Redditors are furious.
AITA
As the company’s IPO looms, a huge swathe of Redditors is absolutely teeming with rage after the platform’s controversial decision to start charging third-party apps huge quantities for access to its API.
The company announced back in April that it will start charging a premium “for third parties who require additional capabilities, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights.”
As a result, Apollo, one of the most popular third-party Reddit mobile clients out there — as well as a slew of other apps that used the site’s data — will be shutting down.
“It’s been an amazing run thanks to all of you,” Apollo founder Christian Selig wrote in a post that has since gone mega-viral.
FTFY
It’s a notable escalation that’s part of a much wider movement. Selig’s decision comes as many of the platform’s largest communities are set to go dark on June 12, protesting the company’s API pricing changes.
While Reddit has responded to these protests by creating an exemption for makers of accessibility apps specifically, many Redditors are still irate.
Particularly when it comes to the shutdown of Apollo, a much-beloved app that has roughly 1.5 million monthly users and tens of thousands of paying subscribers, Redditors are clearly appalled with the company’s new revenue scheme, with many vowing to delete their accounts. Others called the decision “heartbreaking.”
In his post, Selig argued that the 30 days Reddit gave developers was far too little time to make the required changes.
“That’s a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it’s just not economically feasible,” he wrote. “It’s much cheaper for me to simply shut down.”
TL;DR
Selig also claims that CEO Steve Huffman told moderators that Apollo “threatened us” and blackmailed them for $10 million.
He also shared recordings of a conversation between him and a Reddit employee to seem to demonstrate that the implication of blackmail was a mistake the employee apologized for.
The incident likely won’t help Reddit’s efforts to regain the trust of its users. While Reddit has remained largely quiet about its controversial decision, Huffman is set to answer questions during an AMA later today — and he likely won’t get the friendliest of welcomes.
More on Reddit: Reddit Demands Payments for AI Trained on Its Users