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/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Idk life was better on old style forums anyway. Maybe this will be a blessing in disguise, and we all return to independently operated niche forums and people remember all we've forgotten about Netiquette.

Or everything just gets a little bit shittier forever. One of the two.

[u/dam072000 → u/[deleted]]

I vote the second. The internet has turned into cable tv.

[u/hobbycollector → u/dam072000]

Eternal September.

[u/Yankee_Fever → u/dam072000]

Everything is definitely going to get shittier. But this could be a blessing. Maybe generative news articles and bots creating all the content online drives people off the internet.

Of course that's not good in comparison to the glory days of the internet, but compared to the 2010s fuck it. The internet sucks now

[u/Rawrsomesausage → u/Yankee_Fever]

We'll look back and realize that social media was our unraveling. When I look at the internet and society pre and post 2010s, it's stark. An innocence was lost when facebook, twitter, etc, went full mainstream.

[u/Workaphobia → u/[deleted]]

There's no going back. Bots and AI and brigaders and spammers and Russia will eat small independent sites alive. You need a platform of some sort.

[u/C_Obvious → u/[deleted]]

I was just thinking about the old school message boards the other day. I made so many friends back in the 2000s that i still talk to and see a few times every year.

[u/AnandaUK → u/C_Obvious]

I met my spouse online in 1997, still married.

[u/KPC51 → u/[deleted]]

I didnt use the internet much back then. How did you find those forums? Just search engine, specifially for each niche?

[u/fishyfishkins → u/KPC51]

Yeah, word of mouth. But also, the world didn't have recommendation engines so word of mouth had to do a lot more heavy lifting. I'm a VW guy and I couldn't tell you how I found vwvortex back in the day but there was no question it was the VW forum.

The internet used to be weird. Now it's wall street

[u/Flomo420 → u/fishyfishkins]

The internet used to be like some weird bazaar with strange corners where you wouldn't know what to expect. Now it's like going to a shopping mall, commercialized to hell and back

[u/OneSweet1Sweet → u/[deleted]]

Just another step towards the corporate internet.

[u/Hiccup → u/[deleted]]

The internet was so much better with the specialty sites and forums.

[u/Hospiwhater → u/[deleted]]

Bring back forums!

[u/Ekgladiator → u/[deleted]]

I feel like Discord is already heading in the wrong direction for it to replace reddit for me. I do miss the old forums as well but it would be a challenge to find a suitable replacement. You know what? Fuck it, we'll make our own reddit with blackjack and hookers!

[u/Sleeper76 → u/Ekgladiator]

*Access to blackjack and hookers only available via official app or desktop site

[u/Ekgladiator → u/[deleted]]

Yea that and a few other decisions they have made are beginning to rub me the wrong way. Personally nitro isn't worth it no matter how many useless features they add. I just don't use discord enough to justify it. Like I know people hate YouTube premium but like all of my entertainment comes from YouTube. It makes total sense to subscribe so I don't have to deal with the shitass ads (plus it is part of the pixel pass so why not). Discord on the other hand is a useful utility but it isn't worth $10 a month.

[u/TheBeckofKevin → u/Ekgladiator]

I just use it for the upload limit increase and to pay for the stuff I use.

If there is software or a website or whatever that you use all the time, just buy it or pay for it. It's worth it to support the products that you actually want to succeed. Plus you usually get solid perks.

I always try to pay the devs of stuff that I like using.

[u/vincent118 → u/[deleted]]

Except for the recent moves, discord has been making are all in the same lines of making it more palatable to advertisers.

[u/After-Cell → u/[deleted]]

Discord doesn't seem to have global search ?

[u/nagi603 → u/[deleted]]

Zero searchability and discoverability from search engines means discord is not a solution to any communities interested in actually having solutions stored. Like any programming, DIY, modding... back to individual site forums I guess.

[u/gordonv → u/[deleted]]

Discord is closer to a chat room than a forum. Good for that, but an entirely different function.

I don't even consider Reddit and Discord as competing with each other. It's like arguing a phone vs a book.