Reddit is one of the largest and most important websites on the planet. especially since it’s one of the last places where people can have questions answered by real people.. So it sucks to see that the company is about to squash many of the best ways to truly experience it all.
I guess the Reddit experience is fine for anyone using the site on a desktop computer (“Old Reddit” is better), but everything changes on phones. Official app of Reddit wretchedand it’s definitely full of intrusive ads, meaning many people rely on running third-party apps to browse and comment, like the incredibly popular Apollo on iOS and my favorite Infinity on Android.
Or they did. These third-party apps existed only because Reddit allowed them to access their API (mainly rear ends); today, the site announced certain changes to this regulation (first publicly announced last month), charges for data—similar to those offered by another platform with popular third-party apps, Twitter— these are so astronomical that they will price every third-party app on the market.
The creator of Apollo made the calculation, and said:
I won’t go further: 50 million requests cost $12,000, which is way more than I could have imagined.
Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, which equates to about $1.7 million per month, or $20 million per year. Even if I only keep subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which costs $2.50 per month, which is more than double the current cost of the subscription, so I’d be in the red every month.
Meanwhile, one of the developers of another popular Android app, RIF, say this not only are they priced in (no one will if Apollo can afford it), but Reddit is implementing a change where third-party apps will lose access to NSFW subreddits and the official site cannot:
Removing obscene material from third-party apps while keeping said content in the official app. Some people think NSFW will quit Reddit altogether, but then why is Reddit Inc recently extended Support for installing NSFW on desktop sites?
Obvious that the high pricing that goes far beyond what these developers expect or can afford is not there to make money. Not when it becomes clear that no one can pay. It is brought in to crush third-party alternatives and directs every mobile user to the official app, where they will either have to watch ads or watch ads. Pay for Reddit Premium.
Or, you know, stop going to Reddit.
