If you are not a redditor, you may be unaware that there has been a multi day blackout to protest changes regarding API pricing:
At the peak of the blackout, more than 8,000 subreddits went dark in support of the API protest—though Reddit told Forbes earlier this week it was not “planning any changes to the API updates” they previously announced. Before the protest was planned to end Wednesday for most subreddits, The Verge published an internal company memo from Reddit that informed employees the blackout would pass and was not having a significant impact on revenue—a development that became one of the primary motivations behind an indefinite blackout for many subreddits. The changes were first announced in April, and by this month, popular subreddits like r/music, r/sports, r/gaming and many more participated in a blackout that either restricted or completely stopped followers of their pages from interacting with them.
Here is a brief explainer on what the API price changes will do:
For most of Reddit’s history, its value was its community and users, who post, comment, and moderate forums, also known as subreddits, for free. That adds up to millions upon millions of hours of unpaid labor that Reddit really can’t do without.
But Reddit is not just a community; it’s also a business. Its business needs will always come first, and right now, the company says it needs to make more money. So Reddit is soon going to charge for commercial access to its API, or application programming interface, which several third-party developers rely on to power their own Reddit-based apps. Those apps are often better, faster, and have more features than Reddit’s own. Reddit is also cutting sexually explicit content off from those third-party user interface apps entirely, while still allowing it on its official app. Reddit says the vast majority of services that use its API will not be affected, and that non-commercial tools that help moderators won’t be charged. Reddit is also rolling out its own moderator tools to replace what they’ll likely lose once the API changes are implemented.
When Reddit first announced it would start charging for API access in April, it framed the decision as a response to generative AI companies that scrape its content to build their lucrative large language models while paying Reddit nothing in return. Reddit app developers probably didn’t think they would be affected. After all, their products are supposed to make the Reddit experience better, and Reddit’s been just fine with that for many years.
One of the subgroups of redditors who will most be impacted by the changes in pricing are disabled users:
In a conversation with The Verge, Norbert Rum, who founded r/blind in 2008, pointed out several places where Reddit’s official app falls short of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the set of standards used to guide developers in the creation of accessible apps and websites.
One is huge: people relying on keyboard-only navigation can’t actually use the app, a critical issue for people who rely on voice control. Reddit’s official app is also not compatible with screen readers, which read content to blind and low-vision users and also provide navigational information.
***Disabled users say the most obvious fix to their accessibility woes is an overhaul of the official app. This could include fixes to address outstanding access issues, such as the need for alternate text and clearly labeled buttons that can interact with screen readers appropriately, and might integrate options to address cognitive disabilities and physical impairments such as Parkinson’s or tremors, which can make it very hard to use apps without making mistakes. In the short term, they want their beloved apps to be able to continue operating, which would require revisiting the API pricing and the timeline for implementation.
As for r/blind, it remains dark in protest, with a bitter twist: thanks to access conflicts, only a sighted person could actually flip the switch that set the community to private.
All of this is interesting to me, at least, but I suspect many of you, if you are still reading, are wondering why I am taking the time to talk about it. And the reason, dear Juicers, is because I think it serves as a useful introduction of one of my favorite things to think about lately- the curb-cut effect (the link here is different from the video below).
It’s a fun thing to think about, and to think about how unintended consequences is a neutral concept- they can be both good and bad. In video games, lots of design decisions for accessibility have made the game easier for fully sighted individuals and I often play shooters in colorblind mode.
Interesting stuff.
War for Ukraine Day 477: Russian Life Is Cheap
HumboldtBlue
There are still a half dozen subs of mine that are dark.
USA v Mexico in the Concacaf Nations League semifinal is being played, but CBS in their infinite wisdom has decided not to broadcast but stream it only instead. Dumbasses.
NobodySpecial
I understand both sides of the issue: Reddit users have mods available that make Reddit so much easier/pleasant, and Reddit is being dumb by just completely shutting everything down by overpricing access to the API, but Reddit also has to start making real money at some point before the investors decide to just pull the plug.
The pricing model is stupid because it’s designed to be stupid and soft lock mods out of the system, but I’d prefer that they find a way to integrate the mods into their app instead of just nuking the whole system.
dm
Somewhat related to the curb-cut effect was what happened at MIT when they made a concentrated effort to recruit more women undergraduates.
It meant that they could raise their standards.
(What?)
