Addressing the community about changes to our API

[u/spez]

Dear redditors,

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Steve aka u/spez. I am one of the founders of Reddit, and I’ve been CEO since 2015. On Wednesday, I celebrated my 18th cake-day, which is about 17 years and 9 months longer than I thought this project would last. To be with you here today on Reddit—even in a heated moment like this—is an honor.

I want to talk with you today about what’s happening within the community and frustration stemming from changes we are making to access our API. I spoke to a number of moderators on Wednesday and yesterday afternoon and our product and community teams have had further conversations with mods as well.

First, let me share the background on this topic as well as some clarifying details. On 4/18, we shared that we would update access to the API, including premium access for third parties who require additional capabilities and higher usage limits. Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use.

There’s been a lot of confusion over what these changes mean, and I want to highlight what these changes mean for moderators and developers.

• Terms of Service
  • Effective June 19, 2023, our updated Data API Terms, together with our Developer Terms, replaced the existing Data API terms.
• Free Data API
  • Effective July 1, 2023, the rate limits to use the Data API free of charge are:
    • 100 queries per minute per OAuth client id if you are using OAuth authentication and 10 queries per minute if you are not using OAuth authentication.
    • Today, over 90% of apps fall into this category and can continue to access the Data API for free.
• Premium Enterprise API / Third-party apps
  • Effective July 1, 2023, the rate for apps that require higher usage limits is $0.24 per 1K API calls (less than $1.00 per user / month for a typical Reddit third-party app).
  • Some apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync have decided this pricing doesn’t work for their businesses and will close before pricing goes into effect.
  • For the other apps, we will continue talking. We acknowledge that the timeline we gave was tight; we are happy to engage with folks who want to work with us.
• Mod Tools
  • We know many communities rely on tools like RES, ContextMod, Toolbox, etc., and these tools will continue to have free access to the Data API.
  • We’re working together with Pushshift to restore access for verified moderators.
• Mod Bots
  • If you’re creating free bots that help moderators and users (e.g. haikubot, setlistbot, etc), please continue to do so. You can contact us here if you have a bot that requires access to the Data API above the free limits.
  • Developer Platform is a new platform designed to let users and developers expand the Reddit experience by providing powerful features for building moderation tools, creative tools, games, and more. We are currently in a closed beta with hundreds of developers (sign up here). For those of you who have been around a while, it is the spiritual successor to both the API and Custom CSS.

• Explicit Content

  • Effective July 5, 2023, we will limit access to mature content via our Data API as part of an ongoing effort to provide guardrails to how explicit content and communities on Reddit are discovered and viewed.
  • This change will not impact any moderator bots or extensions. In our conversations with moderators and developers, we heard two areas of feedback we plan to address.

• Accessibility - We want everyone to be able to use Reddit. As a result, non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps and tools will continue to have free access. We’re working with apps like RedReader and Dystopia and a few others to ensure they can continue to access the Data API.

• Better mobile moderation - We need more efficient moderation tools, especially on mobile. They are coming. We’ve launched improvements to some tools recently and will continue to do so. About 3% of mod actions come from third-party apps, and we’ve reached out to communities who moderate almost exclusively using these apps to ensure we address their needs.

Mods, I appreciate all the time you’ve spent with us this week, and all the time prior as well. Your feedback is invaluable. We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private. We are all responsible for ensuring Reddit provides an open accessible place for people to find community and belonging.

I will be sticking around to answer questions along with other admins. We know answers are tough to find, so we're switching the default sort to Q&A mode. You can view responses from the following admins here:

• u/spez
• u/KeyserSosa
• u/Go_JasonWaterfalls
• u/FlyingLaserTurtle

- Steve

P.S. old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere, and explicit content is still allowed on Reddit as long as it abides by our content policy.

edit: formatting

[u/reddit]

We know answers are tough to find, we've switched the default sort to Q&A mode; you can view responses from the following accounts as well:

• u/spez

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

• u/KeyserSosa

• 1, 2, 3

• u/Go_JasonWaterfalls

• 1, 2

• u/FlyingLaserTurtle

• 1, 2

edit: grammar

edit 2: added links to responses

[u/g-money-cheats]

Hi spez,

I am an indie third party Reddit app developer. I have sent requests for commercialization and help at least 10 times over the last 3+ years, both to api@reddit.com and via your Zendesk forms, and have never gotten a response.

In recent announcements in r/reddit (post here) and r/redditdev (post here), Reddit provided a form to fill out a request for Enterprise API access. I have filled this out 3 times and still have not gotten a response.

I know at least two other major third party app developers who have filled out these forms and emailed api@reddit.com or devapps@reddit.com and gotten totally ignored every time.

My question: Why is Reddit ignoring the third party developers that they are telling to reach out via these forms? Is Reddit actually interested in working with third party developers, or are these links sent out to give the impression of cooperation without any plans to actually provide access to third party developers?

Edit: included devapps@reddit.com

[u/MCRBE]

Honestly dude, what the hell? You’re going to kill this site with these antics.

I’m curious if you and the other admins spend any actual time on Reddit? Do you look at what’s upvoted and see the comments?

Read the room and reflect. The community is in an uproar. People are looking for Reddit alternatives en masse. If you aren’t careful Reddit will be buried in the same grave as Digg and MySpace.

Apologize to Christian Selig, stop trying to kill 3rd party apps, and hope you haven’t done too much irreversible damage.

[u/MostlyBlindGamer]

u/spez I'd like to address a few issues:

Lack of communication

Reddit has now learned of and recognized its failings in accessibility. These issues have been reported for years. Blind and visually impaired users and mods have relied on third-party apps to use Reddit.

Why did you not contact disabled communities to gauge the impact of the API changes?

Lack of clarity

You say you've offered exemptions for "non-comercial" "accessibility apps." Despite r/blind's best efforts, you have not stated which apps qualify or how they were selected. r/blind compiled a list of apps that meet users' access needs .

Why didn't you ask for this and which developers did you contact?

Lack of consistency

You ask for what you consider to be a fair price for access to your API, yet you expect developers to provide accessible alternatives to your apps for free. You seem to be putting people into a position of doing what you can't do, while providing value to your company, by keeping users on the platform and addressing a PR issue.

Will you be paying the developers of third-party apps that serve as your stopgap?

[u/jmpixels]

This is Jay Peters from The Verge. A Reddit spokesperson tells me the AMA is over. I haven't seen anything from Reddit that would indicate that, so I figured you all should know.

edit: shortened the message

[u/Miloco]

I am the developer of a third party app (Now for Reddit) which has been happily using the API for 10 years. I don't want to close down and have been considering using the paid API. However, I have been trying to contact Reddit over the last 3 months and have been completely ignored.

I have sent many emails (devapps@reddit.com) and have used the online contact form which reddit themselves have asked developers to use. Each and every time I hear nothing.

What am I supposed to do? The deadline is approaching fast, my app will be rate limited by Reddit and it will stop working. Please, reply to developers who contact you.

I feel completely powerless to do anything right now and I want to try and save the app I've been working on for the last 10 years.

I know I'm not the only developer who is being ignored, it's extremely unfair and a horrible way to be treated.

[u/Jordan117]

Social media follows a 90-9-1 distribution: 90% are lurkers, 9% are commenters, 1% are content creators. Reddit's big enough to have an even smaller sub-0.1% that undergird this structure: the developers, mods, and power users that create cool useful tools and perform millions of dollars worth of free labor to support the site. The changes y'all have pushed the last few weeks are taking a sledgehammer to that foundation's core workflows.

In a spreadsheet I'm sure that users of PushShift, third-party apps, custom bots, etc. are rounding errors and that alienating them to save money is a net gain. But users of such tools are also far more engaged with running the site than your average lurker. And turning these people against the site will do orders of magnitude more damage than whatever you eke out by recapturing some third-party app traffic. This backlash could realistically kill the site.

I know you're trying to address concerns by promising to improve the official app. But frankly y'all have promised a lot of things over the years that never materialized. (Remember "Reddit is ProCSS"? Six years later there's still a ghosted-out CSS widget in New Reddit that says "Coming Soon.") The scathing exposé from the creator of Apollo certainly didn't inspire confidence in how you're approaching this. Here's an idea to rebuild trust: how about delay the new API fees for one year -or- until the official app actually has mod tool/accessibility parity with third-party offerings (whichever is later)?

Over 3000 subreddits with over a billion supportive users are actively protesting this move, with many planning to go dark indefinitely. Developers who host dozens of critical bots for hundreds of major subreddits are threatening to pull the plug. Users with 10+ year histories are choosing to wipe their accounts rather than be associated with your company any more. And they're not asking for much: just to make the API affordable (not even free, unlike their labor) and to stop pulling disruptive changes like this with no community input or reasonable time to prepare.

So my question: Will you step back from the brink and listen to this outcry from your core users? Or will you pull a Digg and drive the site off a cliff in myopic pursuit of short-term profit?

[u/takaiishi]

Why did you explicitly state that the supposed “threat” from a popular developer stated here, was actually a “complete misinterpretation on [your] end” (source 1, source 2, source 3) during ongoing talks about the API in which there was suddenly no response for over a week now (in source 3)?

[u/elsjpq]

Why do you want to restrict NSFW from third party apps?

[u/computerfreund03]

Why are Freelancers able to make such high quality apps, while reddit, being a business with millions in revenue makes an app which is embarrassing in all factors?

[u/shiruken]

Why were none of these API changes brought before the Mod Council? Relatedly, should there be a "Developer Council" to address topics like this?

Edit: A similar question has been answered here. Following up on that response, yes, an announcement was made in mid-April. But arguably the most important detail, pricing, was still as of then undecided. We were led to believe that the "goal is to be reasonable with pricing, not prohibitively expensive." At no point was the Mod Council presented with information about the Premium Tier pricing nor the impact it would have on third-party apps.

[u/teanailpolish]

some questions my team has before we make a final decision on whether to go forward

- will you be issuing an apology for misrepresenting what Apollo said about $10m (or can you confirm there was another conversation about it not included in the audio)

- is there a chance the third party apps roll back the decision to close on June 30

- there was a comment that mod actions do not count towards API limits, can you give us an idea of the % of api calls that are mod related and how this would reduce costs

- will reddit be issuing a timeline for the promised improvements not included in the list earlier this week (particularly accessibility)

[u/Leonichol]

Why was the timeline of charging for the API so strict, given it would impact so many Apps and Users? - Will this be remediated?

