Reddit CEO Steve Huffman doubles down on API changes | Mashable.
Reddit CEO doubles down on API changes
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| "We will close those gaps." Credit: Greg Doherty/Variety/Getty Images |
Many Redditors are still up in arms about Reddit's recent API changes, but CEO Steve Huffman isn't backing down.
That's the gist (and, frankly, nearly all of the substance) of Huffman's interview with The Verge, published on Friday.
A little context: Numerous Reddit communities are currently turned private, in protest of the platform's new API pricing structure, which threatens to kill many popular, third-party Reddit apps. These "blackouts" can happen as Reddit provides a platform for forum-like chats, but moderators on the platform have a fair degree of autonomy, including the power to set a subreddit to private, which makes it inaccessible to most users.
Huffman tried to iron things out in an AMA (ask me anything) session on Reddit, but it only made things worse. Now, in his interview with The Verge, the CEO once again explained his position on the matter.
According to Huffman, continuing to provide free API access to every third party developer is out of the question, as some developers are making "millions" on their apps while costing Reddit "about $10 million in pure infrastructure costs." The CEO also says the company has made a deal with the developers building accessibility apps, and certain other "critical" apps, naming only Pushshift. But others, including the popular Reddit app Apollo, will have to start paying for access.
Munch of the interview revolves around the timing of these changes and the short notice given to developers to adapt (Reddit announced the changes in April, right around the time when Twitter did a similar thing with its API). According to Huffman, the changes were a long time coming, and were internally discussed as far back as 2015. Ultimately, the CEO said Reddit decided it doesn't want to keep covering costs while third party apps profit from their data.
"We did it when we did it. We could do it a year from now and we’d probably have the same conversation. We could do it five years ago, we'd be having the same conversation," said Huffman.
As for the protests by Reddit's users, Huffman claimed they're already dying down — having already downplayed their impact.
"We don’t have problems with protests. I think it’s important. That’s part of the democracy. It’s part of the democratic part of Reddit. But the users are not in support of it now. It’s like a protest in a city that goes on too long, and the rest of the citizens of the city would like to go about their lives," he said.
Huffman acknowledged that a part of Reddit's community won't be fully satisfied with how things will go down, as their favorite third-party app might shut down (Apollo and Sync have already done so). He said the UI on these third-party apps is "simpler" while Reddit's own official app has become "too cluttered," and added company is working on that: "We will close those gaps as effectively as we can."
Read the full interview on The Verge.
More in Reddit
You know what Reddit does like? All these admins and moderators who run the communities for ... Free.
ReplyDeleteIf they did it free it wouldn't consistently only show content that benefits the left side of politics. The obviously are heavily influenced with money from the left. They got 150milllion in funding from China's investors "TenCent" and you know there were stipulations that admins had to do as they wish.
DeleteThe admins and moderators of the various Reddit communities are 99% not employees or or paid by Reddit. Most do not earn anything at all.
DeleteAs someone who is a mod of a few mid size subs, if you think mods get paid, you’re delusional 😂 . It’s almost like you skip the more logical answer that the reason the content tends to be more left leaning is because that’s what the user base is. From the last poll in 2016 less than 20% of the user base identified as conservative yet 47% identified as Liberal
DeleteAlso if Tencent had stipulations mods had to do as they wish, Reddit forgot to pass that info to the mods
Huh?
DeleteHow to say your company is in desperate need of money without saying it’s in desperate need of money…
ReplyDeleteHis business his rules, do you want a free API, build a new Reddit.
ReplyDeleteThen he does not get all the free content.
DeleteWho said anything about it being free, but there is a big difference between free and 2 million Dollars per month, how do you expect a 3rd party app like Apollo to pay that much.
ReplyDeleteHe only has $10 million, and he needs more. Much, much more.
DeleteThe Ui on third party apps isn't simpler it's more user friendly.
ReplyDeleteThey're also just.... better. The official Reddit Android app has been terrible since day 1. It is still buggy, deep links still don't work 90% of the time, and they've had more than enough time to make it good. But they haven't.
DeleteIt worked for Twitter
ReplyDeleteAaron Swartz, the founder of Reddit, would be disgusted with this goon and his pathetic manchild behavior
ReplyDeleteIt's only the apps which charge users for usage or consume a ton of data via reddit's public API which even need to worry about these charges. non-monetized apps and accessibility focused apps will need to switch over, but don't need to worry about paying any charges.
ReplyDeleteThis whole stink was mostly raised by the Apollo app, which has 100's of thousands of consistent users who pay monthly for access to the app. That app then costs reddit millions in data ingress and egress costs to support. Reddit is recuperating those costs along with lost opportunity costs.
