All 3rd party apps are getting priced out. Only one remains that got an exception, and one (that I know of) will try to go subscribers-only.

But the actual bad part, is how Reddit has shown its true colors and bad faith. Users create all the content on Reddit. Moderators keep the ships running. App developers make that stuff available to everybody.

Together, these parties create literally all the value on Reddit.

Reddit does nothing but own the infrastructure.

And yet, they behave like they own everything, can dictate all the rules, and all the profits should go only to them.

Imagine the owner of an office building hosting multiple companies suddenly starts busting onto individual offices and companies and making a mess while drunk to their eyeballs. That’s Reddit.

So that’s bad, but also it has a bright side. Now that we know, we could leave and make our own little world. A better one.

I mean, reddit’s own app is crap for moderators. They used third party apps that were really good. When those apps go away, the mods can’t work well.

Bad mod work = bad content = bad communities = death of reddit.

So the api problem is basically suicide by a thousand paper cuts. Not fast, not certain, but painful.

It highlights how little control the majority value providers actually have. Forums are mediums where information exchanges happen. When the mediums owner starts dictating what type, how much and who exchanges information then the most easily replicable, lowest value member is dictating the terms to everyone because of their centralized control.

Unfortunately while replacing them is rather trivial, due to the nature of collective action problems, it is nevertheless quite painful to orchestrate the wide ranging coordination necessary to migrate so many users in any truly succinct manner to another medium. Usually this process is messy and happens over time and requires a significant catalyst to push people over some threshold and a sustained effort to inform and educate casual users.

Most third party apps are shutting down, unfortunately. The official app is pretty bad but what did it for me is how Reddit handled the whole situation. That’s worse than the API change itself. Reddit has in general gotten worse over time, so this is just the last straw.

I wanted to be more active on lemmy for while but when I joined 2 years ago, the community wasn’t very active outside of some Linux bubbles, so I didn’t stay initially. Now it’s a much better situation and I don’t see myself going back.

Reddit Is Fun is another app being killed off.

The worst thing about the API changes is the long string of broken promises that got us here.

Reddit said for years that they would provide the tools users needed to moderate their subs (which the mods do for free on their own time). Reddit has failed to do so. Third party devs using the API did that.

Reddit also had years to make their site actually work for people with disabilities. Reddit has failed to do do. Third party devs using the API did that too.

Reddit said that they would not touch the API. Then they changed their mind and announced they’d be charging for it, but they’d work with current devs. Then they announced a price that was totally out of line with what other businesses charge and what was realistic for many apps to pay. With only one month to make those changes before the new pricing went live, despite knowing that many third party apps use a yearly subscription model.

Reddit’s CEO said he’d do an AMA to address concerns with the new policy. During that AMA he answered only 14 questions while ignoring the highest-voted questions. He was also caught astroturfing and lying during that AMA.

Reddit said they would not interfere with the ability of redditors to protest the change. Then they threatened to remove entire mod teams if they didn’t get back to business as usual and replace them with mods who would run the subs the way Reddit wanted them to.

So, yeah. The API change by itself is doing a lot of devs dirty with an unrealistic price and unrealistic timeframe. But the worst part of it is the heap of broken trust that it sits on top of.