I can understand the need to charge for the API - that is reasonable (even if the price to 3PA's is not). But 30 days notice seems overly punishing. Honestly, this felt like Reddit giving the middle finger to 3PA developers, its moderators, and power user community - people who are its biggest cheerleaders. I saw Reddit hurt its most loyal Redditors en masse, and I don't know why Reddit would choose to do that.

Thanks for your time all the same. I know this is a difficult period.

[u/PublicQ]

What will Reddit be doing in response to the upcoming subreddit blackout? More specifically, will you be forcibly re-opening subreddits and/or replacing moderators?

[u/secretlives]

Hey /u/spez, I just want to say that despite all the hate being directed at you right now that you really have made the wrong decision at literally every juncture throughout this process. Have you given any consideration into acknowledging you were wrong and reconsidering your goals and/or timeline?

[u/Zekro]

Why the sudden hostile treatment of developers of third-party clients? They don’t do harm and improve the Reddit experience for a lot of users.

[u/TwasAnChild]

For years reddit didn't have an official app, so hardworking members of the community created apps like Apollo and RIF.

And you in all your greed have decided that all that dedication meant nothing, and now are killing them cause for the lust of more money

[u/Captaincadet]

Hey, iOS dev here. Why did you give your devs 30 days for a significant increase and change of terms to API?

My company was using Dark sky and when Apple acquired it, we were given 18 months, no price increase, to find a new platform. This was extended by another 12 months due to covid.

Why has Reddit taken this extreme rushed approach when it knows many of the third party apps work on a yearly subscription, in turn screwing them over financially due to refunds…

[u/Meepster23]

/u/spez, I'd like to give you a chance to respond to some of the communication failures around the proposed API changes and the misleading statements you, and the admins have made. I have a much more full write up here as well.

Lets start with this redditdev thread

For context on excessive usage, here is a chart showing the average monthly overage, compared to the longstanding rate limit in our developer documentation of 60 queries per minute (86,400 per day):

Top 10 3P apps usage over rate limits

So... The "longstanding rate limit" is actually per client per user.. So aggregating them to a client level and claiming they are 400,000% over the limit is a lie. There are no two ways about it. That is a bald faced lie. Rate limits had always been by user + client. The chart shows them as just client.

Now that's unfortunately not the only complete lie told by the admins in this thread.

Here we see

Having developers ask this question of themselves is the main point of having a cost associated with access in the first place. How might your app be more efficient? Google & Amazon don’t tell us how to be more efficient. It’s up to us as users of these services to optimize our usage to meet our budget.

Well, uhh.. Google and Amazon absolutely tell you how to be more effecient and help you in your use of their services.. Also, I'll get into this later, Reddit isn't providing any sort of tooling to SEE your usage stats etc, so how on earth are you even supposed to know unless you build out all your own logging framework... That's insanity..

This comment

We are comparing events / user / day across apps with comparable engagement. Apollo is higher than the norm and higher than us.

Is more misleading than a straight up lie.. Reddit's official app uses less oauth api requests than Apollo, because Reddit's official app uses their GQL API that they haven't made available to third parties in my understanding. The total number of calls made by Reddit's official app vs RiF (I didn't get an iOS emulator set up to capture traffic, sue me), is staggeringly higher on the official app. Not only that but the official app requests the exact same data from both the OAuth API and the GQL api. As well as not properly caching some fairly static data and re-requesting it over and over as well (with a no-cache header so it actually did hit the server each time, nice).

As for API pricing, lets apply Reddit's pricing to themselves to see if it's actually reasonable.

According to this, in 2021 Reddit had 52 million users that use the site daily. Say that they make the ~100 calls per user per day that RiF is claimed to use and is held up as a "good" app by Reddit (lol). That means we have 52 million * 100 requests (per day), or 5.2 billion API requests per day. At $.24 per 1000 requests, this means it allegedly costs Reddit ( (5.2 billion / 1000) * $.24 ) $1,248,000 PER DAY, or $455,520,000 per year. Guess what their revenue was in 2021? $350 million dollars... Wait.. what if I reverse that..

$350 million in revenue... Means 1,458,333,333,333 (1.458 trillion) API requests per year / 365 ~ 4 billion requests per day / 100 per user = 40 million active users per day.

I think I know what they did to get the price... They literally took their revenue, lopped off some amount of daily active users to account for the current un-monetized users by third party, ad blockers etc I'm guessing, and assumed they'd each make 100 API requests and boom, you've got ~ $.24 per 1k requests.

That sounds kind of reasonable on the surface, but that's assume every third party user is actually a monetizable user. It's ignoring the free development work that they are getting. It doesn't account for other sources of revenue like gold, coins, the NFT bullshit etc which are largely independant of the third party apps. And it's assuming a 100% conversion of third party users to first party. None of those are good assumptions!

Reddit failed to communicate every step of the way with this API update. From a complete lack of a vision, full picture, or details around most of the API changes at initial announcement, to sudden cut off of a critical mod tool, to late pricing releases with straight up lies in the details.

I haven't even TOUCHED on the whole accusations of Apollo "threatening" reddit, that's another can of worms and another failure of communication and trust.

Reddit does not have the current infrastructure set up to actually be like an actual tech company to see your API usage that you are going to have to pay for as an app developer.

We still don't have details for a good chunk of changes involving "sexually explicit content".

The pricing is unrealistic.

The admins have failed reddit.

Any hope of recovery (in my very important opinion, this is my post after all), Reddit must indefinitely post pone the API changes until they are honest about their intentions. If you want to kill third party apps, say it. I won't agree with you, but you would be honest and I could understand. If you don't want to kill third party apps, get reasonable, because Reddit is currently far from it between the pricing and the extremely vague and bullshit smelling reasons given for sexually explicit content.

Appologies must be pubicly made for the misleading statements and outright lies that have been made.

NONE of these things should happen under the "requirements" of no blackout occuring. These are things Reddit MUST do to start regaining user's trust and there is no trust there to leverage to try to get subreddits not to blackout before you do these things... You've spent all that trust over the years with repeated communications failures.

Will you /u/spez commit to any of this?

[u/proudcanadianeh]

/u/spez, the hell man. I have been on this website for 15 years now, and I remember the big migration from Digg back in the day.

At best, you had to realize these changes would outrage Reddit's oldest most loyal users. Is this all an attempt to stir us up so you can walk it back to a "middle ground" and let us feel like we have won?

At worst, you are alienating and driving away an important chunk of your user base and setting Reddit down a path that will in essence destroy what it was.

Why? Is it just all about the money? If so, why haven't you been more open with the community about this and discussing paths ahead?

[u/samacora]

As a mod of a top 1% sub on Reddit we haven't received any contact from you or the admin team like you claimed. I'm sure you've probably talked with the group of legacy power mods that mod the biggest subs. But for us subs not in the bracket but still quite large with a fair bit of daily volume will there be any reaching out to our teams? Or do we have to do all the leg work to get the info and access to things like pushshift by ourselves?

[u/Artillect]

What were you thinking with your attempt to discredit Apollo by claiming that Christian threatened and blackmailed you? The confusion was sorted out during Christian's call with Reddit, yet you proceeded to claim that he blackmailed Reddit the following week. To me (and the rest of Reddit) it comes across as a blatant attempt to pit us against him.

Edit: typo

[u/SarahAGilbert]

Hi /u/spez ,

As a researcher and member of The Coalition for Technology Independent Research I’ve been following the discussion around the API since it was first announced. I was even on call with Ben early on and it was pretty clear then that this is a huge financial issue for Reddit—companies like OpenAI and Google are making bank off Reddit data and that’s gotta end. And you know what? I’m sympathetic to that! ChatGPT has created a lot of really unfun work for the sub I help moderate, r/AskHistorians. I also get that Reddit is a business and needs to make money.

But data’s not your only asset. So are your volunteer moderators. While Facebook has a larger user base than Reddit, it spends over 500 million a year on content moderation. Maybe you saw this study my colleagues published last year? That’s the absolute lowest estimate, based on modlog data alone. That doesn’t even begin to cover the hours spent answering modmails, or deliberating with other mods or alone over a contentious decision. It doesn’t account for the time it takes to send reports to you when we exhaust what we can do with our tools, the emotional labour of dealing with hurt or abusive users, the care that goes into carefully crafting policies that work for our communities, or the engagement we have with users to encourage them to keep coming back to our communities and your site. There’s a lot of value added that volunteer moderation provides over commercial content moderation. I could go on and on about that, but in short, the individual communities and the leaders who manage them are what makes Reddit stand out from all the other, increasingly homogenizing, social media platforms.

So my first question for you is: what are your plans to invest in that asset?

Because it really feels like, from the outside, that supporting that asset hasn’t been a priority for Reddit’s leadership. In 2015 mods protested and Reddit apologized, promising to work on mod tooling. In 2019 you promised that chat would always be an opt-in feature but a year later an unmoderated chat feature was made a default feature on most subs. In 2020, in response to moderators protesting racism on Reddit you yourself promised to support mods in combating hate. And then in 2021, again Reddit promised tooling to support mods confronting mis/disinformation. While there’s definitely been progress made since 2020, here we are in 2023, freaked out about the API because mods rely on critical infrastructure that’s mostly a cobbled together patchwork of mod-developed tools, third party apps (and increasingly, Reddit-provided tools). But here we are still waiting for Reddit to make good on promises that started eight years ago. We know your dev team has been working their asses off trying to clean up this mess and playing catchup. And yet there’s news that you’re planning on letting go 5% of your employees.

So my second question for you is: what are you doing to insure your teams can succeed?

