The Truth About the Chaos at Reddit
Reading Time: 6 minutesReddit blackout: The internet debate at the heart of Reddit’s chaos.
In April, Reddit announced that it would, for the first time, charge companies for access to its data. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman suggested that the move was about A.I. companies using the site’s data to train their large language models—but the move didn’t just affect the big guys. Also asked to pay up were smaller developers who make apps built off the site’s application programming interface, or API. And the developers behind these apps, which are all built around the Reddit ecosystem, were not happy that something that was once free would now cost money. The much-loved Apollo, for example—which is basically a better version of the official Reddit app—said it couldn’t afford to pay and would have to shut down.
Once Reddit’s very active, very vocal users heard that Apollo and other apps would shut down, they went into revolt mode. They protested in their Reddit way, by turning a group of subreddits dark—and more than a week later, some subreddits are still protesting.
On Friday’s episode of What Next: TBD, I spoke with Sarah Needleman, who covers Reddit for the Wall Street Journal, about what the war between Reddit and its users says about the internet today. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. (Note: This is a developing story, and our interview was recorded last week.)
Emily Peck: Since its inception, Reddit’s API has been open and free to use, and that’s spawned an ecosystem of apps that make the experience of scrolling through Reddit better. Who uses these apps, and who will be affected by the change?
Sarah Needleman: These are all apps that are meant to be used by Reddit people. There’s a Reddit app that’s meant to help people who are blind to hear the content. There are many tools that are meant just for the moderators, for making sure their communities are safe. Reddit has promised to make similar tools, but hasn’t stepped up to the plate on that, and so [moderators] feel that they have no choice but to rely on these third-party apps.
The Apollo app is a type of Reddit app used for commercial purposes. It eats up a lot of data, and Reddit has signaled that it is not going to continue getting free access. The creator of Apollo has been very vocal on both Reddit and other social media, like Twitter, saying that’s going to force him to close the app; he can’t afford to access the data going forward.
Reddit has said that other third-party apps, like the ones that help people with disabilities, would not be expected to pay. So it’s only ones that have commercial purposes and that eat up a ton of data. That would also include a very interesting crowd—the generative artificial intelligence crowd.
Reddit isn’t the first social media platform to close off its API. Which other companies have taken similar steps?
We’re seeing Twitter do the same thing. Some other applications have also either increased prices or started introducing prices. I do think there’s a good chance that the generative A.I. boom is what sparked this. Right now, the tech sector is hurting—we’ve seen massive layoffs. All these factors are making the tech sector a little bit shaky these days and putting them in a position of ‘Gee, we really need to find other ways to generate revenue and become profitable.’ And this is kind of right in their face: This is stuff they’ve been giving away for free all this time, and a lot of companies don’t do that.
The nature of Reddit is all about democratization. The whole concept of it is that you can have these communities of your own and volunteer moderators keep tabs on them. I mean, the company does have moderators itself, don’t get me wrong. But for the most part, these communities are run on autopilot, or by the people who are creating them in the first place. And that gives them so much autonomy—I think they’ve grown very used to that. When you get something for free for a really long time and then suddenly you’re being asked to pay for it, it can be jarring.
When Twitter started asking users to pay for their previously free blue checks, there was no blackout moment, no protest. It’s interesting that Reddit users can mobilize in a way that other social media sites’ users wouldn’t or can’t.
Reddit users can mobilize because they have control over the communities, they can turn them private. On Twitter, certainly any one user could just stop posting or cancel their accounts, but it’s not going to have this big effect. The other thing about Reddit is, even though these different communities have all their different narrow focuses, they do unite together broadly. They’re used to having that autonomy and will band together if they feel like something’s not right.
Because Reddit’s native app has always been pretty bad, the company has long relied on third-party developers to make the experience better. Reddit flourished off their labor, but it’s now effectively kicking them to the curb without much warning. Why hasn’t the Reddit app itself gotten any better?
They’ve always said that they are working to make the experience for users better, investing in new tools and features all the time, adding video, for example. This is a small company, less than 2,000 employees—perhaps they just don’t have the manpower to do some of these things. Or perhaps they think that their app is better, maybe it’s a little bit subjective. But that is a constant complaint from moderators: Why Reddit isn’t doing more, why isn’t Reddit adding some of their favorite features from these third-party developers? Perhaps this blackout will inspire that, maybe the company will really get going on redeveloping its app and adding new features. Sometimes that’s what it takes.
Two years ago, Reddit said it was planning to go public. Is this its way of looking better to potential shareholders ahead of an IPO? Are they saying, ‘Look, now we have a diversified revenue stream; maybe one day we’ll make a profit’?
I think that’s a fair conclusion to make, that they are making a statement to potential future investors. I also think it’s just a step for getting to the point where they can potentially do an IPO. Tech stock evaluations slumped right around the time that they made that announcement and haven’t really improved a lot since then. I think the focus is just getting to break-even at this point, and the concern about potential future investors is maybe in the back of their minds.
Reddit kind of defines the free internet. Do you think this move is a turn away from the free internet?
I’m a little bit skeptical of that. Only 10 percent of third-party app developers are the ones who would have to pay, and that’s a pretty small number. And that’s separate from Reddit itself. Reddit itself is 100 percent free. I cannot see them charging a subscription for access to it. I suppose it’s possible there could be premium communities that want to charge something, and maybe Reddit would take a cut down the line. It’s a bit hard to imagine though, because it’s just so radically different from how they’ve operated all this time. And I think that’s why they’re doing this: It’s a small way to generate revenue, not from direct users. It’s something that other companies are doing, too, so it’s not making them seem totally out there and different from the pack.
It’s hard to know the exact size of the blackout. Is there a way to gauge whether this was the action of a whole community or that of a handful of moderators on some of the largest subreddits?
There’s a list on Reddit itself of all the participating subreddits that are protesting, and the list is in the thousands at this point. But again, there’s more than 100,000 active communities, so you would need tens of thousands, probably, to really cause a significant jolt.
Could this be a pivotal moment where people could actually leave the community entirely, for other options like Discord?
We saw what happened with Twitter, a lot of people said they were going to go over to Mastodon and Bluesky and Hive and all that. And so far, each of those has gotten a little bit of a bump for a while, but they’re not going gangbusters. Discord is pretty established, and it is pretty big, so that’s a little bit different. But whether people actually take the time, if they don’t already have a Discord account, to go over there and sign up and start using it, it’s hard to say.
So this is maybe an attempt by Reddit to sort of wrestle back some of the self-governance it’s allowed its users to have over the years. But in doing that, is there a chance that it’s kind of ruining what makes Reddit special in the first place? The promise of the free internet, a democratic site where the users are in control—is Reddit’s move a step back from that?
I think it’s a small step back. If they were charging access to the API to anyone, I could see that being the case. But because they’ve taken a very, very narrow approach, I think it’s possible that what you’re saying is a bit of an overreach. The other possibility is that this is just the beginning. That they’re going to take baby steps and gradually wrest back more control, which could have a very negative effect in the long term.
So I think it would take a little bit more to make that point. But I wouldn’t rule it out, either.
Reference: https://slate.com/technology/2023/06/reddit-blackout-api-whats-next.html
Ref: slate
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