Reddit isn’t profitable, despite having more than 50 million daily active users. In preparation for an IPO, CEO Steve Huffman put the platform’s API

  • BobosGonnaeGetYe6@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    The blatant astroturfing is what really icked me out. From day one of the API changes, it was clear that Reddit had spun up the spin machine and had begun to misrepresent the issues.

    The main one was how they tried to push the “they just want the API for free”, “we’re entitled to charge for our services” narrative.

      • zeppo@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        That was super disingenuous and turned me off, too. Like you’re saying, Selig noted that by reddit’s stats, each user cost .12 cents a month and reddit was asking for $2.40. The 3rd party developers provide a service to reddit that reddit could have monetized through various arrangements, such as requiring their ads to be displayed, requiring premium as you said, or a profit sharing arrangement. 3rd party developers were not taking advantage of reddit or demanding free access… they objected to reddit pulling out the rug suddenly and then lying and misrepresenting everything about it.

        This has been like going to a restaurant or working somewhere for 8 years and then you finally meet the owner and are WHAT? Fuck that.

        • towerful@programming.dev
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          2 years ago

          It was the setup as well.
          Conversations in January saying API and API T&C were not changing anytime soon (clarified to mean multiple years).
          The change announced shortly after with 0 concrete details.
          Then 6 weeks notice of the details to then implement the changes before costs incurred.

          6 weeks notice is fine for consumer stuff, but not business-to-business, and not at the scale of $20m.

    • ef9357@lemmy.one
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      2 years ago

      Yes, I loved it when Christian Selig let Hoffman (fuck spez) know his lies were exposed because he (Christian) had recorded their conversation… and provided proof. Would love a video of Hoffman’s reaction.

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      There was one comment that really gave me the ‘holy shit, ick corporation’ reaction… in an article about reddit’s traffic going down, a reddit spokesperson said “we do not comment on incorrect statistics from third parties”. Like please, calm down, you’re not a lawyer for a politician on trial here.