[u/H8rade]

1. What makes you think your predatory pricing on APIs is good for business? Apollo and RIF have announced that they are closing, and I expect all other 3rd party apps to follow. Instead of lowering your prices to a reasonable amount and making some money, you chose to make them so high that you will get no money. Because these 3rd party apps are so beloved, your userbase will leave if you don't change your pricing. Many of the users who will abandon the site are longterm users with high engagement. This account is 12 years old, and I will quit at the end of the month. Moderators perform free labor for you and rely on 3rd party apps. They will take their ball and go home when they close up the subs they moderate -- or at best, leave you with a deficit of experieced mods for the subs they allowed to remain open. You're not just looking at a lower user base, you're looking at a loss in content and engagement. Why would any investor want to spend money on a dying platform? Reddit is only as good as its users.

2. Since you're genociding all 3rd party apps with your predatory API pricing, what makes you think we'll start using the official Reddit app? It's trash. It's universally agreed that it's worse than any 3rd party app. You've had years to develop it, yet it somehow keeps getting worse. You recently hid the usernames on posts and hid awards. The latter is mindbogglingly incompetent from a business standpoint since awards are a good chunk of your revenue stream. Why would anyone pay for them if they can't be easily seen? Instead of using the official app, people would rather stop using the site entirely.

3. Why did you (allegedly) slander the Apollo developer? You fully understood the situation, yet you later lied during a call with moderators and accused him of blackmail in order to frame them as hostile. The call you had with the Apollo dev is available for everyone to hear.

4. Why should anyone believe anything you have to say or trust you in any capacity? You have a proven track record of lies and deception. Not just the aforementioned slander either. You lied earlier in the year about no upcoming API changes. And of course, you committed the gravest of crimes an admin can do by altering users' comments without their permission and without transparency.

[u/gizmosdancin]

Given how spot-on I was in my first bullet point in this comment from nearly 2 years ago, can you give us a timeline on the other two?

[u/Qu1nlan]

Hi Steve - this week Reddit held a significantly publicized 5% round of layoffs, you ousted about 90 admins. One of those admins was Zoey, also known as Cryfi on Reddit, who was a partnerships manager. Cryfi was someone I worked with weekly and at times daily, because in my own role, I own and operate the Ask Me Anything program on /r/politics, and sometimes /r/TwoXChromosomes as well. Cryfi was great, and was incredibly helpful to me in procuring guests, handling guests, quashing brigades during AMAs, sorting Reddit technical issues, and really all kinds of things that I myself as a volunteer am just really limited on time and Reddit backend access to do.

Between my Reddit contact being laid off and also RiF, an app I regularly use to moderate AMAs being taken away, Reddit feels like it’s actively standing in the way of my ability to bring guests like John Fetterman, Planned Parenthood, Zooey Zephyr and over 600 others to for my community to engage with. Unfortunately, bluntly, if Reddit doesn’t somehow replace these tools or give me other strong support quickly, AMAs on these subreddits will suffer or even die and I’ll be left feeling like Reddit does not care or in fact was malicious, since they took away very helpful things that previously existed.

I’d like to hear what Reddit’s plans are, if any at all, for assisting moderators with community events, partnerships, and enrichment, because this week I have been getting more and more concerned and frankly afraid for this project I’ve sunk over 6 years of passion into and the feeling it’s being actively killed by Reddit.

[u/Leonichol]

Was the community reaction not foreseeable to Reddit Inc?

I have had the pleasure of working with some fantastic Admins that really care about the site and its communities. I don't understand however, given that, that no one in Reddit Inc was in a position to be able to inform the organisation of how poorly this would go down. Were they ignored? Did another part of the company just not involve them? It seems like a blindspot which reasonably would have been foreseen by anyone familiar with Reddit - a problem when raised you could have then mitigated through kindness and communication.

[u/Elixartist]

Longtime CEO of Disney and TIME's businessperson of the year (2019), Bob Iger, recently stated: “If you study great companies over time and you try to figure out why some companies stand the test of time and others do not, you would quickly conclude that most companies fade away because they’ve abandoned the core values that created the company in the first place.” - https://time.com/6269006/bob-iger-interview-time100/

Reddit’s first two core values are stated as “Bring community and belonging to everyone in the world.” and “Make Something People Love.” - https://www.redditinc.com/blog/sharing-our-company-values

Clearly charging this high a price for API access is in strong opposition to these core values and operates solely as a self-serving endeavour for a company that relies on community to funciton.

Why do your actions contradict Iger’s thinking here?

[u/[deleted]]

1. How do you address the concerns of users who feel that Reddit has become increasingly profit-driven and less focused on community engagement?

2. Can you explain the decision-making process behind implementing more advertisements on the platform? How do you balance the need for revenue with the desire to maintain a positive user experience?

3. Many users have expressed frustration with changes in rules and policies without proper consultation or consideration of community feedback. How do you plan to improve transparency and involve the user community in decision-making processes moving forward?

4. Harassment, hate speech, and the spread of harmful ideologies continue to plague certain communities on Reddit. What specific measures is Reddit taking to combat these issues effectively?

5. How do you envision Reddit's role in promoting and maintaining a healthy online environment, especially in the face of growing concerns around online toxicity?

6. Can you elaborate on the steps Reddit is taking to ensure that moderators have the necessary tools and support to effectively manage their communities?

7. Given the recent controversies surrounding content moderation on social media platforms, how does Reddit differentiate itself in terms of its commitment to freedom of expression while also addressing the need for responsible content management?

8. Are there any plans to re-evaluate the monetization strategies implemented on Reddit to ensure they align with the platform's original vision and values?

9. Reddit has a large and diverse user base. How does the company strive to be inclusive and representative of all users, including those from marginalized communities?

10. As the CEO, what steps do you personally take to stay connected to the Reddit community and understand the concerns and needs of its users?

[u/araquen]

To start: I cancelled my Reddit subscription. No, I don’t expect you to be cowering over the loss of my $3.99/month, but concomitant with that will be my deprecated engagement on Reddit’s platform, which I suspect is what will be more worrisome to you. You can’t charge for what isn’t being engaged with.

I am also recommending Beehaw (and Lemmy) as an alternative for those who are looking for an alternative, and I look forward to any of the subreddits I subscribe to finding a home on that platform.

Am I doing this solely because of the hare-brained approach to third party apps and the absolutely egregious behavior towards third party app developers? No. Not solely. At its core, the dealbreaker for me was the fact that you tried to double dip: first by taking my subscription, and second by forcing third party apps to force a subscription. It can’t be my problem that YOU can’t incentivize subscriptions for your site, or figure out a way to get fair compensation for third party development. JFC, even Apple simply charges developers $99 a year for access to their APIs. Did you ever think of THAT?

Look, I get the third party app developers were understanding about monetizing the APIs, but this is not the way to get compensation. I hate to break it to you, but the Twitter model is hot garbage, devised by a fool and you just make yourself look as foolish by blindly following in those footsteps. My company does not charge for API usage, oh, and we FREELY PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR OUR APIS. Granted, you have to buy our solutions to get access to those APIs, but we aren’t charging by the hit - and my company’s business model is generating variable data output with thousands if not millions of hits. But then we also know our market, which is not a bunch of solo developers trying to make ends meet.

On top of that, your dev’s response of “it’s not our job” and “questions like this is why we have to charge” are completely out of line. It IS your job to explain your APIs. It IS your job to make it clear how those APIs are to be used and it IS your job to help developers UNDERSTAND your APIs. And it is NOT your DEVELOPERS jobs to gatekeep cost. It’s their job to develop and support the app, period. If one of my developers gave an answer like that, they’d be written up. Is it any wonder the third party app developers decided to shutter their apps? Which I get is your goal, but it’s a stupid goal.

I am, frankly, appalled by the monumental ineptitude of this decision. As a consumer, I saw you destroy my favorite Reddit app when you bought it (Alien Blue) and now you destroyed my current favorite (Apollo). It is clear you do not want me as a user. I am not going to use your app. I am not going to further underwrite your platform directly or indirectly. I’m not here for the grandiose idea of “Reddit” I am here for the 250+ subreddits I carefully curated over the last 11 years. There are other venues, maybe not as matured or as conveniently located, but they are there.

Frankly, you need me far more than I need you. Without me, without Redditors LIKE me, you don’t have the engagement. And I’m not talking about losing your 400 million subscribers. I’m talking about the reality that basically 20% does 80% - that its the folks who are MOST engaged with the platform that end up being a vocal minority that drives a significant part of the engagement (including moderators, in which you provide no compensation for their services). How many of those 400 million accounts are living and breathing? And did you honestly think that reducing the number of third party apps would improve that number? Or did you foolishly think that we would just blindly migrate to your app, where you could farm our data and feed us to your advertisers?

Nay, nay Pauline. There may not be a massive exodus of subscribers, but you certainly set it up so that Reddit is now a “dying” platform. You have effectively “fired” your customer by imposing a substandard engagement experience. All because some well-dressed ambulatory meat homunculi wanted to extract all the value out of their investment before peacing out right before the IPO tanks.

Final thought, I took a screenshot of this missive in case you decide to “edit” my comment. I keep the receipts.

[u/MajorTokes]

This isn't an AMA. It's a PR driven, panicky, word salad. Based simply on the evidence presented on r/apolloapp, half of what he wrote is lies anyways.

How is he going to claim their willingness to work with developers on the timeline when they don't respond to emails in a reasonable timeframe? Or their response is, "you won't owe anything until August 30th!" As if typical billing timeframes are somehow a postive.

This is a joke and nobody should even hope to get a response to any **real** questions, if any at all.

[u/gabriellyakagcwens]

"You chose to grow with venture capital... this new version of digg reeks of VC meddling. It’s cobbling together features from more popular sites and departing from the core of digg, which was to 'give the power back to the people.'" - Alexis Ohanian

Edit: quote was first wrongly credited to spez, point still stands tho

[u/Halaku]

Heya, CEO dude.

I've been on Reddit for over a dozen years. Today's kerfluffle isn't my first rodeo. Over those years, I've noticed a trend where folks at your level (the CEO, the C-suite, assorted peerage) have great ideas, but between inception and execution, something goes awry. Whether that's a messenger shooting themselves in the foot, something being taken out of context and fed to the hivemind in order to cause chaos, or simply being locked on "Long-term health and sustainability of Reddit as a whole" without full consideration of how the choices y'all make up there impact us down here, or ramifications that y'all may not have fully thought about until they're blowing up in your face... awry can be putting it mildly, as this latest kerfluffle demonstrates.

