Meny
SV

The great Reddit blackout: Why your favorite subreddit went dark

Whether you’re an hardcore redditor or a classic lurker, there’s a high chance you’ve been affected by the blackout that saw some 8,000 subreddits with the cumulative number of subscribers of more than 2.6 billion going dark.

Some of the most popular subreddits, such as r/funny with over 30 million users, went private on June 12 to protest Reddit’s move to charge third-party developers for using its API. The protest was to last two days and end on June 14, but some subreddits, like r/iPhone, said that they would not return unless a “a reasonable resolution is proposed.”

Thousands of subreddits went dark on June 12

How Reddit turned its own community on itself

Before we dive into the current drama, let’s rewind a bit and see how it all started. In April, Reddit announced that it would start charging for access to its API (application programming interface), which is a way for other apps to tap into Reddit’s data and features. This move followed Twitter’s footsteps, which had cut off free access to its API and introduced paid tiers, with an enterprise tier aimed at developers starting at a whopping $42,000 per month.

At the time Reddit claimed that the reason for charging for its API was to rebuff the “largest companies in the world” like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft who scrape Reddit for data to use it in AI training. “Crawling Reddit, generating value and not returning any of that value to our users is something we have a problem with,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told the New York Times. “It’s a good time for us to tighten things up,” he added.

Indeed, WebText2, a dataset which was used to train OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model was revealed to consist of web pages with high rating or karma scraped from Reddit. We have long criticized the practice of Big Tech where they gobble up publicly accessible information from the Internet, without caring about whether it’s copyrighted or not or if it contains sensitive personal data, for the supposedly higher goal of training AI. So, when Reddit aired its grievances against the insatiable appetite for “free” data on part of big corporations, the grievances themselves were, in our opinion, quite valid.

Apollo is crash-landing

It is how Reddit chose to enforce its new developer terms with regards to relatively small third-party developers (compared to the mighty Big Tech monsters) that has raised questions.

All hell broke loose in early June when Christian Selig, the solo developer of a popular ad-free Reddit client Apollo, exposed Reddit API’s pricing plans in a blog post. He claimed that he would have to fork out about $1.7 million per month, or $20 million per year to keep using the Reddit API at the current rate.

Apollo is free, but it also offers two paid options: a one-time payment of $4.99 or a monthly fee of $1.49. However, Selig said that even if he only kept the paid subscribers, he would not be able to afford Reddit’s rates. Reddit later confirmed it would charge 24 cents for every 1,000 times API calls are made by an app. Selig calculated that an average Apollo user makes 10,600 API calls per month, which means that each user would cost him $2.50 per month, putting him “in the red.”

Selig accused Reddit of breaking its promise to come up with pricing for its API that would be based “in reality.” Apparently, it’s not that he did not see the paid API tier coming — in fact, Apollo community members did so as far back as three years ago.

Apollo saw the paid API tiers coming

After all, Apollo does not show Reddit ads, which, you guessed it right, are the primary source of income for the platform by a wide margin. The problem is rather that Reddit has become too greedy, according to Selig. He estimated that Reddit makes about $1.40 per year, or 12 cents per month, from each user, based on public data on Reddit’s revenue and user base. This means that Selig would have to pay Reddit 20 times more than what Reddit makes from each user, if his estimates are correct.

The irony is that high, by any standards, fees that Reddit plans to charge third-party developers from July 1 onwards are ones that arguably only the large corporations it claims to challenge would be able to afford. Apollo announced that it would shut down before the new API pricing kicks in, as did several other third-party clients like Reddit is Fun and Sync.

Reddit clumsily attempts damage control

Reddit faced huge backlash from the community over its new demands and tried to do some damage control. To assuage some of the concerns, Reddit said that over 90% apps would still be able to use the API for free as long as they did not exceed usage limits. Reddit also spared some “non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps and tools” from having to pay the fee. However, some developers of these apps and tools expressed concerns that Reddit could change its mind at any time. “I think it’s very reasonable to be concerned about Reddit’s current trajectory, and nobody can know for sure how long the exemption will last,” wrote the developers of RedReader, an app that helps blind people to screenread Reddit.

