Reddit’s crisis is a warning for all social platforms: when you trade community for profits, everyone loses. Will Reddit fix its mes...

Money, Mods, and Mayhem

The Turning Point

In 2024, Reddit is a far cry from its scrappy startup roots. With over 430 million monthly active users and more than 100,000 active communities, it’s a social media giant. But with great power comes great responsibility, and Reddit is learning this lesson the hard way.

The turning point came in June 2023 when Reddit announced changes to its API pricing. For the uninitiated, API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it’s basically the secret sauce that allows third-party apps to interact with Reddit. The new pricing model threatened to kill off popular third-party apps like Apollo, whose developer Christian Selig didn’t mince words: “Reddit’s API changes are not just unfair, they’re unsustainable for third-party apps.”

Over 8,000 subreddits went dark in protest.

The blackout should have reminded Reddit’s overlords of a crucial fact: Reddit’s success was built on the backs of its users. The platform had cultivated a sense of ownership among its community, and now that community was biting back.

One moderator summed it up perfectly: “We’re the ones who keep this site running, and we’re being ignored.”

  • eran_morad@lemmy.world
    1·
    3 months ago

    I’d probably be willing to put up with all of the thirst trap OF thots if Spez hadn’t killed Apollo. But no, that asshole just can’t get enough money. Fuck reddit.

    • GingaNinga@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 months ago

      Apollo going down is the reason why I’m here on Lemmy. I loved that app as much as I hate ads and I refuse to compromise so I quit cold turkey and never looked back. I’ll do the same for youtube if they ever actually figure out how to combat ad blockers effectively for more than a few hours at a time.

      • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        Same for me, except the app was Boost. I was very happy once it was released for Lemmy.

        I completely gave up with youtube apps. I just use Firefox on mobile and installed the add on ublock origin and haven’t had any ads since. Not the best viewing experience, but it gets the job done.

      • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        I did the same but for Reddit is Fun (android), and I still haunt reddit via browser but I don’t sign in or interact.

        It’s getting to the point where all the good content is also on Lemmy, probably won’t take long for lemmy to become peak old reddit with medium sized communities of real people interacting, supporting, educating, and roasting.

        We’ll probably be at a significantly lower critical mass before the corpos start invading, but hopefully the community can do a great job of reporting each other.

        I’d much rather pay a subscription for a spam bot free environment than watch new lemmys pop up every 15-20 years as enshittification bites.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
          0·
          3 months ago

          It’s getting to the point where all the good content is also on Lemmy,

          Oh how I wish this was true… Unless you mean memes (which are reposted everywhere), lemmy has a fraction of the content. There’s huge niche communities over there and I still have to add “reddit” to my searches for technical issues.

          To be clear, that hasn’t convinced me to start using reddit again beyond that. Just being realistic about comparing the two

        • Potatisen@lemmy.world
          0·
          3 months ago

          No service, no website, no app will remain the way it started. Lemmy will go to shit and a new thing will come along. Don’t be loyal.

    • Rolando@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      I was using RedReader and last I checked it was still active. Originally I thought I’d still follow the local subreddit but I’ve had zero interest in using Reddit, the people who run it are contemptible.