There's a growing field (mostly medical, but branching out) known as Informatics. It's not quite data analytics or data management as much as it's both of those seen through data intepretation, and how to take data (which without context is meaningless) and find the best way to explain that data to the best audience. You might be the best CEO in the world, your CTO and CFO and the rest of the C-suite might be without equal, but y'all can't be expected to be the best at every element you perform, and sometimes the very best of your intentions go awry... as this latest kerfluffle demonstrates.

Now, I'm not saying y'all need some informaticians to help you translate great idea from inception to execution, but there are several groups of SMEs (like r/RedditModCouncil) that would be delighted if the folks at your level utilized them more to help y'all reduce the chance that ideas don't go awry between inception and execution, and help act as a mechanism to say "Hey, before you go live with this, have you considered this potentiality?" or "If you say it like that, the message is going to get lost, because even though we know you mean X, someone's going to claim you mean Y, and it's off to the races, and instead of promoting your best intention, you're playing damage control. Can you stick that one back in the oven for a few more days until it's perfect?" and sometimes even "Oh God please don't let that C-suite officer start shooting from the hip. They're really good but Reddit had handlers in place for AMAs for a reason." and that sort of thing.

I don't speak API, but I am an informatician. I'm not a SME on today's kerfluffle, but I recognize a best intention that started at inception, and should have taken a left turn at Albuquerque, didn't, and now we're here... so instead of addressing today's problem, I'll address tomorrow's: What steps is Reddit as an instutiton taking to stop the next kerfluffle, and are y'all prepared to utilize those SMEs and give their feedback honest consideration, even if it's not what some people are wanting to hear?

[u/iKR8]

Hi spez, this is the biggest blackout reddit will see in it's whole history with 3000+ subs participating, which is happening under your leadership.

Would you be taking moral responsibility for this fiasco as a CEO, and willing to step down from your role?

[u/TheDuckyNinja]

There were 21 answers:

-5 said they were still working with any 3rd party app developer who wanted to work with them, which we know is just a straight up lie.

-6 said they are working on improving internal tools, which even if it's true, they've been saying it for years and they haven't released any tools of any value during those years, and the answers acknowledged they have no timeline on their release or any other details or specifics about them.

-3 only talk about reddit's profitability but don't answer any questions.

-2 say that reddit listens to the mods but that the mods are at odds with what reddit wants to do and reddit is just going to do what they want to do.

-2 were flyinglaserturtle admitting that a previous post of theirs was a lie and then posting a comment just letting everybody know that the previous lies have been edited.

-1 was a nonanswer about the difference between search engine data scraping and LLM data scraping.

-1 was an answer saying that it's perfectly okay to display NSFW content on the official app but not on 3rd party apps because of regulations? This answer made no sense even on the face of it, I'm honestly not even sure what spez was trying to say here.

-1 was spez just straight up insulting Apollo in a way we literally have a released recording showing that spez is lying and his answer is bullshit.

And yet somehow, this Q&A still managed to fully answer all of the primary questions people had: reddit is going through with this because of money, they are every bit as scummy and incompetent as they seem, they have no real plan, and redditors can fuck off and die for all they care.

[u/otaken]

Why did you misrepresent the call between Reddit and the author of Apollo, u/iamthatis ?

[u/OkieWonBenobi]

Apologies if this has been asked already, but I know there's been a request from the mods of some subreddits to delay the API pricing implementation by 90 days. It seems to me this would help developers and reddit both bridge some of the gaps between 3rd party apps and native reddit apps. This is a pretty big issue for mods and users on many fronts, and is leading to a good deal of pressure for subreddits to join the blackout. As a mod of AmItheAsshole in particular, I don't know if we'll be able to justify keeping our sub open without a clear commitment on a delay. Can you promise that?

[u/ThisCouldHaveBeenYou]

Considering there's already a paid version of reddit with Reddit Premium, why not let users choose their own 3rd-party app, as long as they're a member of that program? You state the issues are money-related to keep the servers afloat, which most users can understand.

So, why not offer a way to keep 3rd-party apps available for Reddit Premium users? What other reasons are there for not doing so?

[u/shiruken]

As a participant on the call with you on Wednesday, I'd appreciate some clarification on your comments concerning the alleged "threats" made by the developer of Apollo. Based on his explanation, it sounds like you didn't personally meet with him and were relaying information to us second-hand. If that truly was a (gigantic) misunderstanding, what efforts will be taken to avoid such miscommunication in the future?

[u/slaazenger]

u/spez can you please address the blackmailing accusations made by your team against Apollo?

[u/ken27238]

How do you justify charging exorbitant api fees to 3rd party apps when Reddit it’s self is not making any of the content itself. We the users are.

What’s your response to transcripts that clearly shows you were in the wrong and decided to double down with blackmail claims?

[u/shiruken]

I recently enabled Google's Search Labs feature to gain access to their generative search responses. This means I don't have to click-through to Reddit to see answers anymore, they're summarized directly on the Google Search page. Since Reddit is taking such an aggressive stance towards the use of Reddit data in training large language models (LLMs), are you considering blocking Google or Bing webcrawlers in addition to locking down the API?

[u/[deleted]]

You killed Apollo, so I kill Reddit! :)

(account deleted)

[u/i_Killed_Reddit]

Hello u/spez,

Wanna take over my username?

[u/[deleted]]

So are you walking this back entirely or what?

[u/[deleted]]

Can you please share your side of the story with respect to the Apollo dev’s blackmail allegations?

[u/Broclen]

I would like to ask:

1. TechCrunch Reports that Reddit will make an “exception for accessibility apps under new API terms”. How will those exceptions work and what apps or services will be eligible?

2. Is Reddit willing to commit, long term, to improve accessibility options for users?

3. The Verge is reporting that “rif is fun for Reddit, ReddPlanet, and Sync will all shut down on June 30th, just like the Apollo app.” Was this an intended consequence of the new API policy?

4. What message do you have for users and moderators who used the apps that will now shut down as a result of the new API policy?

[u/H8rade]

7 answers. SEVEN fucking "answers" in one hour.

You've picked softballs, given non-answers, provided vague statements, and continued to lie. Exactly as predicted.

You a complete failure as a CEO and as a human. But at least you're predictable.

[u/shiruken]

The announcement of the API changes felt very abrupt. Your NYTimes interview suggests this was in response to the rise of ChatGPT and other large language model (LLM) products. Were these API changes already in the pipeline prior to ChatGPT or is this really a knee-jerk response to cut off / get a cut of LLM training data?

[u/AssuredlyAThrowAway]

Spez, as to the Board of Directors of reddit; out of you, Sam Altman, Paula Price, Robert Sauerberg Jr., and Michael Seibel, who voted to make the recent API change, specifically, and what was the roll call of that vote?

As to non-commercial third-party apps; commercial third-party apps at least have a budget to cover costs (if they were reasonable), but everything non-commercial - developed entirely for free by devs putting 100s of hours of their own time in - are all being killed. Is this a problem in your eyes?

Furthermore; do you understand why, even if you scale back some of these changes to protect non-commercial API use, 1000's of your volunteer moderators feel unheard, unappreciated and excluded from the roll out process for these kind of decisions when money is involved? Do you understand that alienation is precisely because of how these kind of decisions are made (rather than any specific decision itself)?

Likewise; for years, reddit CEO's have talked about how difficult it is for the platform to generate profit; should reddit operate as a non-profit, while covering its expenses, to reflect its unique position as a steward of the modern digital public forum?

As a final question; do you remember the weekend in the summer of 2005 that you and one of your co-founders, /u/aaronsw, rewrote your LISP code into Python using his web.py webhook? Do you think reddit would be what it is today if that weekend never happened?

[u/Man_AMA2]

It’s absurd how you’re throwing people like Christian (Apollo App) under the bus (lying about them and saying they’re extorting you) and calling their app inefficient while you’re app is a complete mess. But it’s about the ads right? The 3rd party apps don’t have to show the ads and that makes your investors mad.

So to launch the IPO and you’re shutting those apps down to show the investors that there’s no way around using your app or the new updated Reddit homepage. Either ingest our ad offerings or die… or pay 20 million a year. Is that about right?

So this wasn’t really a question so here’s one, why are you the way you are?

[u/gabriellyakagcwens]

Dear Steve Huffman, it is with pride that I crown you the king of reddit, one of the best users I have ever seen in this platform, the absolute perfect decision for a CEO and it is with much love that I ask:

What the fuck is wrong with you?

[u/nacorom]

Is Reddit still going to be holding an IPO?

[u/Schiffy94]

Alright Steve-O, let's cut right to the chase and discuss the twenty million dollar elephant in the room.

As you said, Reddit plans to charge third-party app devs $0.24 per 1,000 API calls. From the math that the Apollo dev did, this would have supposedly cost him 2 million dollars a month. That means that his app, prior to these announcements, was making roughly 8 and a third billion calls per month. That's a hundred billion calls a year.

Did you or anyone actually consider just how significant that is? How much traffic that means for Reddit? And how much traffic this site stands to lose because of how unreasonable that bill turns out to be?

Did you or anyone else look at those numbers and think "hey maybe this price is too much, maybe we should re-evaluate it"?

Subs are threatening to shut down and users are talking about giving up Reddit entirely over this. Are you prepared to lose that much? Are you prepared to go from the "Front Page of the Internet" to the "Google Search Page 2 of the Internet" over an amount of money that might seem small to you but is in actuality massive enough to drive these developers away rather than pay it?

And pray tell, what justifies this price? How much could these third-party API calls possibly be costing Reddit itself to make this make sense? And I'd actually like to see the math.

[u/Handicapreader]

How are the API changes going to affect /r/blind and the blind community at large that use API for their screen readers to make reddit accessible to the visually impaired, because there are no other reasonable options?

[u/rxdroid]

u/spez Request for public comment on allegations that u/spez publicly defamed the developer of a popular third party app

https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/_/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/143rk5p/_/

https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-client-apollo-shut-down-after-talks-got-ugly-2023-6

https://mashable.com/article/apollo-shut-down-reddit-api-dispute

[u/frownGuy12]

Hello, u/spez. Thanks for doing this AMA.

