This is something I can’t seem to figure out. Let’s just assume that 3rd party apps are the reason reddit is losing money. So, it would make sense that reddit wants to start charging for their API access. But why is the burden on the apps and not the users?
Looking at it from the view of Reddit, their original excuse for charging for API access was due to the usage of it for machine learning with training their models. LLM’s (Large Language Models), such as LaMDA (Bard, Google), GPT-4 (OpenAI), need an enormous amount of data inputted into them and Reddit has a large amount of high quality conversations, making it an invaluable source for them.
However, because Reddit’s API was free, they didn’t get a cent of this. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t like this and wanted to profit off of this in some way. So they decided to charge for the API data access.
However, there is a clear issue with this as the Reddit API was used by third party apps, that don’t abuse the API and use it to operate their Reddit clients.
It’s quite clear now that the intention was not purely based on LLM’s as there was a large number of solutions that Reddit could’ve used to charge for API access for those wanting the data and those who are simply operating third party apps.
Client developers were absolutely more than willing to discuss these options, yet they were thrown a ton of hurdles by reddit.
So why do they want you to use their app?
These are a few examples of reasons that Reddit want you to use their app and there are most certainly many more. However, their argument has a fatal flaw, in that the value of Reddit does not come from their platform, but it comes from the data within it.
Social media follows this rule usually, 90% are lurkers and 10% are contributors. However, it depends. You might have a 1% of contributors that are prolific contributors that produce most of the sites content, or you might have a very small portion of contributors, like 0.01%. Think of the number of YouTube users and how many actually post videos themselves, or even contribute to the comment section.
Reddit contributors will be more likely than the average lurker to use a third party client or adblock on their browser. The revenue from these users is net-loss on paper, however, in reality, they are contributing significantly to the content that the revenue-generators will be viewing. If this content didn’t exist, there would not be a lurker to view the content, they’d simply go elsewhere.
Reddit doesn’t see it this way, they see these users as revenue losers that need to be migrated to their official app so they can begin to generate revenue. However, as mentioned, the huge backlash indicates that this was a terrible idea. Especially considering that unlike a platform like Twitter, Reddit is divided into sub communities managed with volunteer labour. As with the contributors, these individuals are much more likely to be using adblock or a third-party client. The Reddit app is rubbish, Reddit themselves have admitted this. Power users are going to try and find an alternative method of browsing that they find is better, which they have done.
Reddit absolutely knows this. /u/spez made an indication in his main post for his AMA that old reddit is not going away. They likely have engagement data for this and know that many contributions are made through old reddit. However, old reddit still gives them revenue and it’s still their platform. They added advertisements a few years back. https://safereddit.com/r/changelog/comments/c5clgh/ads_are_now_in_feed_on_old_reddit/
TL;DR Reddit wants money, but those who don’t use their app don’t generate money, on paper. In reality, they do. But it’s hard to convince investors of that.
Google already copies every public web page they can find, as part of search indexing. They don’t need to use API queries; they can just scrape the published HTML just like they do for every other page on the web.
What does this mean then? Reddit’s true intention is to shut down the 3rd party apps?
Personally, I think their intention is to get revenue so they can IPO and get stinking rich.
They would like a sudden increase in revenue, so investors think that they’re capable of continuing to increase revenue.
One step that many tech companies use to get revenue in a pinch is to stop giving things away for free if they can charge for them.
The question remains whether they can charge for them. If not, it’s possible there’s another exit strategy; the current team have got to be tired.
Just to invent a dumb one: kicking out the NSFW and selling the site to Disney; let the Trumpies exit, then promote the site as chiefly for chit-chat about Marvel movies, cute animals, cool science facts, and mainstream politics & news.
Alright. I’m convinced Lemmy is the future if this is the quality of replies here. Nicely done!