Comment by nolok

I'm not saying you are wrong. But the point you are missing, in my opinion, is that the people using the API and third party apps are the power users. It's simple, you start using a site/tool/game so much, you learn the addon/plugins/whatever for it and start using it, tale as old as computing.

Doesn't matter if they're the super active users / contributors / moderators / nft or awards whale / ... They're all power users, the very few % that generate the value, either directly by paying or indirectly by making other users stay and come back.

But in three decades of the web (roughly), I don't know of any web platform that started a fight against its power users and ended up in a better position as a company afterward. Winning the battle ? Sure. But a better position ? Nope. Do you have a counter exemple ?

It feels like either reddit is massively screwing up, or they don't care as long as they can fake it until the IPO.

The only question right now, is simply how many % of their power users are caught in that fight and they risk losing. Everything else is just a side show.

PS: the craziest part being that the whole thing is so not necessary. If they had come up straight up "we need to end that", or "they need to give us X% of revenue" or whatever, and stop at that, it would have worked. The terrible communication, and pretending to want to find a deal while clearly not, and the CEO refusing to stop lying, is what caused the current situation.

Either spez is used as a tool to reach the IPO they dream of and they're all aware of it, or I have no idea why he is still at this place.