Well, it meant that instead of having to recruit the top 10% of half the population, they could concentrate on the top 5% of all the population.
Alison Rose
@HumboldtBlue: And this is part of why soccer will always struggle to really “make it” among US fans (however that is defined) – because the bulk of our sports media don’t give a shit about it other than during the World Cup and maybe the Olympics
ETA I remember one time, a Gold Cup semi-final or even maybe the final was supposed to be aired after some random mid-season baseball game, which went long. But the channel stuck with the baseball game and didn’t switch to the soccer match until at least ten minutes in, maybe longer. One of the baseball announcers would mention every couple of minutes that they would switch to the other game as soon as this one was over, and the other announcer kept getting annoyed and being like “we’re here to talk about baseball, they can wait, blah blah”. This was a long time ago, but for a lot of sports media folks, nothing has changed.
catclub
Is my understanding that the AI screen scrapers don’t use the API correct?
If so, making the app developers who DO use the API pay is not cutting off the problem.
glc
Deleted my Reddit account the other day. It’s part of the normal life cycle of walled gardens. Particularly those that don’t provide essential services.
AM in NC
That was a really good talk. Thanks for sharing it, John.
cain
@Alison Rose: I’m afraid that isn’t true at least here in Portland. Our soccer team tickets are like gone. It’s really hard to get season tickets.
Our team is really popular too – Portland Timbers are the bomb. The problem with all sports is lucrative contracts where you can’t watch it anywhere except on overpriced tiers on ESPN and so on. Going to the game can also be prohibitively expensive.
Trivia Man
I agree, that was a very accessible (ha!) discussion about a very serious issue. I’ve shared it with several people who are frequently required to justify accommodations for a certain group. I think this is a very simple and helpful way to phrase it.
Curb Cut Effect FTW
cain
I am a mod of a subreddit with 80k people in it. I didn’t really get a chance to look at it and then some folks complained that our subreddit didn’t participate. I suppose I should have but it was during a time of events and I just didn’t have time to look into the whole thing.
I think we should stop going to reddit and start doing decentralized. I think with reddit trying to go public with their IPO – these are all the things they are trying to show that they can make gobs of money. Basically, they are going to get insanely rich on content that we are all producing. So it’s kind of rich that they think they are protecting us from AI routines.
Also, what is this daily posting by John ? It weirds me out. Next thing you know, he’s going to start being a regular commenter!
Steve in the ATL
I once litigated a case involving Home Depot, Lowe’s, a shopping center, and a curb cut.
How did it turn out, you ask (pretend you asked)?
Unlike my legal idol, Steve Dallas, I won!
HumboldtBlue
@cain:
His Reddit went dark, he needed a place to go.
Alison Rose
@cain: Oh of course, many MLS teams have super dedicated fans. But I’m talking about the wider population, the nation as a whole. If the sports media treated soccer with equal respect to baseball, gridiron football, etc, I think that would help increase interest in it among people who are not currently inclined.
Jackie
Off topic good news:
“Two Tennessee state lawmakers who were expelled from the state legislature earlier this year for protesting gun violence on the House floor easily won their special primary elections on Thursday.”
”State Rep. Justin Jones ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination in his Nashville-area district, while state Rep. Justin Pearson sailed to victory over challenger David Page in the Democratic special primary for his Memphis-area district.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4052766-tennessee-special-election-results/
Jackie
@cain: “Also, what is this daily posting by John ? It weirds me out. Next thing you know, he’s going to start being a regular commenter!”
Just like the good ol’ days! Minus the alcohol – so even gooder!
HumboldtBlue
@cain:
There are dozens of places to watch pretty much any sport you wish to watch online without paying a dime.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
I’ve been seeing people reminiscing about the parallels to Tumblr.
This was heavily discussed in the main sub I used. What made most of those not convinced by the accessibility and moderation arguments move firmly into the “go dark” camp was Reddit’s CEO accusing one of the app developers of threats and extortion, which he then followed with a disastrous AMA.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: You got them to fill in the curb cut and reduce access?
cain
@HumboldtBlue: I was just thinking that – lol. We’re his backup when reddit goes down :D
cain
@HumboldtBlue: waaay too much work. Plus, those sites are really sketchy and full of ads.
The funny thing is that – the kids aren’t follow the mainstream sports. They are busy watching video game competitions instead since at least that is still free for streaming and accessible.
