More than 6,000 subreddits have gone dark as a result of the upcoming application programming interface (API) pricing changes at the social discussion platform Reddit, including many of the platform’s most popular communities like r/funny, r/aww, r/gaming, r/music, and r/science. This means these communities are no longer open to the public, even to Reddit users who have previously subscribed to them. According to The Verge, many subreddits participating in the protest will go private for 48 hours, from June 12 to June 14, although some intend to stay hidden until things change. We do what we do because we love Reddit, and we genuinely believe that this change will make it impossible. None of us take this responsibility lightly, to continue doing what we enjoy,” r/Toptomcat was quoted as saying. Reddit’s community coming together against the suggested adjustments was “incredibly amazing,” according to Christian Selig, the Apollo app developer whose article regarding Reddit’s API pricing caused much of the original criticism. He posted a message on the Apollo subreddit: “I truly hope Reddit listens. “I think showing humanity through apologizing for and acknowledging that this process was handled poorly, and concrete promises to give developers more time, would go a long way to making people feel heard and instilling community confidence,” Selig continued.
The platform’s contentious API modifications were the subject of an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session that Reddit CEO Steve Huffman hosted last week. Huffman said that Reddit has no plans to reverse the controversial changes.
Several developers have said they will be closing down their apps due to changes to API pricing. Huffman said he couldn’t envision Reddit continuing to work with the developer because Selig’s “behavior and communications” was “all over the place” during the session.
Data from a third source shows that Reddit’s average daily traffic decreased during the blackout. Reddit showed evidence of immediate impact when more than 8,000 subreddits went black for 48 hours earlier this week in protest of impending API changes. Reddit experienced a “major outage” that affected its desktop and mobile websites, mobile apps, and the first day of the protest in the morning. Days later, the company’s CEO, Steve Huffman, launched a media attack to portray angry users and moderators as unreasonable. Many of these people volunteer countless hours to make Reddit the lively site it is today. “These people are upset because they used to receive free things.
Beyond those indications, however, it was difficult to determine how much of a real impact the demonstration had on website traffic. We understand it better now. Internet analytics company Similarweb reportedly gave data about the impact on Engadget. Similarweb recorded more than 57 million daily visits to Reddit on June 11, the day before the blackout started, spanning desktop and mobile web clients. The number of daily visits had fallen below 55 million by the conclusion of the first day of the protest. Similarweb then observed less than 53 million daily visitors to Reddit at the end of June 13. The 52,121,649 visits Reddit received on June 13 marked a decrease in traffic compared to the website’s average daily volume over the previous month.
According to a report from Reddit’s CEO to staff, the API protest by the community will end. Currently, your preferred subreddit might not be accessible if you visit Reddit. More than 8,000 communities on the network have changed their settings to private in opposition to Reddit’s revisions to its API policy. In contrast to others who plan to continue their demonstrations indefinitely, many of those subreddits’ moderators announced they would reopen access to their communities on Wednesday. Steve Huffman, Reddit’s CEO, and co-founder, doesn’t appear overly concerned in either case. According to The Verge, Huffman instructed employees to ignore the commotion created by the group’s action. In a memo, he stated that there hadn’t yet been “any significant revenue impact” and that Reddit would “get through it.”