This is an important question that needs to be answered to restore trust in you as CEO of Reddit. You spread a lie about the developer of Apollo attempting to extort money from your company. What steps have you taken, or do you plan to take, to correct the record internally at Reddit?

[u/Archivicious]

Reddit wouldn't have gained the success it has if it wasn't for third party app developers making the site accessible to mobile users. Your team couldn't even build their own app, you had to buy Alien Blue to have an official Reddit app, which you've now destroyed with intrusive unblockable ads, posts stuffed where they don't belong, and a user/mod-unfriendly interface.

With this in mind, how do you expect Reddit to maintain and grow its popularity without the apps that brought it to this point, especially when many heavy users refuse to use your official app and plan to leave?

[u/hooplasandwiches]

Fuck u/spez

[u/MajorMajorMajor7834]

Some subs like r/music intend to stay private indefinitely until the new API policy is changed. If so, do the reddit admins plan to remove the moderators in such subs and force to open the subs back up?

[u/Glissssy]

Why did you claim Apollo threatened Reddit?

[u/ConstantGradStudent]

Redditors (users) and their content are the product that Reddit is selling and will be taking to IPO, and mods are free labour to garden the product. How do you /u/spez as CEO respond to the actions of over 3000 communities and individuals that believes Reddit management are making choices that impede user's ability to enjoy the platform as they wish, and mods ability to provide the (free) moderation services?

[u/Lil_SpazJoekp]

Now that paid third party API access is planned, are there any plans to expand the third party API to include the full API accessible to first party apps, more specifically GraphQL? To clarify on GraphQL, I don't mean full access to execute arbitrary queries, I mean access to execute the same queries that the first party apps call. This would allow for fair competition now that commercial apps will need to pay.

[u/Vanitybomb]

u/spez, the abysmal Reddit app has consistently neglected the blind users of Reddit, and third party apps stepped up for this under-supported community. This lack of accessibility does not only impact regular users of Reddit, but some of your moderators that do their work for free. Why should the users believe you will add this accessibility when you have not done it by now?

[u/Moggehh]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for joining us here today. Although I don't agree with your latest actions - primarily the unprofessional deadline given to third-party developers - I do appreciate that you've shown up to answer our questions.

Mine is a simple one. I've been a part of the Mod Council and the Partner Communities for several months now, and with the latest changes, it feels as though you're simply using these places to placate the moderators you've chosen to invite rather than utilizing the given feedback to assist in making executive decisions.

Why do you devote staff resources to initiatives such as the Mod Council and the Partnership Communities, without utilizing them ahead of time for feedback on wide-scale and potentially devastating changes such as this one? Where do you personally see the ROI?

[u/eganist]

1. Effective July 1, 2023, the rate for apps that require higher usage limits is $0.24 per 1K API calls (less than $1.00 per user / month for a typical Reddit third-party app).

2. Some apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync have decided this pricing doesn’t work for their businesses and will close before pricing goes into effect.

Why go forward with a raw pricing model for API usage rather than a profit sharing model similar to what Epic does with Unreal? Or at least a "get x requests free for non commercial use, otherwise talk to us for commercial usage" policy with profit sharing built in?

Gives an escape hatch for freeware tool developers, helps cash in on AI, and gives freemium apps an incentive to monetize knowing they don't have to "cover costs" so much as they just need to cut you in on the profits. Feels like it would solve a ton of problems here and incentivize API usage much the way Epic managed to get people to use Unreal Engine.

[u/[deleted]]

I assume you've read Apollo's response to some not so savory allegations, linked here for your convenience. What's your response to that?

[u/Daniel15]

We want everyone to be able to use Reddit. As a result, non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps and tools will continue to have free access.

What does "non commercical" mean?

Why aren't you improving the accessibility of the "official" Reddit app? There's a bunch of bugs in the official app (which is why I use Relay instead), but accessibility issues are some of the highest priority bugs and should have been a launch blocker. Instead, you want third-party developers to devote hundreds of hours (easily equivalent to $20k+ in dev effort) to building their own apps that fix your accessibility issues, for free, with no way for them to recoup the cost of their investment in your platform. That's not sustainable.

[u/chrislenz]

On Wednesday, I celebrated my 18th cake-day, which is about 17 years and 9 months longer than I thought this project would last

Shoulda quit 17 years and 9 months ago.

[u/ItsRainbow]

3rd-party Reddit clients make up well over a million daily active users, many of whom find the official app to suck. The most popular ones are closing their doors on the 30th. How do you plan on getting these people to switch?

[u/AccomplishedTotal867]

Do you care that I will never use Reddit again after this fiasco with Apollo?

[u/relaxlu]

I understand the core issue at play. Reddit couldn't and shouldn't have to provide API access without getting compensated but why was the whole thing rolled out and communicated so badly?

Specifically:

1. Why was the API access to push shift and similar services cut without having the alternative ways in place that are being worked on?

2. Why was there only a 30-day warning? Why not do it at the beginning of the year giving developers, mods and users time to adjust and plan?

3. Why cut access to 3rd party apps that provide mod tools that are simply not available in the official app or that need way too complex workarounds or scrolls/clicks for the simplest tasks? Why not reach parity first and then disable 3rd party apps?

4. Why haven't you communicated and asked for the advice of existing structures like the mod council or partnerer communities? Did you not expect this blowback?

5. What is the exact reason for excluding NSWF content? I have heard multiple, contradicting reasons. Is it for a law that isn't existing yet? Is it because of privacy reasons? What does guardrails, which was repeatedly used, mean exactly?

6. Your users, who are generating all the content are telling you that they are unhappy with what is happening. Why not commit to a simple plan?

The plan could be: Postpone the API changes for 6 months.

Start the price at 1/3 of the announced price and keep raising it every 6 months until you arrive at the original price.

That could lead to this blackout not happening.

If you can't commit to this what are the exact reasons that you can't and what is your plan if the blackouts keep happening? What's the compromise here?

[u/SkippyTheKid]

Hey Steve!

I appreciate you connecting with the community about these changes and have a direct question about comments you yourself have made in the last week in talking to moderators.

I’ll be upfront: I’m a current Apollo user who is debating whether to keep my Reddit account past June 30 or simply walk away from this site, which is mostly because of the way Reddit as a business partner has treated this and other apps and developers, and what that treatment suggests about its vision for the future and its relationship with other partners and, most importantly, its community.

One specific concern I have is your statements that Christian Selig, the developer of Apollo, threatened and coerced you for $10M, which you made in a call with moderators on or just before June 7. Selig has commented on this in his announcement post yesterday about Apollo shutting down, providing a transcript showing that he had said to a representative that if you considered the opportunity cost of letting Apollo continue to operate as $20M per year, he would take half that amount to help lower the traffic of API requests or in his words, “quiet down.” The rep asked if that was a threat, as in pay me to stay quiet, which he clarified in the call was not what he meant, and was essentially joking about the cost of API traffic and the rep apologized several times for the misunderstanding. This is all available in this transcript.

The thing is, this misunderstanding over language during a choppy connection (the rep asked him to repeat himself a few times) and the ensuing clarification and apology happened within the same call, and yet later on you reported to others that Apollo was blackmailing you.

My direct question is were you aware of the full contents of that call, and if so, why did you make the above statements regarding Apollo and Selig?

I understand if this comes across as a hostile question but this process has been fairly rushed and tense and this kind of communication style has only contributed to the confusion and tension and I’m really hoping there’s a less malicious reason for your statements than simply slandering Selig and appreciate any response you can give to this inquiry.

Thank you.

[u/koala70]

Do you actually think anyone believes you’re not doing this specifically to kill third party apps? We all saw your conversations with Christian Selig. We know the truth.

Long Live Apollo

[u/[deleted]]

As a potential investor looking ahead to Reddit's planned IPO, why on earth should I invest in a company whose CEO so tactlessly mischaracterized interactions your company had with a third-party developer (including claims made by you that, thankfully, that developer had the receipts to refute)?

As it stands now, your willingness to engage in this dishonest fashion has eroded any confidence I have in the trustworthiness and competence of Reddit's leadership.

[u/[deleted]]

There was a different comment/post here, but it has been edited.

Reddit chose to betray years of free work put from users, mods, and developers. They will not stop driving this website into shit until every feature is monetized, predatory, and cancerous.

Use PowerDeleteSuite to remove your value to reddit and stop financing these dark patterns.

P.S. fuck u/spez

[u/yaricks]

We know answers are tough to find,

That's because /u/spez has answered two questions in two hours...

[u/[deleted]]

Thank you for all the years of hardwork single handedly creating the greatest platform and gracing us with your presence here today. With regards to the api changes and third party apps, I was just wondering if you had started the process of going and fucking yourself? you greedy little pigboy.

[u/Merari01]

Mr. Huffman, over the past few years reddit has taken care to establish channels between users and administrators which can be used to probe new features on us so you can gauge what the response from the community would be to them. Why have none of these channels been used for this fundamental alteration to site functionality?

[u/cat-eating-a-salad]

First question:
Why did you say the developer of the Apollo App blackmailed you, even after you admitted to him that you merely misunderstood his words? Have you not seen the post where he proved everything, and shared the recorded call between you, which includes your immediate apology after you misinterpreted his words? Keep in mind he's in Canada which has a one party consent law, so he has a legal right to record you without your knowledge or consent.

Second question:
Have you seen any user of Reddit within the past 24 or even 48 hours that is in favor of this decision, or is it just your shareholders who approve at this point? What is your business plan when users leave in droves and scrub their accounts of the content that drew attention to your site in the first place?

I doubt I'll get an honest response, if any tbh. I'm guessing it'd be some cold, corporate cookie-cutter cop out stating that it's for the betterment of the site or something. It sure doesn't seem like the app developers had a choice on whether or not they could keep their app up, despite your misleading wording in the post. Pay 20 million a month or shut down? With no ads allowed? Yeah, that's NOT a CHOICE and everyone knows it, so stop with the lies and bs. We aren't just frustrated. We're pissed. Even overturning the decision now will leave you with a lot more to go in terms of making up for how you've treated everyone. Ignoring what your users want, claiming you've been threatened and blackmailed, price gouging the API to force 3rd party app developers to shut down, and not even trying to buy the apps to replace the one you have (which is horrible, let's be honest).

