've put the links in quote boxes since it causes the page to be a kilometre long.

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/12r0xyz/_/jgu8rzq
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https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/12ram0f
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This is an interesting debate. It's very hypocritical of Reddit to do this, as they are just taking from their users. Was chatting to some colleagues about ChatGPT and the implications, especially around it using shared and open sources of information to make a profit. AI is going to make us answer some very hard questions in the near future. It is also exposing the value of free knowledge sharing. Putting up good content takes a lot effort (this is really why I don't do it anymore). This AI should be free to use because the implications for people and businesses that don't have access to it are staggering. If it is not free, that also has consequences for what we share freely.

I think we are in a golden age of the internet, and we are going to see more and more content behind paywalls.
 
Writing a “blank cheque” to your APIs at scale has always been costly, but OpenAI seems to have been the tipping point.

I worry less about social media paywalling their APIs and more about the long term health of open/free contributions (open source code, art, music etc.). I fear that people will just stop contributing as their licenses are being bypassed.
 
RiF app will likely be shutting down from July.

Apparently, for another app called Apollo, the new API changes would cost $20 million a year which the apps do not make anywhere close to.

https://www.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/comments/13wxepd

The same people moaning on Reddit about Twitter API changes, seem to be very quiet when Reddit kills third-party.
 
Vorastra said:
The same people moaning on Reddit about Twitter, seem to be very quiet when Reddit kills third-party.
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Seems to be a lot of complaining for news that only came out last night?

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All the people saying that they'll leave Reddit if the changes go through, I wonder where they'll go.

What site does something similar to Reddit's format?

I assume they'll just suck it up and use the official app.
 
backstreetboy said:
RIP Reddit. Almost grabbed a lifetime easter special on Apollo Ultra.
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I know the develop of this app (Christian) and the amount of work he has put into it over the years I have been using it, is nothing short of amazing. As an independent dev, he really has done well.

Now it looks like all that will come to an end. I'll probably stop using Reddit for this reason - I hate the Reddit App and the website is garbage.
 
Priapus said:
Now it looks like all that will come to an end. I'll probably stop using Reddit for this reason - I hate the Reddit App and the website is garbage.
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Where will you go?

The old Reddit site is still working fine, for now...
 
Vorastra said:
Yet somehow I knew in April. Weird. I must be special...or...people were carrying water for Reddit.

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Maybe go have some more coffee or something. Back in April no one knew what access to the API would cost. Reddit said it would be "reasonable" - Turns out, their definition of reasonable is $12k per 50 million API hits.
 
Priapus said:
Maybe go have some more coffee or something. Back in April no one knew what access to the API would cost. Reddit said it would be "reasonable" - Turns out, their definition of reasonable is $12k per 50 million API hits.
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I must be a time traveller then.
 
Like some people have said in the Reddit threads, they assume Reddit will just lower the price and everything will be fine.
 
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