Reddit communities go dark in protest against API pricing

Communities on the popular social media platform Reddit are going “dark” or “private” to protest the site’s decision to try to monetise access to its data. Going “dark” or “private” means that people outside the communities will be prevented from seeing their posts.

As at the time of writing this post, more than 3,000 subreddits have signed up for the protest and effective Monday June 12, they will go dark.

Forums including r/todayilearned, r/funny, and r/gaming, each boasting over 30 million subscribers, have pledged their support for the campaign. Meanwhile, other communities with more than 1 million members, such as r/iPhone and r/unexpected, have already taken preemptive action by closing their doors in preparation for the strike.

The protest is centered around upcoming modifications to the site’s “API,” which enables other companies to utilize Reddit data in their own products and services. These changes will introduce significant fees for “premium access,” effectively jeopardizing the existence of popular third-party Reddit apps like Apollo, which offers users a customizable interface for browsing the site.

Apollo, said in a Reddit post last week that to support the company’s seven billion requests each month, it would need to pay Reddit $1.7 million a month, or $20 million each year. Apollo’s sole developer, Christian Selig, estimated that apps would need to charge about $5 (£4) a user each month simply to pay the new fees to Reddit.

Developers were provided with pricing details on June 1, and the new pricing structure will be implemented on July 1. This tight timeline of only 30 days has put companies, many of which have relied on the Reddit API for more than ten years, in a difficult position, as they must quickly make necessary adjustments to their apps. As a result, a significant number of third-party apps are being compelled to cease operations by June 30, prior to the implementation of the new changes.

The protest is scheduled to continue until June 14, but there is a possibility that it may persist or adopt alternative approaches if Reddit does not reconsider its decision.

In a statement to Fast Company, Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt said, “Our stance on third-party apps has not changed,” he said, noting that the policy was intended to foster “a safe and responsible developer ecosystem” around Reddit. “Expansive access to data has impact and costs involved,” said Rathschmidt, “and in terms of safety and privacy we have an obligation to our communities to be responsible stewards of data.”

“We’ve had a long-standing policy in our past terms that outlined commercial and noncommercial use,” Rathschmidt told Fast Company, “but unfortunately some of those agreements were not adhered to, so we clarified our terms and reached out to select organizations to work with them on compliance and a paid premium access tier.”

In a Reddit AMA discussion on Friday, CEO Steve Huffman said, “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.” However, he also indicated the company was willing to work with companies that might find the change burdensome.