Reddit’s website went down after years of making Google feel useful, and this brings us to the question of the hour: what is up with Reddit? The Internet is seen as a global village, and Reddit forms its core. This platform is not just any other app; its existence has actually turned the concept of being connected into reality. This is a one-stop place for all the questions that pop into one’s mind. From why my shampoo isn’t working to how to stop procrastinating about procrastination, one can find all the help they need (even for the most bizarre questions) here. Reddit remains the dearest platform for all internet surfers. Ask anyone who loves to spend their time there, and they’ll probably have the same response. But recent developments and changes in certain policies have led to a blackout on this platform, and this all centres around the changes to the Reddit API.
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What is Reddit’s API?
An API is basically an interface that facilitates communication between two applications. So, with this Application Programming Interface (API), apps can send and receive data without accessing the app. Reddit has a history of maintaining a free API. It facilitated the data collection from the subreddits, threads, users, and many other sources. In the simplest terms, this data is used for a variety of things, like a multitude of analyses. Basically, this makes it easier to develop and integrate third-party applications.
Because of the free Reddit API, any developer building an application can request data and use it to build their app seamlessly and for free. In fact, a developer can build an app with its own interface and then use Reddit to populate it. This can be done by using things like subreddit information, posts, or user profiles. So, every time you want to read a Reddit post, the app will make a request to the API and say that if you want to add a comment, it will send it back to the API. The interesting thing is that the API is not the app itself, so this data transfer takes place without revealing the inner workings of the platform itself.
According to a report by The Verge, Reddit has turned out to be a unique social platform that has brought users closer because of the app’s human-centric and distinctive approach to digital conversations. This has led the users to feel genuinely possessive about the platform.
Changes to API?
Over the past few days, thousands of Reddit communities have turned private, which means they have basically gone offline. This comes off as a protest against the recent changes made to API pricing that pose a threat to many third-party apps. This also stands as a threat to many research studies and third-party moderation tools. On Monday, since so many communities went dark and these forums are the bread and butter of the platform, Reddit’s site went down temporarily.
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Seven years ago, Reddit introduced a free API, and this acted as a salvation for many third-party app developers. However, the platform announced in April that it would enforce certain changes. Reddit has decided to place a price on its API access, which was until now available for free. Apps like Apollo, which has developed a platform based on Reddit, will now have to pay for the requests that they make to the API.
The heart of the controversy lies with the fact that developers used the Reddit API for free to build their clients, bots, and other things that essentially enhanced the service. Further, the API is labelled as the reason behind the skewed growth of the platform when Reddit did not even have its own native iOS app until it bought out Alien Blue in 2014. Till then, all it offered was a standalone app for the Ask Me Anything subreddit. With Alien Blue, which is a third-party app built over Reddit’s free API, developers have been engaged since then to use the API and improve Reddit’s most essential offering.
According to Christian Selig, the creator of Apollo, which is the most popular iOS Reddit client, there are 50,000 paying subscribers. As per Selig’s estimates, this Reddit browsing app made 7 billion requests in May alone, which stands to cost $1.7 million a month, and putting the math together, it would cost a staggering $20 million a year. Just like Apollo, there are other apps like Sync and Reddit is Fun (RIF) that have such zealous communities for their Android apps. According to what Reddit has claimed, the platform is now set to block ads on third-party apps. This puts platforms like RIF in jeopardy since the majority of their revenues depend on ads.
Siddharth, who has been a redditor since time unknown, in conversation with the Financial Express, describes his discontent over how the social media platform is treating Apollo’s creator, Selig. He feels that the platform is willing to “stoop so low for their selfish reasons.” As an iOS user, he feels that Apollo is by far the best Reddit app and “miles better than Reddit’s own hot mess of an app.” He added, “They accused one of Reddit’s most beloved developers of attempting to blackmail them, which he has disproved by providing call recordings, emails, and more, while Reddit’s CEO keeps trying to point fingers with nothing to back it up.”
The protest is erupting now because initially no one inferred how these changes were going to affect them, but after Selig’s estimates, it was clear that it would be difficult to maintain the third-party apps. As a result, along with Apollo, many other third-party apps have announced that they will be forced to shut down before the new pricing regime comes into effect. This led the Redditors to start their protest.