In another attempt to make amends with redditors, Huffman held a Q&A session, where he refused to backpedal on the unpopular changes, but admitted that the deadline to switch to the paid API plans was “tight” and said he would “continue talking” with other third-party apps. Though, when a user questioned Reddit’s apparent pursuit of profit over community (surprise, surprise), Huffman did not argue, while also taking a swipe at third-party clients who, he claimed, were living the high life profitable.

Reddit CEO has insisted on making access to its API a paid product

Why is Reddit doing this: our theory

One must wonder why Reddit would pit its community against itself to suffer arguably one of the most steep falls from grace in recent internet history. The most likely reason behind that seemingly self-destructive move is that Reddit wants to cash in on its ad revenue.

Third-party clients like Apollo or RIF (Reddit is Fun) do not display Reddit ads, but they may have their own ads. For example, Apollo would occasionally annoy its users with its own product ads, however, one could argue that these types of ads are relatively harmless.

In their farewell message, the RIF developers revealed that as part of the changes Reddit was “blocking ads in third-party apps, which make up the majority of RIF’s revenue”. As we noted earlier, ad sales make up the lion’s share of Reddit’s total revenue. Although ad revenue dwarfs the money Reddit makes selling premium subscriptions, the number of premium subscribers who can enjoy the forum ad-free has been slowly growing. Reddit Premium costs $5.99 per month or $49.99 per year, which makes it more expensive than Apollo’s paid plans, for example.

Considering that Reddit is trying to boost its ad business, it makes sense that it may want to kill popular Reddit clients that take away its ad revenue while also selling subscriptions (some of them, at least).

What to take away from all of this

Charging for API access is not inherently a bad thing, as it can help cover the costs of maintaining and improving the service. Third-party clients, either by placing their own ads or selling subscriptions, or both, were profiting off Reddit’s data without compensating it. That was hardly a sustainable model in the long run.

But it’s how you do it, not what you do, that matters most. Third-party applications, including Reddit clients, were apparently blindsided by the changes, especially the API pricing, and given a very tight deadline. Moreover, the way Reddit treated some developers, suggesting they pay exorbitant fees they could not possibly afford and offering no more flexible pricing options, is not a good look for Reddit.

We hope that Reddit has not closed the door on client apps who are willing to pay a fair share for using its data. Hopefully they can find a compromise that allows both Reddit and third-party developers to thrive. Most likely, this should involve Reddit receiving compensation from third-party clients for using its data such as through API fees, but in a reasonable amount: this could benefit both Reddit and developers, as well as users who enjoy the apps.

Gillade du detta inlägg?
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard för Windows

AdGuard för Windows är mer än en reklamblockerare. Det är ett mångsidigt verktyg som blockerar annonser, kontrollerar åtkomsten till farliga webbplatser, snabbar upp laddningen av sidor och skyddar barn från olämpligt innehåll.
Genom att ladda ner programmet accepterar du villkoren i Licensavtalet
Läs mer
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard för Mac

Till skillnad från andra annonsblockerare är AdGuard utvecklad med macOS-specifikationerna i åtanke. Det ger inte bara skydd mot annonser i Safari och andra webbläsare utan skyddar också från spårning, phishing och bedrägeri.
Genom att ladda ner programmet accepterar du villkoren i Licensavtalet
Läs mer
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard för Android

AdGuard för Android är en idealisk lösning för Androids mobila enheter. I motsats till andra annonsblockerare behöver AdGuard inte rootåtkomst vilket ger ett brett spektrum av funktioner,, som filtrering i appar, programhantering och mycket mer.
Genom att ladda ner programmet accepterar du villkoren i Licensavtalet
Läs mer
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard för iOS

