the developer, Andrew Shu, tells me that’s not the case — and shared emails with The Verge that appear to back him up.

oh wow spez is lying? I’m so surprised.

/s

“Shu also tells me that RIF was paying a “sizable revenue share” to Reddit beginning in 2012, which was during Yishan Wong’s tenure as CEO. Shu says he says initiated the talks with Reddit to create the agreement, which allowed for the licensed use of Reddit’s trademarks. (At the time, the app was called “reddit is fun.”) Shu says Reddit terminated the agreement in 2016 — which was the year after Huffman took over as CEO.”

I keep noticing people saying that of course reddit can’t keep subsidizing third party apps.

That’s bullshit.

It isn’t about the apps. It’s the users that use them, generating content on reddit, that is the only thing that makes reddit worth advertising on.

That isn’t subsidizing shit, it’s making sure they have a steady stream of users engaging. What little they’ll lose in terms of lost ad revenue doesn’t match the value of what’s being given to reddit.