Their revenue model seemed fine with awards. Brilliant model. Value out of thin air. I spent maybe $5/mo on awards.
Seeing the content itself as the product was a mistake for reddit. It’s like charging people for silverware at a restaurant.
Use of the API, just like use of the HTTP servers, drove engagement and engagement drove awards sales.
Just like the use of silverware drives meal purchases at a restaurant. Reddit charging for the API is like a restaurant charging to get the menu texted to you.
I would have been ok if Reddit charged a reasonable rate for its API, even if it was based on having a form of Reddit premium. But the point wasn’t that Reddit was charging, it was that Reddit made the price so high that it was wasn’t worth it.
Yeah, I would not have minded tying using 3PAs to having Reddit Premium. I already pay for Discord Nitro entirely because I spend so much time on that app, and like to support the shit I rely on. I would have easily done it for Reddit to keep my preferred experience. 🤷♂️
From what I’ve read, they’re not hurting from any of this at all. It’s all back to normal. Which is very disappointing.
I’ve heard rumors that they are leveraging LLM’s like ChatGPT to simulate normal user activity, and that’s disregarding the fact that the API cutoff only happened 2 days ago, and many may not have switched yet. I wasn’t able to verify this anywhere, but based on Lemmy numbers alone, I think we have enough to cast reasonable doubt on the platform’s DAU. I think we’ll have a much better idea of how many folks actually stuck around in a few weeks, or even a month.
More than that. They’re going after old.reddit next, then nsfw and more ads
Reddit’s only gonna get worse from here, might as well go to an equivalent community that’s actually improving (and rapidly so) instead
