I find it hilarious how he spilled the beans on how much the API has costed Reddit.
Huffman’s gripe is that some of these apps make millions every year using Reddit’s data, and the company has to bear infrastructure costs of up to $10 million every year, he told The Verge.
And so, he thinks he can charge a single app, Apollo, twice that amount? And what about the rest of the apps, I haven’t heard how much they would have had to pay.
It’s absolutely reasonable for Reddit to try to recoup some or all of that cost for the API. I recall Apollo’s creator Christian Selig saying he wasn’t against paying for access, but it had to be reasonable.
This just cements why he’s doing this. To kill the 3rd party apps.
I would have been willing to pay a bit in order to keep BaconReader. I am very cognizant that I am avoiding ads, and would pay to keep it that way. But I won’t pay an excessive amount.
Steve is not giving me the option. He wants to price the apps out of existence, because he sees them as competition. Which is weird, because the only purpose of those apps is to drive content to Reddit. And their users paid extra to the app developer because they prefer it. Does he not want my content?
@dhork@Contextual_Idiot He wants eyeballs on ads, not content. Like most VC techbros, he thinks content is the easy part of the equation, and people creating content are an easily replacable nuisance.
I don’t think spez cares about what kind of content gets posted, as long as something is getting posted. As evidenced by the glacial response to dealing with problem subreddits.
This is also why he’s going to force the subs to reopen at all costs. He needs those posts being made, and he needs the users and lurkers to view those posts for the ad revenue.
It’s also what will allow Reddit’s competition to eat spez’s lunch. Quantity is easy these days. But users will follow the quality.
I find it hilarious how he spilled the beans on how much the API has costed Reddit.
And so, he thinks he can charge a single app, Apollo, twice that amount? And what about the rest of the apps, I haven’t heard how much they would have had to pay. It’s absolutely reasonable for Reddit to try to recoup some or all of that cost for the API. I recall Apollo’s creator Christian Selig saying he wasn’t against paying for access, but it had to be reasonable. This just cements why he’s doing this. To kill the 3rd party apps.
TLDR: fuck u/spez.
I would have been willing to pay a bit in order to keep BaconReader. I am very cognizant that I am avoiding ads, and would pay to keep it that way. But I won’t pay an excessive amount.
Steve is not giving me the option. He wants to price the apps out of existence, because he sees them as competition. Which is weird, because the only purpose of those apps is to drive content to Reddit. And their users paid extra to the app developer because they prefer it. Does he not want my content?
@dhork @Contextual_Idiot He wants eyeballs on ads, not content. Like most VC techbros, he thinks content is the easy part of the equation, and people creating content are an easily replacable nuisance.
That seems to be in vogue these days. Hence the writer’s strike, and general crappy content flooding every form of media.
I don’t think spez cares about what kind of content gets posted, as long as something is getting posted. As evidenced by the glacial response to dealing with problem subreddits. This is also why he’s going to force the subs to reopen at all costs. He needs those posts being made, and he needs the users and lurkers to view those posts for the ad revenue. It’s also what will allow Reddit’s competition to eat spez’s lunch. Quantity is easy these days. But users will follow the quality.