The ESPNs and the like are seeding their destructions because the upcoming generations can’t afford to watch their overpriced stores. It’s not like the old days where you could watch all the matches on antennae tv and trade bubble gum cards and the like.
different-church-lady
I ain’t no tech marketing genius, but it seems like this is a very familiar pattern/problem: you give it away at first, thinking you’re building a customer base. But what you’re really doing is training everyone to believe it ought to be free. Then there’s a big backlash when you try to charge for it.
frosty
@HumboldtBlue: @cain: The only way I can watch the Ravens without signing up for cable (we cut it) or a streaming service that carries Fox News (the reason we cut it) is with an antenna. So we put one up and it works!
I haven’t found any way to watch the NFL without paying for it or supporting Fox News.
ETA: Seems like a good year to watch the Orioles too. I went to a lot of games in the 70s and 80s at Memorial Stadium but lost interest when they moved to Camden Yards and it got expensive. I don’t have whatever channel/streaming service they’re on. I guess I should check the antenna for the Baltimore stations.
Redshift
@catclub:
I don’t know for certain, but I suspect screen scraping isn’t being used precisely here. If API access is free, AI builders can get the content more efficiently than is they have to filter it from the HTML in the web version.
The Pale Scot
@cain:
@cain:
Ah.. The memories of watching Ali, Frazier and Foreman on grannie’s 12 inch B&W, that was a time
dmsilev
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
It also didn’t help that the developer had audio recordings of his conversations with Reddit that made it abundantly clear that the CEO was, to use a technical term, a liar liar pants on fire.
RobertDSC-iPhone 8
I participated in the blackout and I missed my time away.
But I’m also in the belief that the blackout won’t matter. We’ll see.
ColoradoGuy
The thing about Curb Cuts is you never know when you might need it. I had a bad accident in 2008, and it was 6 months until I was able to move across a room without a walker or a wheelchair, and another 6 months to re-learn how to walk steadily and without support. (I’m fine now, thank you.)
I became very aware of the accessible environment. I was fine driving my car, but once I opened the door and got out, it was a whole different world. Would that moderate slope, covered in ice and snow, tip me over? Just how far is that accessible bathroom, if I need it right now?
Many things I had never thought of became immediate and pressing concerns. Everything took planning and foresight; nothing was simple. Seemingly little things made the difference between completely inaccessible (usually discovered after a difficult and tiring ten-minute traverse) and only a minor problem.
I was also keenly aware, that what was for me a challenge lasting a few months, was a lifetime assignment for others. The world started looking very different, and that still lingers. Access matters. People with restricted mobility are still people. And they’re certainly not using that walker or wheelchair because they want to. They would leap out of it if they could.
Another Scott
Speaking of online software guys who aren’t getting the attention they want, … Reuters:
(Emphasis added.)
[ womp, womp ]
Cheers,
Scott.
The Pale Scot
I’ve been watching the NY Football Giants on Vip League for a decade. install a an ad blocker (optional), Dealing with the pop up ads? Use the keyboard shortcut to close the tab or window. It takes a little practice but if you’re a diehard fan it’s worth it. Sometime the feed gets blocked, it takes a few minutes to get it back. And you can go to NFL Replay the day after to watch with no commercials, which is heaven for me. You want me to pay to watch, then no fucking commercials, in Europe the “breaks” are filled in with English speaking Euros conversing with retired players.
Dan B
@cain: Seattle is also soccer mad in a great way with men’s and women’s pro teams and university teams being hugely popular and the kids teams as well. 40 years ago it was just kids and teens. It grew rapidly.
Origuy
Has everyone seen this? The judge may not be as easy on TFG’ lawyers as believed. She wouldn’t do that if she believed in telepathic declassification.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@different-church-lady:
You left out an incredible overvaluation.
Reddit wanted 20M from one of the 3rd party app devs for API access. If I don’t assume simple maliciousness, that kind of pricing means that they think they’re losing that much money by not being able to serve ads through the app.
In this case, we have the added problem of a much-hated redesign of the site and a really really bad official app.
But the CEO being an arse converted many of the pure capitalists to the blackout.
Jackie
Figures Tucker was somehow involved – indirectly or ?
“The Fox News producer who authored the network’s chyron Tuesday night labeling President Joe Biden a “wannabe dictator” has parted ways with the company, two sources told The Daily Beast on Thursday.