Den bästa iOS-annonsblockeraren för iPhone och iPad. AdGuard eliminerar alla typer av annonser i Safari, skyddar din integritet och snabbar upp sidladdningen. AdGuard för iOS-teknik för annonsblockering säkerställer filtrering av högsta kvalitet och låter dig använda flera filter samtidigt
Genom att ladda ner programmet accepterar du villkoren i Licensavtalet
Läs mer
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard VPN

74 platser globalt

Tillgång till allt innehåll

Stark kryptering

Ingen loggnings-policy

Snabbaste anslutningen

24/7 support

Testa gratis
Genom att ladda ner programmet accepterar du villkoren i Licensavtalet
Läs mer
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard Innehållsblockerare

AdGuard Innehållsblockerare kommer att eliminera alla typer av annonser i mobilwebbläsare som stöder innehållblockeringsteknik — nämligen Samsung Internet och Yandex Browser. Även om det är mer begränsat än AdGuard för Android, är det gratis, lätt att installera och ger fortfarande hög annonsblockeringskvalitet.
Genom att ladda ner programmet accepterar du villkoren i Licensavtalet
Läs mer
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard Webbläsartillägg

AdGuard är det snabbaste och mest lättviktiga annonsblockeringstillägg som effektivt kan blockera alla sorters annonser på alla webbsidor! Välj AdGuard fär webbläsaren du använder och få annonsfri, snabb och säkert nätsurf.
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard Assistent

Ett kompletterande webbläsartillägg för AdGuard dator appar. Det erbjuder en åtkomst i webbläsaren till sådana funktioner som anpassad elementblockering, vitlista en webbplats eller skicka en rapport.
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard DNS

AdGuards DNS är, utan krav på nån programinstallation, ett idiotsäkert sätt att blockera internetannonser. Helt kostnadsfritt och enkelt att ställa in på alla slags enheter, erbjuds skydd mot annonsblockering, spårning, räknare, skadeprogram och vuxeninnehåll.
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard Home

AdGuard Home är en nätverkstäckande programvara för blockering av annonser och & spårning. Efter att du ställt in det kommer den att täcka in ALLA dina anslutna enheter och därmed behöver du inga några klientprogram för detta. Med tillkomsten av Internet-Of-Things och anslutna enheter blir kontrollen av alla enheter allt viktigare .
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard Pro för iOS

AdGuard Pro har mycket att erbjuda ovanpå den utmärkta annonsblockeringen i Safari som användare av standardversionen redan känner till. Åtkomsten till egna DNS-inställningar ger möjligheten att blockera annonser, skydda dina barn från sexinnehåll på nätet och förhindra stöld av dina personliga data.
Genom att ladda ner programmet accepterar du villkoren i Licensavtalet
Läs mer
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard för Safari

Att ta fram webbläsartillägg för Safari har blivit svårare sedan Apple började tvinga alla att använda det nya SDK. AdGuards webbläsartillägg förväntas återinföra effektiv annonsblockering i Safari.
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard Temp Mail

En gratis generator för tillfälliga e-postadresser som håller dig anonym och skyddar din integritet. Ingen skräppost i din huvudinkorg!
18 414 18414 användarrecensioner
Utmärkt!

AdGuard för Android TV

AdGuard for Android TV is the only app that blocks ads, guards your privacy, and acts as a firewall for your Smart TV. Get warnings about web threats, use secure DNS, and benefit from encrypted traffic. Relax and dive into your favorite shows with top-notch security and zero ads!
Laddar ner AdGuard För att installera AdGuard klickar du på filen som anges med pilen Välj "Öppna" och klicka "OK" och invänta att filen hämtas. I det öppnade fönstret drar du AdGuard-ikonen till mappen "Program". Tack för att du valde AdGuard! Välj "Öppna" och klicka "OK" och invänta att filen hämtas. Klicka på "Installera" i det öppnade fönstret. Tack för att du valde AdGuard!
Install AdGuard on your mobile device