Imagine this: thousands of the discussion rooms on the social platform Reddit, just like rooms in a gigantic virtual house, have decided to switch off their lights and close their doors. They’re planning to stay this way for a full 48 hours, to protest against a new move by Reddit to start charging third-party applications for something called API access.
Let’s explain that a bit. Think of an API, or Application Programming Interface, as the waiter in a restaurant. You, the customer, ask the waiter for a particular dish (that’s your request). The waiter then goes to the kitchen (the software application or website, in this case, Reddit) and brings back your dish (the data you requested). In simpler terms, an API is what allows different bits of software to ‘talk’ to each other and exchange data.
By Monday morning, more than 6,500 of these discussion rooms, known as subreddits, had switched off their lights, according to Reddark, a site that’s keeping an eye on the situation. Some of these are among the busiest rooms on Reddit, like r/funny, r/science, r/gaming, r/aww, and several others.
What caused this big fuss? Well, on April 18th, Reddit announced that it would start charging for access to its API. They claimed this was for third parties that needed “additional capabilities, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights.” They planned to start charging from July 1, 2023. Reddit’s CEO, Steve Huffman, admitted that many of the people who run these discussion rooms (called moderators) were pretty upset about the changes. But he said, “Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business…we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use.”
Now, some of the people who develop apps that work with Reddit say that this new charging scheme will put them out of business. Christian Selig, the person who made the Apollo app for Reddit, thinks that the new pricing could cost him up to $20 million each year. Because of this, he’s planning to shut down Apollo on June 30. Developers of other apps, including Reddit Is Fun, Sync, and ReddPlanet, have also said they’ll be turning off their lights too.
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Those who are protesting this decision, including both moderators and ordinary users, think that this change will hurt their online communities. They argue that Reddit relies on people volunteering their time to moderate these discussion rooms and keep them welcoming and free of bad behavior. Plus, they depend on these unpaid contributors to fill these rooms with all sorts of interesting content.
The argument against Reddit’s decision is that both of these groups will be badly affected. Without the right tools, moderators can’t fight against spam or those who behave badly. And if people can’t choose how and where they access Reddit, they might just decide to leave. This could turn Reddit from a vibrant, unique platform into just another forgettable part of the online world.
The moderators of one room, r/pics, have called on Reddit to listen to its moderators and users. They argue that without these people, Reddit wouldn’t even exist. Their plea is simple: don’t prioritize short-term gains over long-term survival. Don’t enable those who behave badly by working against your own volunteers. And finally, don’t plan for your Initial Public Offering (a big financial event) without thinking about what might happen afterwards.
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