Story by Matt Crisara • Popular Mechanics
If you’ve been on Reddit in the past week, you’ve likely seen more than a few subreddits going dark. Seasoned Redditors will know that subreddits (essentially topic-specific message boards) come and go, but this recent mass exodus of thousands of them has raised quite a few red flags. So what gives? Reddit recently announced that it would start charging third-party developers to access its application programming interface (API)—a tool that developers use to utilize Reddit’s app data.
The app allows members to create communities about literally anything on the internet, giving these microcosms a space in which to congregate. With over 1.6 billion monthly users thus far in 2023, Reddit’s popularity has given way to third party apps that allow users to access the platform through a different user interface. However, the new, paid API could spell the end for these outside apps, forcing them to pay millions of dollars just to stay alive—therefore triggering the protest.
Which Apps Will This Affect?
Apollo is one of many well-known apps that provide a different interface for users to interact with Reddit; it’s the same information, just presented in a different way. (See the side-by-side image below for a comparison of the two apps.)
From left to right: Reddit and Apollo user interfaces© Courtesy Matt Crisara
Developers have a bee in their bonnet because access to this data used to be free, but now comes at a cost. Reddit plans to charge developers that require higher usage limits 24 cents for every 1,000 API calls or less than $1 per user every month. To offer some perspective, Apollo says these charges could cost upward of $20 million a year.
Why AI Could Be to Blame
So this new change is making substantial cuts into Apollo’s—and other apps’—bottom line. But why?
Generative AI is one of the biggest movers for Reddit’s recent decision to start charging for its data. If you think about it, Reddit is a perfect platform to collect training data for AI algorithms. Seeing as the app is an amalgamation of everyone and everything on the internet—and is updated as things happen—you can’t do much better than that. One of the critical issues with ChatGPT, for instance, is that its dataset is stuck in the year 2021. However, the data from Reddit could provide a massive step up for AI, and we reckon Reddit knows it—hence its paid API.
How Subreddits Are “Protesting”
Over 7,000 subreddits, including the larger ones—think r/music, r/gaming, r/science, and r/todayilearned—made access private between June 12–14, and some until further notice. This means that members of these communities will be unable to access these communities until Reddit reverses its decision to charge third parties to use its API.
the music subreddit pop up showing that it is now a private channel© Courtesy Matt Crisara
Developers see the move as nothing more than Reddit pulling the plug on third-party apps. However, the company says it’s “just business.” “We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive,” said Reddit CEO Steve Huffman in a June 9 Ask-Me-Anything thread.
Some of the more popular subreddits have come back online over the weekend after Huffman told NBC News on Thursday that he was considering making changes to the site’s content moderator removal policy in order to make it easier for regular users to vote out moderators if their decisions are unpopular—such as taking a subreddit dark.
A June 16 statement from the moderators of r/gaming, for example, note that Huffman’s words likely amounted to a threat:
Unfortunately, we’re at a point where we feel no amount of protesting will ever address those concerns, and any further blackouts and protests will only continue to hurt the community.
Initially, a majority of the community widely supported the blackout of /r/gaming. Though after the first 48 hours, it became less clear what the best move forward was. In the past day, we’ve been contacted by admins with what appears to be a thinly veiled threat to “reopen or else”.
Frankly, we had already prepared to reopen the subreddit, but we’d be lying if we said the pressure from the admins didn’t expedite our actions. At the end of the day, we do not trust that our community would be in good hands if solely controlled by Reddit administrators; we want to ensure the subreddit stays an inclusive space, irrespective of race, sexuality, or gender identity. The messaging from the admins—and specifically Steve Huffman—has been erratic, reactive, unprofessional, and inconsistent. We’re at a point where we want to make sure that the overall community will not permanently suffer from impulsive decisions made by Reddit.
That certainly doesn’t mean the Reddit protest is over. As of 10 a.m. on June 20, nearly 3,400 subreddits were still restricting access, according to a Twitch stream tracking the protest. Those that still have the lights out and remain completely private include r/DIY, which has over 20 million users; r/listentothis, which has over 10 million users; and r/photography which has over 5 million users. Many other subreddits are currently restricted, meaning anyone can view posts or comment, but only approved users can create posts.
Perspective: Twitter vs. Reddit
It’s important to note that this move to charge developers to use an app’s API isn’t unique to just Reddit. Twitter is another social media giant that shut off free access to its API after Elon Musk bought the company, with the end result leaving third-party apps with no other choice but to close up shop.
However, Twitter is a unique case because the executive decision was a unilateral move to ban third-party apps. Sure, it appears Reddit isn’t simply looking to sweep the rug out from under these third-party apps—being such a treasure trove of information to train AI models—but the end result remains that same.
Let us know below what you think of these social media companies slimming down their operations.
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