Popular Reddit App Apollo Would Need To Pay $20 Million Per Year Under New API P...

Popular Reddit App Apollo Would Need To Pay $20 Million Per Year Under New API Pricing

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• You make some good points. *This message fades into the background and forces a popup modal in your face*

  • Re:

    Got a chuckle out of this and here I'm out of mod points.

• ...but it frankly sounds like his app is a bit of a free-rider on Reddit content.

  And web browsers aren't?

  • Re: I don't have a horse in this race

    Technically no. Reddit gets ad revenue from browser access.

    • Re:

      There's absolutely no reason Reddit couldn't serve ads through the API. The ads they serve through the browser and in the official app look like posts already.

      • Re: I don't have a horse in this race

        Very true. But that's not the current reality.

        • Re:

          That's their choice, just like charging obscene amounts for the API. I think they'll end up with the same problem that Twitter is currently having and the issue that killed Digg in favor of Reddit years ago

      • Re: I don't have a horse in this race

        Actually, it might not even be that easy. The ads are served by 3rd parties, not from Reddit sure itself. Sure you could build yet more infrastructure to do that but by default, reddit doesn't have access to the ads to serve them

        • Re:

          In theory the API agreement could specify that APIed ads must be displayed (or your API key is revoked), and then with that assurance sell the APIed ads and impressions for the ad-buyers.

          The 3rd party app makers could maybe even get a cut of click-throughs, as an encouragement to make the ads stand out.

          • Re:

            All things that *could* exist but don't. Again, the API is created a time when a service is relative small and growing. Adding *more* work to make the API *less* attractive to 3rd party people isn't a likely positive business case at that point.
            
            The API is a tool that reddit (and every other social media company) uses to generate more interest and (un-monetized) traffic.
            
            They have every right to change the terms, but not without valid criticism that they are punishing some of the very people who helpe

      • Re:

        ...which probably points to the solution - ads in the free api, no ads in paid api.

        That's assuming the free api still offers any advantage over the existing free api, which is https

  • Re:

    Do you know any web browsers that are collecting subscription fees for accessing reddit?

    • Re:

      There are plenty of apps that aren't. If browser developers wanted to charge, they could. Some tried years back. Didn't work very well as a model.

• Re: I don't have a horse in this race

  3rd party clients don't exist unless the owner allows them. I.e. they provided the API to build user base and leverage literal free development work by the 3rd party tool makers.

  Having reaped millions in gains from this deal they are now altering the terms further.

  It's BS to harvest the success of 3rd parties and then pull the access out from them. It's also tried and true behavior by companies who make it big.

  • Re:

    I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
    • 1 hidden comment

• Re:

  You aren't wrong.

  Reddit basically has two directions they can go:

  - improve their own app and compete on merits, generating more impressions and thus ad revenue;
  or
  - start charging money for API access to people who make better versions of the Reddit app than Reddit is apparently capable of, in order to suppress competition

  I guess we know which one they chose.

  • Re: I don't have a horse in this race

    If your business model relies on the kindness of another company, then you will always fail.

    • Re:

      The thing is, if I can no longer access reddit via RIF; I'm not going to switch to their app; I'm going to stop visiting reddit other then though google searches for specific things. The official app is horrid (same goes for old.reddit.com; when that stops working, its as dead as digg to me)

    • Re:

      Except...reddit's business model relies on user submitted content and free user supplied moderation. Many of these moderators use third party apps to moderate. It seems reddit is in the very position you are warning about.

• I bought Apollo.

  Reddits app sucks in my experience. I downloaded Apollo at the recommendation of a friend, and I like it quite a bit more. Since that time, the reddit web interface on mobile has gotten even worse. The pop-ups suggesting I use the app are part of the issue, the other is a bug which causes the page to not scroll when I swipe most of the time (I think it has to do with the size of my screen, since I don't have the issue on my iPad, only my iPhone Mini).
  
  If I have to go back to the reddit app (particularly since the web pushes you towards the app at every opportunity) I'll likely visit the site a WHOLE lot less.
  
  At the end of the day, this is just further enshitification [wiktionary.org] of the web in the interest of every increasing profits for share-holders. It's smart, since it focuses mostly on those not generating content, but this will not be the end. After they kill all 3rd party clients, they'll up the ad:content ratio to the max, and degrade user experience once they convince themselves that the users have no-where else to go. Then the users will migrate to a new startup, and start the cycle of enshittification all over again.
  
  If there were a company that could see past share-value, the cycle could stop and they could make a good profit indefinitely, but share-holders don't care about long-term viability as much as they do about share price in the next 30 days.

  • Re:

    Use old reddit [reddit.com]

• Re:

  This seems a little fishy. Reddit's API rules currently say:

  We're happy to have API clients, crawlers, scrapers, and browser extensions, but they have to obey some rules:
  - Please ensure that all API clients follow Reddit's API terms
  - Clients must authenticate with OAuth2
  - Clients connecting via OAuth2 may make up to 60 requests per minute. Monitor the following response headers to ensure that you're not exceeding the limits:

  Reddit's post announcing they were going to charge explicitly say that they're fine

• Re:

  Apollo is the only ecosystem specific app I miss after I switched to Android. it's by far and beyond the best reddit client there is. the amount of customization it offers is great, the dev is a great guy, and it's worth the money.