I never understood why Reddit couldn’t just have kept the API free, and embedded ads in the feed directly. They would get their ad revenue, and third party developers would actually help them make money.
Probably because it would be easy to filter those ads from the feeds.
The facts were businesses like Apollo built themselves upon Reddit's value-proposition. The content is what the users wanted - and Reddit had the content. Apollo's value-add was making that content more accessible to users - at Reddit's expense.
We can debate how Reddit handled the rollout - but the facts are businesses like Apollo offered little to Reddit in exchange for Reddit's content.
People operating businesses based on someone else's data (moat) should have an exit plan for when the free ride ends.
From a legal point-of-view, yes, Reddit had control of the data and chose to alter the deal. And the app developer did have an exit plan: shutting down the app and refunding subscribers. The developer appears to have weighed his options, considered the strategy Reddit was communicating with the rollout of their API changes, and concluded that this was no longer a viable market.
Many people expressed strong opinions about what the developer should do, but he appears to have remained calm and rational throughout the experience, and chose to walk away when it made sense.
However:
> The content is what the users wanted - and Reddit had the content...
> ...in exchange for Reddit's content...
> ...operating businesses based on someone else's data (moat)...
Let's not fool ourselves: the data was created by and for the users, and it never belonged to Reddit in any moral sense. It's a regrettable externality of our legal framework that Reddit was able to withdraw their free API and prevent the community from accessing its own data how it saw fit.
The content wasn't Reddit's, it was simply hosted on Reddit. It was actually owned by the users, many of whom were using apps to benefit Reddit via additional content and moderation.
Alupis|1 year ago
The facts were businesses like Apollo built themselves upon Reddit's value-proposition. The content is what the users wanted - and Reddit had the content. Apollo's value-add was making that content more accessible to users - at Reddit's expense.
We can debate how Reddit handled the rollout - but the facts are businesses like Apollo offered little to Reddit in exchange for Reddit's content.
People operating businesses based on someone else's data (moat) should have an exit plan for when the free ride ends.
sethaurus|1 year ago
Many people expressed strong opinions about what the developer should do, but he appears to have remained calm and rational throughout the experience, and chose to walk away when it made sense.
However:
> The content is what the users wanted - and Reddit had the content...
> ...in exchange for Reddit's content...
> ...operating businesses based on someone else's data (moat)...
Let's not fool ourselves: the data was created by and for the users, and it never belonged to Reddit in any moral sense. It's a regrettable externality of our legal framework that Reddit was able to withdraw their free API and prevent the community from accessing its own data how it saw fit.
AlotOfReading|1 year ago