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this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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Reddit Migration
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My brother in Christ… you bought a third party app that used the API
Isn’t the entire purpose of an API to provide access to other developers in the first place? It seems like he’s happy others did creative work for him and now he wants to take it and kick the ladder away.
It is literally the only reason to make an API public
The main reason for charging for the API all of the sudden is because Reddit is facing profitability pressures ahead of its planned IPO. With all the investment interest in AI, u/spez feels Reddit isn't getting its fair share since many LLMs use Reddit for training data. The problem with charging such a high price for its API is that 3rd party developers get shafted. Honestly, the whole debacle would have been avoided if u/spez communicated the changes better and charged a fair price ($500/50M requests). The developer community is happy to pay for the Reddit API, but Reddit needs to price the API fairly to ensure 3rd party developers can sustain their businesses.
It could have also been avoided by grandfathering current apps into the original pricing (or a new, lower tier) which would have allowed them to still charge. I was hopeful that the negotiations would trend towards that way but instead they decided to double-down
Yeah, they definitely could have grandfathered current apps into a new low tier for 1-2 years and have separate tiers for AI/LLMs, 3rd party apps, and bots. Also, they could expose their ads through their API, so app developers can run their ads and potentially continue calling the API for free.