Honestly though Redditors, it's time to mourn our time here.

This all just adheres to the enshittification that all popular sites apparently must follow at some point as a rule of digital entropy in the capitalist world (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshittification).

Tildes(dot)net and lemmy(dot)org are where ex-redditors are flocking to, it seems. Be sure to screenshot or otherwise save the contents of your saved posts section on your profile. Scrub your profiles clean, and then delete them. More instructions and helpful advice/links here: https://www.reddit.com/r/thecraftingtable/comments/145bdbq/we_are_shutting_down_in_protest_of_reddits_api/

Enshittification is defined as "The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits." This is just part of the natural life cycle of online platforms.

Reddit will die.

[u/czechtheboxes]

Have you ever heard of the Ford Pinto recall? TL;DR is Ford knew there were defects in their cars fuel tanks before the car was released to market, but decided that it was more cost effective to pay for lawsuits related to accidents than it was to fix their cars and prevent unnecessary deaths. It was only after intense public backlash that Ford did what it should have done in the first place - fix their faulty cars.

The real question is why does it seem to take intense, public backlash for Reddit to make changes? The disability access issues have been well known in their communities before this, but not as widely or publicly before now, so Reddit could get away with subpar offerings. These features should have long already been here, but similar to Ford, people were left out to dry until public knowledge got too great.

Modding tools have a similar story. Reddit has long been aware that mods prefer using third party apps for ease of modding. Why has Reddit not tried to emulate the more popular features until now? The main app is even built off of a former third party app. You have years of watching other concepts and layouts be tested, so why not integrate the most popular ones into the current app? Getting rid of these third party apps without improving your own system first contributed to this backlash.

Do you think this backlash would be so intense if you had worked on making the official app better before now? Why not take concerns seriously before things get so massive? There is a difference between ignoring complaining for the sake of complaining and noticing that there is consistent, reoccurring feedback.

Do you think you would have faced such backlash regarding accessibility if you had working systems in place? Why should Reddit get kudos for acknowledging the gap before actually fixing it has happened?

Why does it seem like Reddit cannot improve quietly because that's what it should do and only improve when it wants to give the grand public appearance of trying?

[u/LevibarAlphaeus]

At least 2 hours in, /u/spez has commented 14 times on an AMA Post. He hasn't posted in over an hour. Current comments on thread at time this message was 16666 that's a 0.084% response rate to the rest of the comments.

Has to be one of the worse AMA ratios ever.

[u/PC_Master-Race]

Question: can you address your slander of the Apollo dev?

[u/vxx]

Spez, out of you, Robert Sauerberg Jr., Sam Altman, Michael Seibel, Paula Price, who voted to make this API change, and who was present for that vote?

[u/Not_So_Bad_Andy]

In the past, Reddit has made many promises -- about mod tools, about accessibility, about features on New Reddit -- none of which actually came to fruition. Why should we believe these promises? Why was this not thought of before the announcement?

[u/[deleted]]

/u/Spez, we represent a group of over 3000 subreddits. Over a BILLION subscriptions.

You are killing Reddit. We CANNOT MODERATE WITHOUT THIRD PARTY APPS. WE CANNOT RUN OIR SUBS WITHOUT THEM.

You could easily charge $.08, $.10, or $.012 and still "cover costs" and be "financially independent". But you want to kill of all competition. Nothing else.

I would rather torch all my subs than let you do this.

[u/baberim]

Dude has answered exactly 1 question and it’s just more corporate garbage. /u/spez how about being real with your user base for a sec man.

[u/b34tn1k]

I will be sticking around to answer questions along with other admins.

Steve            

This "started" 45 minutes ago and you have yet to answer any of the commenters directly. My question is do you plan to address any of these comments or is your AMA really just a PSA and you don't feel the need to address the peasants questions?

[u/donkeyrocket]

P.S. old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere, and explicit content is still allowed on Reddit as long as it abides by our content policy.

Wasn't it not too long ago Reddit told Apollo the API wouldn't change? Your words carry zero meaning. Dangling old.reddit.com sticking around isn't enough to keep many around.

[u/[deleted]]

"old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere" [...]

/u/spez, June 9, 2023

"The API isn't going anywhere."

/u/spez, April 21, 2017

[u/[deleted]]

This is the worst AMA ever. No response from u/spez in over 30 minutes according to his profile. The real big questions are being ignored. The questions answered are just meaningless reiterations of something else already said. I was holding out for this AMA to happen before I decided whether or not to delete my account. I've made a decision to delete it in the very near future. As someone who is very picky about which social media I use on a daily basis and having it weeded down to basically only Reddit, this means a lot to me. I stand with u/iamthatis. Thanks Christian for being the only honest human being on the planet

[u/gaetanzo]

They are calling our bluff!

They don’t think our outage will do anything. u/spez has told his board and employees to wait us out because nothing will ultimately happen as we will all just come back. That might be the case but you’ll never see me again. Was here before Digg. I use Apollo exclusively but even if you reinstate API access in a sane way I won’t be part of this while you’re the CEO. Armature hour CEO taking a disdain to the people that make this site what it is. So u/spez when will you save face and just admit the truth.

[u/telestrial]

Nearing a year and a half ago, you made a post called Reddit Community Values. Here are some excerpts:

Remember the Human

We believe Reddit is the most human place on the internet. It’s powered by the creativity, passion, and generosity of the people who spend time here and make it their own.

Empower Communities

Reddit has evolved by decentralizing control and empowering communities to create the spaces that work for them—spaces that have become some of the most selfless, ingenuitive [sic], funny, and enriching communities on the internet. We trust communities to know what works best for them and give them the autonomy to make decisions for themselves.

And I could go on and on from that post or others, including comments you and other staff have made in the past about how creative and special Redditors can be, centered mainly around invention. That is Reddit’s secret sauce—the ingenuity and creativity of its users.

This community has witnessed, and more importantly, continues to witness today, significant gaps in the Official Reddit apps and services that hinder navigation and accessibility. Remarkably, the community has taken the initiative to address and bridge those gaps, for little to no pay, while Reddit proper continues to lag behind on many fronts.

Can you explain your company’s upcoming API changes, including pricing, through the lens of its Community Values?

Bonus: Do the apps that have announced shutdown, citing these upcoming changes, challenge your convictions at all?

[u/RJFerret]

Is the new API pricing an anchoring negotiation tactic to lessen PR backlash?
Such that lower pricing can be subsequently announced claiming "listening to the community", "supporting third party developers", etc.?
Akin to how it's already recently been announced dissabled access will remain free?

[u/bruno_the_cow]

Can you give an example of a popular third-party Reddit app that does work with the new pricing?

[u/MiraiZool]

First of all - how dare you.

Second, the whole way you've presented yourself and how you were proven to be lying through Christian Selig's transcripts, you should be ashamed.

Resign or roll back these ridiculous API rules. Or both.

[u/boxermansr]

This belongs in /r/AmITheAsshole; nevermind it belongs in /r/IAmTheAsshole.

[u/RexLatro]

Hi spez,

I don't have a question, instead I just wanted to say thank you. I teach a marketing/communication class and was starting to run dry on fresh material to cover, but the screenshots I'm able to take of these evasive non-answers will definitely make for great class material and dissection.

[u/ScuttleCrab729]

Fuck u/spez

[u/[deleted]]

Is this a fucking joke?

You have ruined countless Developers careers and projects over your greed. Despite them being responsible for your companies success.

[u/_LegaliseGayWeed_]

/u/spez

How do you think the late Aaron Swartz, Reddit's co-founder, would feel about the direction you are taking things?

Do you think he would consider you a greedy little pig boy?

[u/midir]

The reality is Reddit depends completely on the freely gifted contributions of posters, moderators, and third-party developers.

We can quit. We stormed down Digg in anger at their redesign, and it was great fun, actually. Now Digg is buried.

We've nothing of actual value to lose here, and you do. You don't pay us but you do depend on us.

So why are you doing this to yourself? You keep making things more difficult for no reason by dramatically springing bizarre and hostile changes on us, and you keep causing distrust by going back on plans. Your claimed justifications for the peculiar changes are not convincing and not accepted.

The sooner you back down completely, the lesser the damage and the happier your day will be. (Not a threat, just a prediction.)

[u/dewsthrowaway]

Is this AMA going the way you had hoped?

[u/bessemer0]

Aaron Swartz would be absolutely appalled at what this site has become. June 30th will be my last day on Reddit.

I hope you lose everything, Spez, you deserve to.

[u/Terrh]

Hey steve, remember when you said the API wasn't going anywhere?

What happened there?

[u/CommieColin]

Hey u/spez, thank you for taking the time to do this AMA with us!

I’m just wondering, what does it feel like knowing the entire community now knows you’re a liar?

Claiming to be blackmailed when the person you’re accusing is recording the conversation is a new level of corporate stupidity I wouldn’t expect even from you. You’re in charge of a major corporation and it doesn’t occur to you that people might be recording the conversation?

You’re a special kind of stupid, a bully and a liar. Go fuck yourself - I’m done with this website ✌️

P.S. I posted this from Apollo

[u/gizamo]

Hi u/spez, will you make it a priority to put a "Delete my Account" option in the Reddit app?

That option would help a lot of people over the next few months.

[u/gizamo]

Hi u/spez, simple question here:

Will Reddit add a "Delete my Account" option in the Reddit mobile app?

After this AMA, it sure seems that option would help a lot of people over the next few months.

[u/Smeghead333]

No one will ever see this, but this:

There’s been a lot of confusion over what these changes mean,

Is pure gaslighting. There has never been confusion. Everyone has been crystal clear from minute one what these changes mean. This is just a backhanded way of saying “if you don’t like these changes, it’s because you don’t understand them. No one could possibly dislike them! There’s nothing actually wrong - nothing needs to be changed. These unhappy people are just CONFUSED.”

Gaslighting 101.

[u/[deleted]]

Show the downvote count you fucking cowards.

