As the protest against Reddit’s raised API costs continues, more and more moderators are pledging to keep their subreddits private or restricted indefinitely. For most subreddits, the blackout was supposed to last only 48 hours, but moderators are more than willing to push past that window and stay dark indefinitely.
At the time of writing, 6,565 out of the 8,829 pledged subreddits have gone either private or restricted indefinitely, according to Reddark_247’s Twitch stream, which keeps real-time track of the situation.
On the other hand, The Verge reports that Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has addressed the protests in an internal memo saying that the ongoing blackout will eventually pass. Huffman also directed employees to be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public as some people are upset, and Reddit doesn’t want its employees to “be the object of their frustrations”.
Reportedly, the blackouts haven’t had any significant revenue impact so far. However, that’s not to say that the site remains unaffected. Thousands of subreddits going dark simultaneously put Reddit out of action temporarily on June 12, but the site has recovered since.
The major consequence at the time being is for developers who used the API to make third-party Reddit apps, with apps like Apollo for Reddit and rif is fun for Reddit announcing shutdowns on June 30, one day before the new pricing comes into effect.
Reddit’s sudden change to its API pricing isn’t an unprecedented move, but the backlash was very much expected, as pointed out by Huffman in the internal memo. It was first announced in April 2023 and the higher prices were supposed to make Reddit more money from companies using data from the platform to train their AI models. Still, individual third-party developers are paying the heftiest price here.
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