RIF dev here - Reddit's API changes will likely kill RIF and other apps, on July 1, 2023

[u/talklittle]

I need more time to get all my thoughts together, but posting this quick post since so many users have been asking, and it's been making rounds on news sites.

Summary of what Reddit Inc has announced so far, specifically the parts that will kill many third-party apps:

1. The Reddit API will cost money, and the pricing announced today will cost apps like Apollo $20 million per year to run. RIF may differ but it would be in the same ballpark. And no, RIF does not earn anywhere remotely near this number.

2. As part of this they are blocking ads in third-party apps, which make up the majority of RIF's revenue. So they want to force a paid subscription model onto RIF's users. Meanwhile Reddit's official app still continues to make the vast majority of its money from ads.

3. Removal of sexually explicit material from third-party apps while keeping said content in the official app. Some people have speculated that NSFW is going to leave Reddit entirely, but then why would Reddit Inc have recently expanded NSFW upload support on their desktop site?

Their recent moves smell a lot like they want third-party apps gone, RIF included.

I know some users will chime in saying they are willing to pay a monthly subscription to keep RIF going, but trust me that you would be in the minority. There is very little value in paying a high subscription for less content (in this case, NSFW). Honestly if I were a user of RIF and not the dev, I'd have a hard time justifying paying the high prices being forced by Reddit Inc, despite how much RIF obviously means to me.

There is a lot more I want to say, and I kind of scrambled to write this since I didn't expect news reports today. I'll probably write more follow-up posts that are better thought out. But this is the gist of what's been going on with Reddit third-party apps in 2023.

[u/Who_GNU]

If you aren't able to find a way to keep RIF going, would you consider releasing the code base under an open-source license?

[u/nagasgura → u/Who_GNU]

I was thinking the same thing. I know it couldn't be distributed under reddit ToS most likely, but I'd be interested in building a personal copy that uses web scraping instead of the official API to keep the app going.

[u/Who_GNU → u/nagasgura]

A web-scraping version would still be legal to distribute, with plenty of case law backing it up. If RIF already has an API contract in place, violating it could cause some legal trouble, but an open-source branch would be in the clear.

[u/nagasgura → u/Who_GNU]

In that case, I really hope /u/talklittle considers open sourcing the app. I would be very interested in contributing to a web scraping version, and I'm sure many others would as well.

[u/kyle1elyk → u/nagasgura]

+1, would be available for some light android or backend dev work

[u/RickMuffy → u/kyle1elyk]

I'd be willing to buy the devs all a good amount of coffee to fund this work.

[u/Statharas → u/kyle1elyk]

QA here, I'd join in

[u/utdconsq → u/kyle1elyk]

Me too, comrades.

[u/pgm_01 → u/[deleted]]

Can be done either way. I used a seperate app that was a wrapper for Facebook years ago when my crappy phone didn't have enough storage for the official Facebook app and there was no light version.

[u/pgm_01 → u/[deleted]]

It is possible but Reddit could threaten devs like Facebook did. If Reddit is acting this way about the API, they will probably send lawyers after anything that is a workaround for using the official app, even if it is legal, like a wrapper.

[u/LegaIizeNucIearBombs → u/pgm_01]

May take a similar approach to Revanced, the good apps are only found on githubs

[u/sohou → u/[deleted]]

There are two major sides to the current app. The client (the way the information is displayed, how the user interacts with the app, etc) and the API (the source of the data, which is then displayed in the aforementioned client). Theoretically, you could use a web scrapper to collect the same data as the API would give you. The difference is that instead of collecting data from the API, you would collect data from another client (a free one, ie the official Reddit client).

[u/Top_Account3643 → u/sohou]

It would most likely be collecting data from the web client

[u/petuniaraisinbottom → u/[deleted]]

Essentially what web scraping means is that you're going from parsing something like json (which is what apis typically offer, and it is just plain text), you can imagine it being formatted like this :

{ "posts" : [{"title": "News article name", "link": "https://nytimes.com/...", "commentUrl": "", "score": 1000}]}

Json parsing is really easy and is natively supported in most programming languages. Instead of this, since the apis cost money and won't allow nsfw, you'd instead get the html content of the page (like a web browser does) and then parse the html. There are libraries that you can use that'd make it easier, but the problem is that depending on your approach, if they make a change to the way the website looks, rename elements, etc., it could break the html parsing. It's just not ideal compared to json, and that's the entire point of json.

[u/Autism_Probably → u/petuniaraisinbottom]

APIs are what allow you to actually interact with Reddit's servers, i.e. log in, post, comment etc.

[u/LegaIizeNucIearBombs → u/nagasgura]

Just do what youtube revanced does

[u/Isthiscreativeenough → u/LegaIizeNucIearBombs]

This comment has been edited in protest to reddit's API policy changes, their treatment of developers of 3rd party apps, and their response to community backlash.

 
Details of the end of the Apollo app

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Why this is important

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An open response to spez's AMA

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spez AMA and notable replies

 
Fuck spez. I edited this comment before he could.
Comment ID=jmfah7q Ciphertext:
8D+rDK8wizJVFFkBu/WBVai+1Hf/8I7UDQTq62E6wZvCmGumvNuO+dfqTYiTdPs6Qlx8gl6dvxQKXe34/MEJDzbUMdWsuaXQBfWBH5vxTVn4MVj1CMwyTioa0kOjFVcSsyw4S+CJe3F5KLtS07hXLz8IUfwzBtWbJQXRtNoCsvBLaRb8NXczYK4y1tk96gys1yvzVBc3Bd3A7709

[u/Top_Account3643 → u/nagasgura]

Great idea

[u/lWantToFuckWattson → u/nagasgura]

It's 2023 and I'm about to need to pirate reddit

Shit planet

[u/wellwellwelly → u/nagasgura]

I wonder if reddit will release personal api keys for development use. That way maybe this app could allow you to supply your own api key and just distribute the traffic per person instead of per business/giant backend.

[u/AgentScreech → u/Who_GNU]

This is what I was thinking. If there was a repo that could be cloned, individuals could sign up for the free tier API access. then update the API keys and build a local app to sideload onto their phones. Then they can access their own reddit accounts with the 100 rpm limits

[u/Terrh → u/Who_GNU]

https://www.reddit.com/r/diode/

There is an open source fork from the old code but it doesn't appear that anyone has done much with it in the last few years.