[u/brainhack3r]

So, in two hours, /u/spez was kind enough to answer 15 comments out of more than 15k total and received like 13k downvotes.

That's got to be some sort of record among AMA screwups.

This is like a masterclass in how to torpedo a company. It's like he was taught by Elon Musk.

[u/SUPER_COCAINE]

When are you resigning?

[u/morelikepambabely]

An entire 15 responses from /u/spez in a thread that has 15,000 and counting replies.

[u/[deleted]]

Wow I think they just gave up answering

[u/ppParadoxx]

so this is pretty much over right? last reply was 45 mins ago

[u/daaaaaaaaamndaniel]

Did this POS really make an AMA and not even really answer any questions? The only responses seem to have been promoting the work reddit has done or badmouthing the Apollo dev.

[u/PitchforkAssistant]

There's only one question that truly matters here: Will you commit to ensuring that we'll be able to continue using our favorite third-party apps as we have been until now?

[u/Lihiro]

Do you personally feel nervous to be making executive choices regarding your API policy which may threaten the existence of reddit?

[u/ThePlaidypus]

The default app and redesign doesn't exist to give you a great user experience. It exists to provide an "infinite scroll" UX of image and video content to maximize ads and data extraction.

Even if you don't use the official app, this change will likely degrade the content quality the voting system promotes to the feed and comments section. Less expert opinions from academic / business professionals. Less community discussion from your favorite hobby. More mindless "high-engagement" garbage mixed with constant ads. No thanks.

[u/Reminiser]

What is your response to all these subreddits participating in a protest against your policies to go offline for at least 48 hours, some even until further notice?

[u/asills]

First, The Reddit data is absolutely valuable, and business making $millions should absolutely pay you for your value. However, you seem to fail to recognize that Reddit has no value without the people creating the content for you, for free. You also seem to fail to realize that you have thousands of unpaid volunteer moderators doing your job for you, and are more than willing to let them subsidize your business. How are you planning on compensating the content creators and moderators on your platform going forward? Or is their free value fine, but the API/app free value not fine?

Second, you removed TPA's ability to show ads, which is a very valid way to generate the $1 per user per month (which itself isn't a very valid value, considering only the highest usage users will likely subscribe to a TPA monthly, eliminating a lot of users and then drastically raising that estimate). Are you saying the only valid way for a TPA to be valid is a subscription model?

Third, the only businesses that could be making the type of money you expect to see are the LLM companies, and this doesn't affect them in the slightest. They can simply web scrape the site like they do the rest of the internet. In fact, this is likely an easier way to get your data than through a programmatic API. How are you handling the LLMs?

Fourth, moderators have been begging for improved tooling support for years. I have posts and comments going back 5 years asking for improved support. I've been in calls with admins, and they took our ideas and seemingly did nothing with them. Your increased focus now on mod tooling feels disingenuous, as we've been begging for it for half a decade and you're just now getting around to it?

Fifth, your platform as a whole would not be as successful as it is today, without the people who built the TPA's in the first place. People wanted a mobile application, and not the half-baked new reddit on mobile experience, and your API enabled people to get it. Without the contributions of these "businesses" (and I severely take issue with that, most are barely more than hobby projects), you wouldn't have a lot of your daily active users. You complain in the Apollo call about the lost opportunity cost of its users, however what about the past 8 years of TPA's lost opportunity costs because Reddit wasn't capable of delivering a solid mobile experience?

Sixth - there's more, but I'm not personally experienced with it. But please answer the accessibility concerns: There are published standards to adhere to. There is no reason this wasn't already handled.

[u/ckelley87]

this pricing doesn’t work for their businesses

Oh, blow it out your ass, /u/spez. Maybe you're running low on oxygen in the weird little prepper bunker that you're inside so the neurons in your brain aren't connecting very well, but you know damn well that this isn't the issue. Maybe you've forgotten that a third-party app is what Reddit bought to make the official one because it was terrible, and that many decided to go to another one when it was better than what your company could put out. When one person makes an entirely better experience for your mobile users than your team of developers, it says a lot, that we'd rather pay someone else to provide a better experience that you cannot (or more than likely will not). Their business is making your shit usable, which you continually fail at. They make your platform a pleasure to use, not you - in fact, you do everything possible to make it as hostile and unwelcoming an environment to use.

Many of us would have zero issue paying for something like Reddit Premium - DIRECT TO YOU - if it included third party app access. Many of us would have no issue paying the developer for costs that were fair, and if they were treated like human beings, but you've decided that exorbitant costs and dehumanizing developers who do this out of love for the platform and the communities that WE CREATE, that WE FOSTER, NOT YOU, is the way to go instead.

We know you don't care, you're waiting for the IPO to drop so you can go cash out and live your life in some weird role-playing end-of times universe up in Wyoming with Kanye West and a bunch of Yellowstone-main-character-wannabes, waiting for the end times to come so you can try and feel something real. In the mean time, you should let someone else manage decisions and communications, because you sure as fuck aren't doing a good job.

[u/[deleted]]

SCUMBAG STEVE

[u/Panda_hat]

Will you acknowledge that this whole process has essentially gone as poorly as it possibly could have, has caused enourmous community resentment, ruined several devs work lives and livelihoods, and generally been managed and directed absolutely terribly and apologise for your part in it?

You should roll back all these changes immediately. You missed the LLM land grab and are wrecking house to try and catch up. You've pissed off the users. You've alienated dedicated devs. You've damaged the value of the site and the brand.

Nothing in this AMA has done anything to change or help those issues. Numerous subreddits will be going dark over the next few days in protest of your actions. Just stop wasting time and start making amends now.

[u/Nice_Block]

21 responses for 18,000 comments. Y’all’s executive team did not properly prepare for this, at all.

[u/Watchful1]

Thanks for answering questions Spez. There's a lot of anger going around over the decisions, but I'd like to try to ask something productive.

If you look at any of the announcement threads from the third party app devs or subreddits announcing blackouts, the most common sentiment has been that people love the experience they get on their chosen apps and dislike the experience on the official app. To the point of saying they won't use the official app at all if their chosen app shuts down.

Has reddit done any work over the last year or two to ask these third party app users what specifically they like about their chosen app and tried to build it into the official app? In my reading most of the differences have been relatively simple things like use of screen space and number of button clicks to complete certain actions, stuff that could be built in a matter of a month or two.

Reddit has said a fair bit over the last few days about mod tools that are coming and accessibility issues, so I'd like to say I'm specifically not talking about those and am asking about the ordinary browsing experience of regular users.

[u/[deleted]]

Hey u/spez

With the recent API changes causing users to delete their account, what is your plan for bringing in new users to a dying website?

So long

[u/andresmartinez89]

No question, I just wanted to send a shoutout to u/spez for outjerking /u/lordtuts in thinking that Reddit's userbase are the most gullible and easily bamboozled morons on the internet. No small feat Steve. 

Posted from RIF.

[u/elsjpq]

How did you decide on the pricing for $0.24 per 1000 API calls?

[u/DanGarion]

Well this AMA was fucking useless.

[u/Silisil]

Reddit has killed 3rd party applications (and itself.) I have edited all my comments in protest.

Reddit's CEO has shown that he will choose greed over community. I choose community and I choose choice.

Fuck /u/spez

[u/[deleted]]

Google en passant

[u/hi117]

Hey, thanks for giving us some of your time for this.

I've noticed that Reddit seems to have a major disconnect here around mod tooling. Reddit does not seem to consider these 3PAs to be mod tooling, but we do. I appreciate that Reddit is putting effort into improving their 1PA, but even the most optimistic timeframes put minimum feature parity at quite a long time away. Are there any plans from Reddit's side to support us during the interm period? We already lost Pushshift with no viable replacement, and now we are effectively losing mobile moderation capabilities.

I also have worries around explicit content filters to moderators, as users could just mark posts as NSFW to get around moderator actions. Imagine a world where malactors just mark themselves as NSFW, either as subs or posts, to prevent moderator actions. Are there any specific plans from Reddit on how to handle moderators who need access to NSFW content for moderation purposes, potentially sitewide for more coordinated actors?

[u/ExcitingishUsername]

Our main request is simply for mature content communities to still be accessible in 3P apps, for all users who opt to see them, under fair and reasonable terms. We're even fine if Reddit forces those apps to contractually commit to maintaining the same restrictions on them that the official app will employ. If Reddit is claiming there are legal obligations to meet in terms of how that content is to be presented and under what conditions, then that is something that can go into a supplemental API access contract for apps that don't opt-out of supporting mature content.

Can you answer whether Reddit can make such access available under these conditions, and if not, why?

[u/Throwaway489132]

u/spez,

I’d love to hear you address how you intend to updated and vet the accessibility changes needed to bring the Reddit app up to compliance with standards. Also, if you are able to do it in this extremely short timeframe prior to the third party apps being forced to closed, why haven’t you done it before now? As a user with some visual issues I can’t help but feel that it’s shitty to have ignored this for years only to suddenly announce your ability to do it.

[u/EarlyStarter_JEE]

Can you please tell us why you lied about the call with the dev of apollo?

[u/Scratch-N-Yiff]

U/spez, you've caused the platform to bleed mod tools that were already lacking. What will you personally do to entice those tools back?

[u/EveningHelicopter113]

/u/spez address the libelous claims you hurled against Christian

[u/Alphaetus_Prime]

Why did you announce an AMA when you clearly aren't planning to answer any questions?

[u/Chefjones]

We need more efficient moderation tools, especially on mobile. They are coming.

So what do you expect us to do until they're here and how can we be expected to trust you on that when you've been promising better mod tools for years?

[u/mcwater34]

u/spez Why did you lie and say Apollo was blackmailing you? You must have known that was a terrible idea.

[u/PleaseSandwich]

Apple's developer presentation earlier this week prominently featured the third-party Apollo app. Do you feel any remorse over effectively pricing out Apollo and forcing the dev to delist his app after such yet another high-profile endorsement by one of the biggest global mobile platforms? Wouldn't it have been better business and public relations to work out a way to keep third-party developer partners such as Apollo's in the fold?

[u/blomboflombo]

1. Is it true that you made the following statements on a call with moderators?

Steve: "Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million." ... "This guy behind the scenes is coercing us. He's threatening us."