There are some specific large accessibility apps which might trigger the commercial pricing threshold. Those apps have been reached out to by Reddit and are entering specific agreements to bypass this new pricing.
https://www.redditinc.com/.../https-www.redditinc.com...
Hmmm, revenue sharing, could be done, instead of shutdown the third party apps development, apple app store and google play store are good examples, maybe.
ReplyDelete$10 million is not enough for him. He will sink Reddit to try and get more.
ReplyDeleteIt's called greed, and it's not good.
The pop ups didn’t allow it to be read. Easiest method to censor someone that I have ever seen.
ReplyDelete"It can't be free."
ReplyDeleteReddit CEO: *Looks at Tumblr* '...nah, that'll never happen to us.'
ReplyDeleteIt can be free to products if those products drive countless amounts of traffic to a platform that then has others ways to convert that traffic to revenue.
ReplyDeleteLike ads that don't show up on third party apps?
DeleteIn those few cases where a third party app is blocking ads and promoted posts; call it a trade for all of the free content that Reddit gets. Reddit creates nothing of it’s own.
Deleteif it's just a few third party apps why is everyone so upset about it?
DeleteBecause it’s idiotic and unacceptable and if we allow Reddit to get away with charging insane prices for basically the ability to access their content from a third party, then so will every other place that does so.
Deleteapi licenses can have rules. They could simply require anyone using the api to display ads. This isn’t difficult. Reddit is being stupid.
DeleteBecause for one thing, those third party apps are what make it feasible for the moderators who keep Reddit communities functional to do their jobs. Jobs they do for free, and which Reddit benefits from, I might add.
DeleteThat's a fair point, but I'd also point out that Reddit only benefits from those moderators if it's able to monetize the content they provide. Reddit isn't an NGO; their ultimate loyalty has to be to their shareholders. Do I like how they went about this? Absolutely not. That being said I understand Reddit's position here.
Delete"their ultimate loyalty has to be to their shareholders"
DeleteAhh yes, the old "shareholders" canard that instantly justifies any corporate decision independent of any other concern, and furthers the notion that corporate persons acting like psychopaths is just a feature of capitalism, and not a bug.
Reddit already makes a profit by monetizing content that OTHER PEOPLE PROVIDE. (Reddit doesn't provide any content.)
Glad you're familiar with it. Reddit is a message board. A very good one, but nothing more. You're treating it like they're dumping toxic waste in a lake. It's not that big a deal. The boycott will work and reddit will revise their policies or they will weather the PR storm and temporary loss of users and everyone will move on. My money is on the latter.
Delete"they will weather the PR storm and temporary loss of users and everyone will move on"
DeleteThey will lose most of their moderators, and Reddit will devolve into another internet hellhole where the quality of content is garbage. If by "everyone will move on" you mean "to another platform", you're correct. Reddit's only value comes from its users, and there's literally no sunk cost for them. And with so many communities going private, there's not even an archive of accessible content. Reddit will be a shell of its former self in a few years. As soon as another message board gains momentum, people will just go there instead.
Reddit isn't a particularly "good" message board. It just happened to rise to prominence early in the internet's mainstream proliferation, and has been coasting on momentum ever since. Reddit would be wise to learn from Twitter, but they won't, because Genius Captains of Industry always think they're invincible, and never recognize the role of luck in their success. That's the thing about the internet- you can't use most of the real-world tricks to corner a market just because you happen to have the capital. It's a harsh lesson that we just watched that clown Musk learn in very public fashion.
if there are other message boards that offer the same thing moderators should move there. I remember hearing the same thing when Reddit overhauled their browser UI.
DeleteMaybe you're right and Reddit misjudged the market but I have a feeling they'll be alright. Wanna check back in 6 months?
I like that your baseline is two financial quarters. Very on-brand. 😃
DeleteCheck back in 3 years.
it really doesn’t though. All the slander notwithstanding, Apollo said they could’ve made it work with a bigger timeline and cutting the price from .24¢ per thousand calls to .12¢ per thousand.
DeleteSpez is acting like everyone’s asking for the api to remain free and they’re not. Just bringing the price down to reality and giving them more time. The kicker is that regarding the features people are saying the official app needs before they’d consider using it: Reddit won’t commit to a timeline.
I think at this point Spez is just jealous that third party apps that are successful while Reddit still isn’t profitable. The problem is he’s grossly overestimating how much money these devs pull in from their apps. Clearly they’re not pulling in the millions he thinks if they’re looking at this pricing the same way I look at the prices of Italian sports cars.