Former Tucker Carlson Tonight managing editor Alexander McCaskill, who features prominently in a toxic work environment lawsuit by a former colleague, is no longer with the network…”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-parts-ways-with-producer-responsible-for-wannabe-dictator-chyron
Ascap_scab
I only use Reddit for the porn subs.
(There are a l-o-t of them. Got a kink for men in body paint? There’s a sub for that.)
Haven’t noticed any interruptions.
Ian R
I do wonder what will take over Reddit’s current niche, now that their CEO is so determined to kill the site.
@Origuy: How can they possibly be eligible for security clearances? They’re closely associated with Trump, who is clearly a giant security risk.
Chetan Murthy
@Ian R: To be frank, I agree with you. But … just to be contrarian, I’ll cite the historical example of Ramsey Clark. Former Attorney General, etc. I remember reading an article about him describing how he was representing somebody who needed a lawyer with a top secret clearance …. that Clark just happened to have. He sort of made it a little private business of his …. though IIRC most of the work was pro bono.
Not saying I agree with him on anything, and I haven’t really looked up his career in any detail. I just remember reading that article, and TS clearances.
NotMax
Never intentionally been to Twitter. Never intentionally been to Facebook. Never intentionally been to Twitch. Never intentionally been to Reddit.
And continue to see no pressing reason ever to change that pattern. YMMV.
Sparks
Odie Hugh Manatee
It’s too damned quiet here! I just finished checking out r/OneOrangeBraincell because I have an orange cat and can relate. It hit 77 here on the south Oregon coast yesterday and it’s currently 70 out in the shop (my hangout), doors wide open. Quiet night, clear skies with little wind and I can hear the sea lions down at the harbor (about 1/2 mile away).
Contemplating pulling the top off of the engine this Saturday to replace the ignition coils. Over 144,000 miles and starting to throw codes indicating two of the three coils in the rear (V6/FWD) are going. I got OEM coils from the dealer to avoid counterfeit crap. Not looking forward to it but at the same time I do like fixing shit….lol!
Doug
Reddit wants people to stop talking and start buying things. It’s heartbreak all around, and then likely the digital graveyard for the service, as Catherynne Valente explains.
“Stop benefitting from the internet, it’s not for you to enjoy, it’s for us to use to extract money from you. Stop finding beauty and connection in the world, loneliness is more profitable and easier to control.“
Splitting Image
Thanks for the link, John. That was an excellent read.
This one too. Thanks Doug.
Walker
@cain: Congratulations. You just invented Usenet.
satby
@Splitting Image: I agree, those were both great reads, as was John’s entire post.
I bet our current President and many of his Cabinet members have studied and are attempting to apply the curb-cut effect in a lot of ways, especially with the infrastructure bill and the attempts to forgive student loans. Not just the right things to do, but the smart things that will pay off for us all long term. Love that!
Eyeroller
I never cared about Reddit until fairly recently, when I became interested in one particular sub and got an account. I have been posting there quite a bit and would miss it. I don’t really have an alternative now. But like all social media, Reddit is full of scammers, creeps, sociopaths, and, especially, idiots. Also like every site I’ve seen for the past 30+ years (including, no doubt, this one) a tiny fraction of the readers ever post anything and discussion/comment boards and the like end up as conversations among a few people.
The only history I know is from Wikipedia, but Reddit was founded by some libertarian techbros not from California, but from my neck of the woods. It was intended to be a startup from the beginning, so it has never been “pure.” It’s had a lot of issues related to extremely toxic subs (some tending towards 4chan territory, others involved in pump-and-dump stock schemes, etc.) that they wouldn’t shut down for “free speech” reasons until very strongly pressured to do so. The current CEO is one of the founders and they were always in it for money, so nobody should be surprised.
But on the other hand, it costs money to pay for Web services. It costs money to pay employees to maintain the site, and to monitor for abuse, crime, etc. A business has to make money someday or it will go bankrupt. Otherwise it’s a hobby. People have been accustomed to “free” sites but as they say, if you aren’t the customer, you’re the product. I’m somewhat skeptical about the whole advertising-supported model. I guess Facebook and Google have made it work. But my understanding is that the real moneymakers for traditional newspapers were the classifieds. So I’m not convinced advertising will work in general, especially since it seems Facebook and Google got there first and grabbed most of the advertising.
