This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/lemmymigration by /u/SpareVarious6008 on 2023-06-09 21:38:41+00:00.
Friends,
If you read the post title and are feeling a little bit lost, that’s okay. It’s been a crazy week.
Last weekend, we made an announcement detailing how reddit is planning to kill popular third party apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Relay, Narwhal, BaconReader, Sync and more. This is the same move that Twitter pulled (and was widely derided for), only with pricing that’s slightly cheaper but still so prohibitively expensive as to make the distinction irrelevant. Every third party developer has echoed the same response: “This is unrealistic, you’re forcing us to shut down.”
In response, over 3,000 subreddits (including us!) have organized a protest to make it clear to reddit that their blatant attempts to prop up their half-baked, insufficient mobile app by killing off the competition will not go unchallenged. What began with an open letter has progressed to a full on blackout of all participating subreddits after reddit demonstrated they were not interested in addressing our concerns with any meaningful action.
You all made it loud and clear in the previous thread that there’s overwhelming support for our community to take part in the blackout. Originally, the plan was to blackout the subreddit for a 48-hour period, followed by a 7-day period in restricted mode where no new posts or comments could be made.
However, there’s been some developments since then that you should be aware of:
We learned that the API pricing changes would also have a profound impact on users who rely on the accessibility features found in third party apps that are severely lacking or missing entirely in the official reddit app. You can find more information about the impact in this thread from the /r/Blind subreddit.
On June 7th, reddit CEO Steve Huffman (/u/spez) and several other reddit admins held a closed call with a select group of moderators to discuss the upcoming changes to the API pricing model. You can find the moderator’s notes of this call over on /r/ModCoord. Reddit also provided their own notes of the call which you can see stickied in the comments of the same thread. (Reddit’s notes were originally posted in /r/PartnerCommunities which is a private subreddit for admins and mods to interact. Reddit gave permission for these notes to be shared publicly.)
There are a few takeaways from the call worth mentioning. Reddit did make a concession in exempting moderation tools/bots from the API changes. They have also promised to close the accessiblity gap in their own app, but provided no tangible examples or timelines as to how or when that might happen. Otherwise, they show absolutely no interest in budging on the ridiculous pricing scheme and seem content to watch every major third party application shut down.
There’s another claim in the notes that bares further inspection: reddit claims that the lead developer of Apollo attempted to extort them for $10 million.
Yesterday, June 8th, the lead developer of Apollo posted an announcement confirming that the app would shut down. He also provided the receipts of his call with reddit, completely debunking the extortion claim. I strongly recommend reading the entire post for full context, but we’ll link both the transcript and the audio directly for easy access. You can see that despite reddit apologizing multiple times for the apparent misunderstanding on the call, they still went ahead and posted their notes afterwards claiming he had “threatened” them. This is a deliberate act of deception designed to slander the developer and drive a wedge between users and third party developers.
So that brings us to now.
Today, June 9th, /u/spez is holding an AMA to discuss the API. No time has been specified, but we encourage anybody with questions or concerns about the impending death of third party apps to participate. Might need to bring your own popcorn.
When we originally approached you all regarding the blackout, we wanted to be sure that any action we took as a mod team would align with the will of our community. The response was overwhelmingly in favor of participating, with many users even encouraging us to do a longer or indefinite blackout. Given reddit’s abhorrent behavior in the last few days, we feel the only option left is to escalate our efforts. But just as before, we want to make sure you all are onboard before we pull the trigger.
Should we extend our blackout, and if so, for how long? A week, two weeks, until July 1st, indefinitely?
Should the community be in favor of an indefinite blackout, the mod team has been discussing ideas for how that would work. Right now we’re considering the possibility of doing 7-day blackouts followed by reopening under restricted mode to gather community feedback as to whether or not we should continue. If the majority of people are still in favor, we do another 7-day blackout and repeat the process.
If you have other ideas besides what is listed above, please let us know. This is your community, so make yourselves heard.