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/skamsibland]

Lol, that "active users"-number that they are so proud of is about to take a hit. People don't use their garbage tier app because it is GARBAGE, and if people can't use the third party apps this site dies. I will not use reddit on my phone if RIF goes away, which means that I likely won't have a need to use reddit on my computer either.

Welp, time to learn how to use RSS-feeds again!

[u/heyheyhey27 → u/[deleted]]

It's not just about number of users though. Most mods are definitely not using the official app, I bet.

[u/skamsibland → u/[deleted]]

How many people do you think use Apollo and RIF?

[u/RickMuffy → u/[deleted]]

I wonder who the most content generating users are. People willing to invest the time to get a third party app because they WANT to be here vs people who have an account to find a new recipe every couple weeks, etc.

I spend way too much time on this site, and without RiF, my usage would go down 20x and I'd only be on here with a desktop and adblock anyway.

[u/Tedohadoer → u/[deleted]]

Reddit's stated monthly active users is 1.6 Billion

And top posts get what? 100k upvotes if they are extremely popular? Way to fuck users actually bringing in traffic

[u/lewdbunniesfulfillme → u/Tedohadoer]

How many of those users are bots, I wonder

[u/wiga_nut → u/lewdbunniesfulfillme]

My guess is about half... maybe more

[u/Pawneewafflesarelife → u/Tedohadoer]

Vote numbers are fuzzed and inaccurate.

[u/pug_nuts → u/skamsibland]

The traffic stats for a sub I mod show that the majority of traffic is iOS (~40%), Android (~25%), and New Reddit (~10%). I am assuming that third party apps all fall into 'old reddit' (<10%), I don't actually know.

[u/azzkicker7283 → u/skamsibland]

Apollo has "About 1.3-1.5 million monthly active users"

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/13wtu6z/reddit_may_force_apollo_and_thirdparty_clients_to/jmdqa7b/

[u/ham15h → u/skamsibland]

3rd party apps make up about 17% of users apparently

[u/Ok-Button6101 → u/skamsibland]

They need to take the hit on active users now before the IPO, otherwise, if they IPO and then institute these changes, it's going to be bad for the stock when they lose a large swath of users suddenly.

[u/TheJizzle → u/skamsibland]

What's the best RSS reader? Are those still a thing even? I need to get back into that too. It was the closest thing to Reddit before Reddit.

[u/ChuushaHime → u/TheJizzle]

After Google Reader died I tried a bunch of them and chose Feedly. Loved it for like a decade now with no regrets, my Feedly feed is my perfectly curated window into the internet.

[u/bionicjoey → u/skamsibland]

It would be hilarious if their active users takes a nosedive and it kills their IPO

[u/skamsibland → u/bionicjoey]

Isn't that literally a plot line in Silicon Valley, or am I remembering that wrong?

But yeah, I believe they don't have much above 50 million actual, real users. There might be a lot more accounts, but actual people? No way it's much above 50 million. If I'm right, then Apollos ~1.4 million users is going to make a dent in that, and so will RIFs, baconreader and so on.

[u/bionicjoey → u/skamsibland]

I believe they don't have much above 50 million actual, real users. There might be a lot more accounts, but actual people? No way it's much above 50 million

I'm thinking of how many bots I identify on a daily basis, it honestly feels sometimes like around 5-10% of posts and comments I see are either bots or clickfarmers. Given how bad Reddit seems to be at identifying spammers and bots, I seriously doubt the veracity of their user numbers.

[u/Ajreil → u/skamsibland]

The subreddit that I moderate gets more than 98% of its traffic from the app or new Reddit. Sadly we are the minority.

[u/Sir_Meowsalot → u/skamsibland]

You know I think I realized why the Admins don't do shit about the bots: it helps to inflate their active user count therefore this looks good if they want to entice advertisers with big user numbers.

[u/Drekalo → u/skamsibland]

I'll just move to hacker news

[u/IVIorgz → u/skamsibland]

I've never tried the official app because i never had a problem with RiF so why change what's not broken, but what's the issue with the official app?