Thousands of Reddit users are protesting new API policies

The protest was announced well in advance. For a week or two now, messages have been coming from sympathizers who have sworn to join the protest. Not just individual users, many sub-reddits (forums within Reddit each with their own theme, from flat humor to what kind of car is this? and everything in between) even announced that they would go black for a whole day.

No more free access to Reddit API

And what was it all about? Reddit, one of the largest online forums, has announced that it will no longer just give third parties access to its own API. That piece of software is needed if, for example, you want to create an app that displays Reddit content. It wouldn’t have mattered all that much if its own app wasn’t so bad. Because many users have trouble with this app, they prefer to use Reddit via a third-party app.

The online forum does not want to completely deny third parties the use of its own API, but will charge money for access. And we’re not talking about a few tens or a case of lager. According to Christian Selig, the developer of the popular Apollo app, the costs are around 20 million euros per year. At least, that’s what Reddit wanted from him, according to Selig. And that is impossible for him to cough up, so Apollo will go black on June 30. It’s not the only similar announcement that has recently passed in review.

It seems that there will soon be no third party Reddit app left. That while for many users it is the best way to view Reddit content. The official Reddit app is regularly criticized, especially on Reddit forums, for its many bugs, slow loading and the lack of functions that can be used on the desktop version (and therefore on some third party apps).

Subreddits on black

That’s why so many reddit groups want to send a signal. Subreddits for music, history, sports, video games and even one of the largest subreddits r/funny joined the protest. Posts were made to promote the plea that received many tens of thousands of upvotes (Reddit variant of a like), entire subreddits were made private so that no one could access them anymore and many users talked about it in the comments.

It was a rare unequivocal statement from one of the largest online discussion platforms on the internet. Dutch subreddits also participated, such as r/theNetherlands and r/Evedivisie, which together account for almost a million members. At the time of writing this article (June 13), both subreddits were set to private. The message is clear. For many Reddit users, third party apps are a necessity to fully enjoy all the content the platform has to offer.

No course change yet due to protest

All these protests have not yet been heeded. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (u/spez on the platform) indicated last week that it is ultimately about hard numbers. “Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining company and to do that we cannot continue to subsidize more commercial companies that require massive data usage.”

Everyone understands that Reddit is not a philanthropic institution. Even the average Reddit user. The fact that the company is taking steps to secure the future of the platform is therefore encouraged by the community. But the current move, according to many, does more harm than good. Under Huffman’s Reddit post announcing the measure, there are many comments reflecting this sentiment. “I also understand that Reddit is a business and needs to make money. But data is not your only asset.” According to Reddit user SarahAGilbert, moderator of the subreddit AskHistorians.

Reddit, unlike platforms such as Facebook, leaves most of the content moderation to volunteers, mainly moderators, also known as mods, such as u/SarahAGilbert. Outsourcing this critical task saves Reddit a lot of money. This while according to moderators themselves there is still a lot that can be done to make their work easier and more efficient. They often feel compelled to use third party apps for their volunteer work, something that will become impossible in the future.

Who does Reddit really belong to?

The protest can be seen in the wider context of a debate currently taking place on the internet. Who owns the data and who shares in the profits? For Reddit, the story is clear, the infrastructure belongs to the company, and it gets to choose how to use it. Since that infrastructure provides access to the content on the platform, that data is also the company’s plaything.

So people on the subreddit don’t agree with that. Every social media website and online forum naturally generates value from the content users create. In some cases, content creators are paid for this, in many cases they are not. In a sense, Reddit occupies a special place online because it relies to a much greater extent on volunteers. In terms of moderation, as already discussed, but even when it comes to developing features.

r/Blind is an example of a volunteer-created subreddit that helps blind people use the platform. Reddit itself has not contributed to this, but it does benefit from the extra users it brings. Clearly, Reddit users feel that through all their hard work they deserve a say in decisions like who has access to the Reddit API. It’s a view that apparently isn’t shared by the Reddit board.