this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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ELI5
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Explain it to me like I am 5. Everybody should know what this is about.
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reddit is about to start charging money to use their api. this will mean some 3rd party apps that are used by moderators will start being charged millions per year, which is unaffordable and thus will end up closing. so moderators are protesting this change by making the subreddits go private.
It's more the amount rather than that they are charging at all. The timeframe is preditory, and the cost is about 100x similar api cost, and at least 20x what they'd be losing by not having those users on the app.
High volume API tools are also helpful for auto mods and community bots which is especially annoying for mods. Also, modding on mobile is only really possible though third party apps.
i heard that they do this to overvalue their company since they will go public soon, is that true?
They are going public soon, but it seems doubtful whether this uncertainty will end up increasing their valuation
so they have hundreds of thousands of moderators that work for free on reddit, and now they also want to charge them to make reddit better? this is unreal
yup