In conversation with another Redditor, Kartik, he revealed, “As a power user of Reddit who has closely followed its journey and relied on its amazing community for a lot of things, it is sad to see how the management tried to malign the Apollo developer—and got played.” He feels that the movement of people to come together as a protest against the platform’s questionable decisions may bear results.
Is history repeating itself?
Reddit is clearly not the first app to go from a free API to perhaps a probable IPO (Initial Public Offer). Back in the day, with the heavy flow of funding, Twitter gradually went public in 2013. The microblogging site restricted developers from using their API. However, this was not pursued through alarmingly high prices; they limited the number of clients the third-party apps could have, which hurt the prospects of the business.
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Further, the developers of large language models use Reddit to train their models, but such exploitation is just a part of the narrative. Another aspect lies in the fact that the third-party apps do not carry the same ads that the native platform does. This means that the revenue generated from the third-party apps goes to the developer without any share going to the native platform, which is Reddit. This seems to be an issue that needs to be addressed before any company can list for an IPO.
Earlier, Twitter used to charge over $42,000 per month for giving access to its data, though now it has changed its policies concerning public emergency accounts. More so, Twitter has now shifted into private hands. Reddit, too, is keeping free API access for third-party apps that concern accessibility issues.
What is the Internal Memo?
Last Friday, the CEO of Reddit hosted the Ask Me Anything session. An anonymous user asked how Steve Huffman would “address the concerns of users who feel that Reddit has become increasingly profit-driven and less focused on community engagement.” To this, the CEO responded, “We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive.” If this seemed less important, there is an internal memo that has circulated over the internet, adding further fuel to the issue.
Reportedly, the internal memo asked the employees to ignore the backlash and said that such criticism over the company’s decision would simply “pass.” The memo, which was reportedly obtained by the Verge, stated, “There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well.” It further reads, “We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long-term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.”
Furthermore, these API changes also include access to Not-Safe-For-Work (NSFW) content, and the company plans on placing stricter rules for accessing such content through its API. Access to adult content, especially by minors, is something that cannot be prevented when it comes to apps like Bluesky that are trying to build a decentralised platform, but with Reddit, this should not come off as a concern since no third-party app will survive to display its posts, including NSFW.
Another pressing thing is the timing, since Reddit has decided to enforce its changes within thirty days, and this is a serious concern for platforms like Apollo as they sell annual plans to their users. Over 7000 subreddits have gone dark, and most of them have asserted that they will stay dark indefinitely as a sign of protest against these changes. However, many third-party apps are willing to pay Reddit since they recognise that, at the end of the day, Reddit is a company and is headed towards an IPO, and it isn’t profitable for them to host server space for these apps. They are almost all willing to pay Reddit, with their only requirement being that the timeline they are given and the price of using the API are kept realistic.
The question does erupt: what is so special about Reddit? Well, for starters, Reddit outsources all its content creation, moderation, and even product development. Because of this, Reddit has become a place for the existence of very basic and essential communities. Now, these communities are generally based on a policy of self-governance. This has given Reddit a space where the top executives are not faced with challenges like those faced by others like Meta or Twitter. Nevertheless, Reddit’s free API is the reason for the development of the platform’s app ecosystem. If we look at Apollo, it complements the native platform and enhances the overall user experience on iOS, and only now can people truly imagine what would happen without apps like Apollo since removing it would cause an accessibility barrier to such a community that every other person is a part of.
Also Read: Reddit says 80% of top subreddits online after days of protest over API fees
As with any change, there are developers who are coming up with alternatives to Reddit. Reportedly, Hunch is a brand-new app that is trying its best to take advantage of the situation. While conversing with Siddharth further, he noted that Hunch is an entirely different beast than Reddit. He does not hold any comparisons between the two platforms since Hunch is entirely focused on being taboo, controversial, edgy, and Gen Z. He added,” It’s too busy trying to create drama with dumb questions like “Brunettes or blondes?”.” He feels that Hunch is an entirely different platform, one that he is not even sure will exist for long after the novelty wears off unless they pivot to something new. Reddit, on the other hand, was the world’s largest network of communication.
In a recent blog post by the company, Reddit asserted that 80% of the communities are back online. While the Reddit crisis has agitated the boundless online community, as any change follows its trajectory, this change might also be realised, either in the form of acceptance or in the form of alternatives. It is only time that is going to direct this world community towards its ultimate fate.