Usenet could be what it was because it was largely run by employees of universities and research-oriented institutions, as was the very early Web. Those organizations didn’t mind paying their staff to work on that in addition to their real duties. I spent a lot of time on Usenet back in those days. But Usenet mostly succumbed to costs, fears of lawsuits and crime, and now Google controls a lot of what it was. I have never gotten into Google Groups. Maybe I’ll take another look at them. But they too are owned by a big tech company.
Eyeroller
@Redshift: I would think that a big project like ChatGPT would almost certainly have used APIs. I don’t do that kind of thing myself but as far as I know, the APIs return something like JSON. JSON is easy to parse whereas raw HTML would be a lot more difficult. OpenAI made very heavy use of Reddit to obtain training data, which may play a role in why ChatGPT has the “personality” it seems to have.
AM in NC
@Doug: Just a heartbreaking piece. Thanks for posting and introducing me to this person.
Timill
@Eyeroller: I get my Usenet feed from Eternal September for free, and use Thunderbird, also free, to read and post.
Jim Appleton
@Eyeroller: Slightly off topic, all the fuss about AI is just a warm-up for what quantum computing has in store for us.
Privacy? Gone.
Government secrets? Gone.
A thing called Artificial Consciousness? Possible.
Betty
The video is excellent. Thanks so much. I shared with my friends who advocate for persons with disabilities. Improving accessibility is very much an uphill battle here in this small Caribbean country.
Another Scott
@Origuy: IANAL, but isn’t this just a normal procedural thing? TIFG’s lawyers need access to the evidence against him, they can only get access if they have a clearance (and the government has to give (at least some of) them a clearance because TIFG has to be able to mount a defense), so she’s saying “do it”.
She can’t rule on “evidence” of “declassifying with his mind” until there are motions, etc., and that can’t happen until there’s evidence presented, and that can’t happen until the lawyers have access.
IOW, I wouldn’t read too much into that.
I ass-u-me 7veritas4 is a Harvard lawyer from the class of ’74. I also assume he knows this, so I’m a little confused by the tweet.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
Wow, I never caught that.
Chris Johnson
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: And I’m given to understand Reddit is starting to undelete data intentionally deleted by departing users, which is in fact against the law in a number of places.
Reddit’s way out of line and full of it, and I’ve been a redditor for some time. I don’t think it’s going to survive this.
There’s also the possibility of them getting scab mods and forcibly replacing moderators of even very large subs. The trouble is, it’s very likely to end up as coordinated alt-right efforts to get into moderation, and there’s never a lack of attempts to do that. The projection is a thing: there are people who rant against woke power-tripping mods, and you know they’re just going to get in and flip the table.
I bailed on the dirtbag left and figured out they were Russian specifically because of what I saw happening on dirtbag left subreddits which HAD power-tripping mods.
It’s shaping up to be another Twitter. I don’t know what’s going to replace it, nor do I know what’s going to replace Twitter, but both of these things are going from covert to fully mask-off.
lee
I’ve been a part of reddit since right before the Digg migration. I participated in the international Secret Santa for 12 years. I’ve got 3 accounts normal, porn and alt. I access it via desktop (using old reddit for 2 and new reddit for ‘alt’) and a 3rd party app (BaconReader)
I still 100% support the blackout. Interestingly enough I think the porn subreddits didn’t take part in the blackout at all. My normal account’s Front Page was hardly recognizable on Monday with so many subs being dark (I forgot about the blackout and logged in, said ‘WTF’ and then remembered why).
This is a case of them being way too greedy. I think most folks understand and accept the use case of an API fee. I think Spez and his minions asked for waaaaaaay too much (and I think mods should be exempt from the API fee). Maybe their thought was to ask for a lot then backtrack to a more reasonable amount. But anyone with any knowledge of Spez would know that he is completely incapable of pulling that off.
Reddit will probably still be around. It does have a lot of incredible information (tech, programming, askhistorians, etc) so it would be very sad to see that lost. I thought about doing a huge data extraction of askhistorians prior to the blackout but I never got to it.
lee
@Chris Johnson:
“The trouble is, it’s very likely to end up as coordinated alt-right efforts to get into moderation, ”
This has happened to multiple subs over the years. Once the Nazis get a single mod on a sub, they can then add more Nazis and take over the sub.
I’m pretty sure /r/gettheShot was taken over by antivaxxers this way.