A lot of users have been fuming about the changes that Reddit is implementing, particularly its new API pricing. The new policy puts a heavy burden on third-party apps that Redditors often use, even causing some of the most popular ones to shut down such as Apollo.
Apollo is Shutting Down
The creator of the app, Christian Selig, has announced on both Twitter and Reddit that Apollo is finally shutting down due to the exorbitant amount it will have to pay to access Reddit's API. The app will no longer be available to users by June 30th, 2023.
The app maker says that the new plan will cost him $1.7 million a month or $20 million a year. It's a widely popular third-party app, getting around seven billion requests in just a month. Selig says that 50 million requests cost $12,000, a figure far more than he imagined.
The Apollo app's creator expressed that he was deeply disappointed with the price, also stating that Reddit promised pricing that would not be as high as Twitter's new API policy, according to Tech Crunch, but obviously, that's not the case.
Reddit accused the app maker of not being a good API user, implying that the costs are a result of him not operating efficiently. Selig responded by stating that Apollo "does not do scraping," even open-sourcing Apollo's server code to prove that's the case.
In the form of a recorded call, Selig revealed that Reddit claims third-party apps are not interested in working with the social site, although the Apollo app makers said that he had no idea where the company got that impression.
Apollo will close down on June 30th. Reddit’s recent decisions and actions have unfortunately made it impossible for Apollo to continue. Thank you so, so much for all the support over the years. ❤️ https://t.co/HOJaLMW8fx
— Christian Selig (@ChristianSelig) June 8, 2023
As Reddit is trying to withstand all the hate that is being thrown its way, it decided to lighten the burden on some apps, specifically accessibility apps that are non-commercial. For instance, the third-party app used by r/Blind such as RedditForBlind will be exempted from the API pricing.
This, however, only solves a small portion of the problem. Many app developers will still be affected as they do not qualify for the new exemptions, which is why several subreddits are still going through with the protest in the form of going dark.
On June 12th through June 14th, subreddits including r/LifeHacks, r/gaming, r/Pics, r/DIY, r/gadgets, r/todayilearned, and many more will be participating in the blackout. In total, 2,740 subreddits will be joining in, which accounts for around 1.31 billion non-unique users.
Why Did Reddit Implement New API Pricing?
The company feels that it should be paid for the data they provide to other tech companies that use its API to train AI systems. Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have been using Reddit's conversations to develop their growing AI systems.
Founder and CEO of Reddit, Steve Huffman noted that the "Reddit corpus of data is really valuable," and that they don't need to give all of that value to some of the biggest companies in the world for free, as mentioned in The New York Times.
Since these mentioned companies use Reddit's application programming interface, the company adding API pricing will allow them to earn from the tech giant's methods of training their AI models. This, of course, affects the app developers like Apollo's creator the most.
