Reddit isn’t profitable, despite having more than 50 million daily active users. In preparation for an IPO, CEO Steve Huffman put the platform’s API
Reddit isn’t profitable, despite having more than 50 million daily active users. In preparation for an IPO, CEO Steve Huffman put the platform’s API
Lemmy costs money to run as well, so it would not have been unreasonable for them to charge something. Some app developers built a subscription business around their Reddit client, whereas it was Reddit that paid the server bill. As far as I know, Reddit was still losing money despite being around since 2005.
What made me lose respect for Reddit is that (a) the fees they were asking were out of proportion and (b) they did not take a good-faith approach to solving their financial problem. But even if the fees had been reasonable and the issue had been dealt with in good faith, I would have still wanted a solution for free opensource clients. Either they should have exempted non-commercial clients, or they should have allowed me to buy a Premium subscription for my account to keep third-party access.
I gladly would have paid $2.50 per month to access reddit as it was. But I guess they didn’t want my money or because they couldn’t have all of my money they weren’t interested.
I was paying $2.50 since Reddit Premium is $30/yr and they still block your API access.
I cancelled it and won’t be going back. I no longer believe in the platform.
TIL reddit premium is a thing… What do you even get? My gut reaction is it’s a waste of money…
Ad blocker and gold. It is mostly a waste of money, but if you believe in the platform, it’s a way of paying back (which is why I cancelled it).
That was super disingenuous and turned me off, too. Like you’re saying, Selig noted that by reddit’s stats, each user cost .12 cents a month and reddit was asking for $2.40. The 3rd party developers provide a service to reddit that reddit could have monetized through various arrangements, such as requiring their ads to be displayed, requiring premium as you said, or a profit sharing arrangement. 3rd party developers were not taking advantage of reddit or demanding free access… they objected to reddit pulling out the rug suddenly and then lying and misrepresenting everything about it.
This has been like going to a restaurant or working somewhere for 8 years and then you finally meet the owner and are WHAT? Fuck that.
It was the setup as well.
Conversations in January saying API and API T&C were not changing anytime soon (clarified to mean multiple years).
The change announced shortly after with 0 concrete details.
Then 6 weeks notice of the details to then implement the changes before costs incurred.
6 weeks notice is fine for consumer stuff, but not business-to-business, and not at the scale of $20m.