At the heart of the platform-wide ruckus are Reddit APIs, the code allowing third-party tools and apps to stay functional by connecting with Reddit servers. In April, Reddit announced that its APIs will no longer be free for commercial products, and the only scenarios where it won’t charge a fee for API calls is if they are used for improving the platform in one way or another without any private financial incentive. As a result, popular third-party apps like Apollo are shutting down this month, because based on user metrics, the annual API fee will run into millions of dollars.
It certainly doesn’t help that Reddit’s own mobile app is terrible, while a majority of good bots and moderation tools have been built atop hundreds of hours’ worth of non-paid work by ardent Reddit users. But CEO Huffman apparently is in no mood to budge, and his alleged internal reaction to the matter appears to be even more inflammatory.
In an alleged internal memo leaked by The Verge, Huffman reportedly told employees that “like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well.” He also reportedly said that the blackouts had, at the time of writing, not had much of an impact on Reddit’s revenue. In the hours that followed, the article was heavily cited among Reddit moderators and users who called for the blackout to become indefinite. So far, Huffman hasn’t made any public comments following his controversial AMA, but he’ll no doubt have a hard time with any future attempts at community negotiations.
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