The funniest part of the article is how he’s slamming the actions of unpaid moderators while saying “they’re mad because they used to get something for free, and now it’s going to be not free”.
The funniest part of the article is how he’s slamming the actions of unpaid moderators while saying “they’re mad because they used to get something for free, and now it’s going to be not free”.
Only 3% of Reddit users use third-party apps. This was such a weird hill to die on and it’s not going to make them suddenly profitable. Models of monetization that rely on advertising just don’t work. Adding a few thousand users to the list of people who see them isn’t going to suddenly make it so.
not sure where the 3% metric is coming from but from what I understand, a big hit to “no 3rd party apps” is moderation tools - it’ll make the larger subs more difficult to moderate - and will end up costing reddit $$$$ when the unpaid mods quit over it
If it’s truly only 3% then that’s all the more reason why deals could have been done with those app developers instead of dropping the bomb they did. It could have helped their bottom line while keeping their power users on side if they actually put some effort into communication with them.
Sadly that would mean they’re looking at it as “only 3%” and just not giving a damn.
It was a combination of the absurd pricing for the third party apps and that the people most affected by this would be not only those with accessibility issues, but the mods who do damn near all the day-to-day operations of the site. Reddit relies on unpaid moderators to keep subs from turning into bot spamming grounds and the official app is more difficult to use for basic functions and doesn’t support many of them at all.
So they were essentially giving the finger to their unpaid workforce and then claiming that the complainers were mad about no longer getting everything for free. It’s a pretty hefty dose of hypocrisy.