It doesn't need to be free. It needs to be reasonably priced. But Reddit management's motive is different. They just want more control over the users and get rid of third party apps all together. In the near future, the only thing that will remain about Reddit is a case study: "How not to sink your own ship."
ReplyDeleteI think that accolade may go to Musk and his management of Twitter, so far.
Deleteb-but it's only 2.000.000 dollars every month - Reddit
Delete"It can't be free." Sounds like every user should start billing Reddit for using their generated content then. It can't be free.
ReplyDeleteDude looks like he plays racquetball, quotes Sun Tzu at inappropriate moments and calls everybody "champ".
ReplyDeleteHe is so out of touch. No one...absolutely no one...insisted the only option was for it to be free. Sounds like most 3rd party app developers knew this day could eventually come, but they still though reddit would be reasonable about it.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn’t need to be free. But you shouldn’t be charging the price of a car each month. These apps also bring extra traffic which boosts ad revenue.
ReplyDeleteEven the ones blocking ads STILL register the ads being seen, they just re-route them to a different server.
I was gonna ask if there was an issue of 3rd party messing with click through or removing ads altogether. I could see a clause that you aka pull original ads and no addition in app adds.
Deletewhat a piece of work, I am actually curious what the number of people who ended up getting physically hurt because of the withheld information
ReplyDeleteI thought Trey Anastasio and Bill Gates had a secret love child….
ReplyDeletenot use what? Reddit in general oh for sure I'm deleting mine soon
ReplyDeleteIt can't be saas
ReplyDeleteBut... it IS free!
ReplyDeletein what sense?
DeleteIf you wanna do this maybe, just maybe have an app that isn't worse than it's 3rd party competitors
ReplyDeletesomeone actually said it
DeleteFix your app
ReplyDeletepffff sure thing haha they say that they are going to make the "original" reddit app way better than any other third app has ever done before they die
Deleteyeah I know. It’s not going to happen. It’ll be sad when / if Reddit collapses.
DeleteHonestly, of all the things that could’ve killed Reddit…?
ReplyDeletewhy? lol
ReplyDeleteBut not paying users to create the content or mod the content - thats fine.
ReplyDeletemakes perfect sense to the reddit CEO
DeleteWhy can’t it be free? The API doesn’t need to be a direct revenue stream, it can be given away for free to drive the value of Reddit as a platform. By killing all the apps that use the API with high fees they can’t pay, all Reddit is achieving is self-harm.
ReplyDeletethe CEO says that reddit won't die cause only a few people will leave, pffff I will be so happy if at least 20.000.000 people delete or never use their app/website ever again
DeleteIt can't be free, agreed, but the current pricing is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI've always used the Reddit website, never used Apollo, only a small number of users use Apollo. As a business, you can't just give free API access to third-party apps with no ads. I did the math, and Apollo would have had to pay $2.50/year per user. Reddit makes $1.40/year off each user on ads. If Apollo users want no ads, they can pay $6/year, $0.50/mo, and Apollo can make $6 million/year profit. This boycott is stupid. Just pay the $0.50/mo and don't be a leech and screw over the website you claim to care so much about. Don't be a craptivist.
ReplyDeleteHe looks the spitting image of who you’d expect to say….
ReplyDeletehttps://media1.tenor.co/images/ddd439116a7e12625de54132e8a40026/tenor.gif?c=VjFfZmFjZWJvb2tfd2ViY29tbWVudHM&itemid=11156171
Yes the people providing his company with free content should be paid and paid well but he ain't going to be doing that.
ReplyDeleteProblem is, he thinks he owns the subs. If every single one went offline, he'd be screwed
ReplyDeleteadvertising has to pay regardless of platform no reason advertisers should get a break cause there advertising on a forum that has a small user base
ReplyDeletehttps://media.tenor.co/qTDvZ2DnX2cAAAAC/jeffrey-dahmer-jeff-dahmer.gif?t=AAX-RsLBzVMA3i_cfwoYxg&c=VjFfZmFjZWJvb2s&itemid=26947659
ReplyDeleteErsatz Elon running a service not paying its moderators insists on things not being free (except the content of the site which people write for free, and the moderation of the spaces, apparently).
ReplyDeleteMan rich white tech boys really love destroying the platforms that they own
ReplyDeleteAll the techbros making moves to be "everybody's everything"...😂
ReplyDeleteWell it can't be millions a month either buddy
ReplyDeleteFollowing Elon after twitter to end up like twitter?
ReplyDeleteElon’s advice to tank Reddit and increase twitter’s value?
DeleteI doubt if twitter's gonna survive after what Elon has done to it.
Delete