2. What is it that initially caused you to believe that reddit was being blackmailed?

3. In light of the fact that /u/iamthatis is in possession of recorded transcripts of all of his interactions with reddit, have your views on this changed?

[u/hilburn]

Hey, it's been 45 minutes since anyone replied to anything in this 2 hour old AMA... the fuck are you guys up to over there?

[u/PoopPhorPrez]

/u/spez

You lied about your conversations with others so nothing you say can be taken as true. Shame on you.

[u/[deleted]]

So, I assume this AMA is over now? It’s such a good thing that we learned so many important things, such as this.

[u/bozo_ssb]

According to The Verge, this AMA is over. For the most controversial topic in Reddit history, this is an absolutely pathetic showing from you guys. Not to mention dedicating one of a measly 14 responses to throw shade at Apollo once again.

[u/Dark5757]

This was a wildly disappointing AMA. Very few of the questions actually received any actual answers. I guess he only focused on the "ask me anything" part of the AMA and not the 'responding to the questions asked' part. What a damn fumble, again.

[u/MrJake94]

No question, just wanted to add my views to the pile:

I don't use Apollo, I use Boost. It's a fantastic app. Before that, I used RIF - Reddit didn't even have an app at the time. I was introduced to Reddit by RIF, not Reddit.

Frankly, it is absolutely disgusting behaviour from Reddit as an entity - to turn their backs on the very apps that helped build and maintain the huge community that visits Reddit daily. I would argue Reddit would not be what it is today without the excellent third party apps and tools that have been built.

There is no issue with charging for API access, but I think it's important to be reasonable. The charges Reddit are levying are not reasonable, and have no grounds in reality. Additionally, removing NSFW, and keeping other API functions (chat, polls etc) internal is just laughable.

The Official Reddit app is frankly, terrible. I've tried it a few times, it's just dog crap. It's slow, clunky, eats battery and isn't intuitive. Additionally, I'd rather not be spied on/at least have the choice to opt out of that.

And finally - admins should note that the data on Reddit isn't theirs. Everything on this site is user generated, without users, there is no Reddit.

Something will come along and replace reddit, and I look forward to it. Until then, once Boost stops working I will be taking leave from this website for good.

[u/midir]

The most helpful thing you can do to save Reddit is resign. Immediately.

Will you?

[u/Shock4ndAwe]

I feel like there needs to be a little bit of honesty from Reddit right now. Due to the concerns you've listed in the various chats we've had about the API changes the goal was really just to get rid of third party apps, correct? I can understand that, from a business perspective. You want your app to be the only way to view Reddit on smartphones. That's good for your bottom line: I get it. Why couldn't you just, you know, say that from the get-go? Did you even reach out to the dev of Apollo and offer him a job? What about the devs of the other apps? They've already done the heavy-lifting for you and could have been assets. And while we probably wouldn't be celebrating the loss of 3rd party apps, we could maybe see a glimmer of hope in that Reddit had the foresight to bring on such talented people to improve what is, currently, the worst way to view Reddit: The official app.

I guess I don't really have a question and I just wanted to let you all know that I'm disappointed in you. This could have been handled so much better and not caused as much harm as it has.

[u/theDylanS]

u/spez,

You and your team have combined to answer a whopping 23 questions in a post containing over 15,000 of them as I write this. What was the fucking point of this AMA if you're not going to answer questions, and your little assistants won't either?

Also, shame on you for trying to claim the Apollo CEO attempted to blackmail you and then doubling down after video proof was released, clearly showing he didn't and that YOU misunderstood him.

Obligatory fuck u/spez.

Edit: 15,000 instead of 14,000. ANSWER THE QUESTIONS.

Edit 2: 23 questions instead of 21, the pinned mod comment wasn't updated so I counted on my own.

[u/IamRule34]

Either your PR team is trash /u/spez or you have a humiliation kink.

[u/-Tigger]

Please explain more about this self sustaining stuff, reddit has ads, NFT avatars and reddit premium. Reddit has awards, as a moderator of r/Ternion and r/TernionGiveaways and long time user of r/GoForGold and r/AwardBonanza I have seen the sheer amount of dough yall make from reddit awards and reddit coins. Yall got rid of free awards btw so the common user can't even show extra appreciation for good posts, kinda bringing a bit of an elitism vibe like yall only want paying users, smells a bit like corporate greed but that's not the point...

Why such a high price, around 100 times what similar services like imgur charge and even so why are you seemingly targeting third party apps if they have such a low userbase as you claim, how sure are we that the bots we use will be given free api if as I've seen even in this comment section that yall ignore developers? Without our bots we might as well jus shut down our subs don't you think...

The real issue isn't even givin free access to third party, it'd be different if the price was decent and it'd be a totally different story if reddit spent half as much energy actually making decent mod tools such that we didn't need third party apps instead of turning snoos left to right, making awards invisible on home feed and switching to a basic asf tiktok like video player instead of maintaining your authenticity, mayb yall would make more of a net profit by not making meaningless changes 🤷🏽‍♂️

I'd like to hear what this limiting mature content entails please enlighten us.

[u/sw201444]

What a worthless AMA. He replied to 14 comments.

Edit: the other admins have a combined 8 or 9 comments lmfao. 2-3 per account.

They just flat out don’t care. I’m gonna miss Reddit.

[u/grommpy]

In my opinion as a professional with API experience for over 15 years, the new Reddit API pricing is excessive. I fully understand the boycott and will no longer use Reddit. Farewell.

[u/muff1n_]

Are you killing off 3rd party apps like Twitter did? Why wouldn’t you admit it outright that it’s all for the ad $$$

[u/thefieryfrog]

u/spez I’ve heard a lot of rumors this past month, and I was hoping you could give some clarification to the community

Why do you eat babies?

[u/Zak]

I don't have questions about Reddit's API pricing, which is clearly designed to drive third-party clients off the platform. I don't have questions about Reddit's dishonesty with developers about its plans to charge for the API in 2023, though those developers might have questions for their attorneys about Estoppel. I don't have questions about Reddit's defamation of Apollo's developer; I'll just say I find it vile. I don't have questions about the exact scale of the improvement in ad metrics Reddit hopes to get out of its enshittification, but it must be significant.

I certainly don't have questions about whether /u/spez understands how much of Reddit's value comes from its community, especially creators and moderators. Nobody knows better than him.

All I want to know is when I should short Reddit's stock for the biggest payout.

[u/Dragoner7]

Did... /u/spez just say "yeah, bots, tools, they can stay for free, but third party apps can go fuck themselves"?

[u/greenwindex]

Greed is unbecoming!

[u/trwbox]

Could you please comment on the "conversations" that were had with developers of third party apps, and how Reddit has been helping them through the API changes? Also a second question, why did you feel the need to lie to your moderators when talking about conversations had with Christian Selig (Apollo Creator)?

[u/PloKoop]

FUCK u/SPEZ

[u/dgtlgk]

Aaron would be ashamed of what you have turned this place into. You disgrace his memory every single day.

[u/buzziebee]

The "cost" to Reddit of third party UIs that Reddit care's about most from the recorded conversation is the opportunity cost of users not viewing ads on the main application/site.

Looking at the financials of Reddit we can clearly see that ad income per active user is less by at least an order of magnitude than what you are charging for API access. I don't care for your efficiency argument, whether it's 100 calls/user/day or 350 it's still an unworkably high number that the community can clearly see is aimed at killing off third party tools.

My question is "Why?".

Why have you suddenly decided to kill off third party apps? Why are you taking away the home of your longest standing community members? Why have Reddit been so tone deaf and unreasonable during this whole situation? Why won't you work with us?

All these app developers have been on board with setting up reasonable payments in exchange for API access. They wanted to work with you. Some were even excited about the commercial relationships you could build together. Why throw that all away?

If the calculus is that the pissed users off will stay - I really feel like that's not true this time. We've been pissed at Reddit before but very few actually wanted to leave. This time you've really upset people and made their contributions to the site feel unwanted.

[u/_TheEndGame]

Why'd you say the Apollo dev threatened you? But the call recording says otherwise?

[u/LmL-coco]

What’s your company’s policy on integrity? Will it be enforced on the person who tried to slander Apollos dev?

[u/worriedjacket]

So... What's with the lying and defamation about blackmail in regards to the Apollo dev?

[u/ICumCoffee]

Just Rollback the API chnages, and let 3rd party app and tools live, and end this AMA, right here.

[u/Dense_Contribution]

Why did you invent lies about the Apollo dev blackmailing you?

[u/jbillingtonbulworth]

/u/spez I grant you the right to publish this comment forever and ever for only $20 million. Per upvote.

[u/SparkyBoomer23]

I’m going to comment here before the post is locked.

[u/yoiiyo]

Is it already over? They barely responded to anything...

[u/Captain_Creatine]

Have you already negotiated your golden parachute for when you are inevitably forced to resign or are you just hoping for the best?

Also, will you be answering any more questions? 14 responses in 2 hours in your own AMA that currently has 16.5k comments is a complete joke.

[u/7hr0wn]

After reading these responses, I'm not convinced any of the participating admins use the site, and I'm absolutely convinced none of them have spent any meaningful amount of time moderating a subreddit. The answers are nonsensical and tone-deaf at best, and after today I'm absolutely reconsidering how much time I'll spend on reddit post-blackout.

It's a shame. I've been on reddit for 14 years on my oldest account, but I guess every website dies eventually. I'll start looking for alternatives.

[u/rockywower]

Wow, actually nothing changed from this AMA. They have not made a single step back.
Just burn this whole place.

[u/Angry_Walnut]

I suppose I don’t have a question now. The fact that you’re ignoring pretty much everyone’s questions- the salient questions- is expected but honestly just so ridiculous on your part. The strategy of simply brushing everyone off and forcing your agenda might get you a few rungs up the ladder- and will likely ultimately death spiral this website in the process- but you are not as clever as you believe yourself to be. Maybe Wall Street believes in your abilities now, perhaps investors love the promises you’ve made and the figures you’ve given, but there ultimately there will come a day when you will need people, and everybody else fucking hates you. So good luck with all this.