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Comment by kimbernator

2 years ago

I never got the impression that the community is claiming that Reddit doesn't produce any value. I've seen willingness to pay a reasonable amount from most people.

Reddit brings the platform, users bring the community. If Reddit flexes their muscles to force users to their will, it's only natural for users to flex back.

15 comments

kimbernator

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HDThoreaun  2 years ago

Reddit's revenue per user is utterly trash compared to every other social media site. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to want to close the gap.

LanceH  2 years ago

> I never got the impression that the community is claiming that Reddit doesn't produce any value.

There are tons of statements all over the place on, "we produce all the value". There are statements in this very thread that Reddit brings little or nothing to the table.

Yes, somehow, despite apparently building little to nothing, everyone coalesced around Reddit and not some grander effort.

I can't explain Reddit or defend their actions, but the response looks more like a tantrum with petty people flexing what little power they have to feel important. The Api problem is just the excuse.

that_guy_iain  2 years ago

What is a reasonable amount?

  • kimbernator  2 years ago

    An amount that doesn't mean immediate death to all third-party apps would be a good start.

    I don't know what the right number is, but Reddit has made it abundantly clear with this move that they aren't interested in finding it.

    Honestly, I doubt there is one anymore (for me at least). Any trust I had for their corporate leadership before has completely evaporated. If they were to lower the prices to a "reasonable" level now it would indicate that they either capitulated (but didn't get to do what they really wanted and probably will try again later) or they are just being manipulative and wanted to use this as a way to show "goodwill" by bringing the price down.

    The concept of the fediverse these days has me hopeful for a time where we don't need to worry about these big dumb corporate interests holding our data and the control over it hostage. Any publicly owned (or private trying to go public) organization with a profit incentive is bound to make stupid, short-term decisions eventually, and this is just one of many of Reddit's forays into that arena. They will continue to get worse and worse, regardless of how effective the protesting is.

  • ambicapter  2 years ago

    Much, much less than what they were asking for. The top reddit app was being faced with a yearly bill in the tens of millions of dollars, and comparison to other social media website APIs saw a price discrepancy of 20x iirc.

    • that_guy_iain  2 years ago

      The other social media API is Imgur.

      Pricing for Imgur is: $500 for 7.5m requests then $0.01 per request after that. Then $10,000 for 150m requests and $0.01 per request after that.

      Reddit is at $0.24 per 1,000. Or $0.00024 per request.

      Imgur is cheaper for 150m requests but Reddit is cheaper for 500m requests.

      So really, what is a reasonable pricing?

      6 replies →

    • achikin  2 years ago

      Reddit asked ~2M$ per month. In his rant Apollo creator told that he‘ll be ok paying half of that. Can you imagine how much is he making on free Reddit APIs?

      1 reply →