Obviously the details matter, and many things happened all at once.

For example, the original policy was going to force out all free open source clients, and that was later retracted, but the damage to the company's reputation was already done.

For example, clients for the visually impaired could have been set aside as a special case immediately, and they weren't, and as I understand it they still aren't.

For example, third-party clients that don't show ads could have been blocked without restricting third party clients that assist mods.

For example, the result of the blackout could have been some sort of sympathetic statement, but instead it was the hammer getting laid down, leading to even worse results.

So you're a question is whether the outcome would have been different if the administrators had acted differently, and of course the answer is yes. That being said, what we've learned is that the administrators do not value the mods or the end user. All of the above issues simply don't matter to them because they don't care.

You talked about capitalism as if it's inevitable, but you're wrong. The decision to try to make a lot of money was made, many other online services have made other decisions, and you don't get to excuse the actions of anyone in the administration on the grounds that it's just the natural consequence of capitalism.

Didn't reddit used to be profitable? I think we should start by asking what decisions they made that reduced their profitability. Is it the video player that nobody asked for? Deciding to self-host images? Developing an app that nobody wants to use? It seems to me like they put themselves in this position.

I have not heard anyone, other than articles trying to lead the narrative, say that it should be free.

It was always how much and how long they had to adapt.

Plus all the lies

As of 3 weeks ago, I would've been willing to:

• Pay for reddit premium in order to use a third party app.
• Stuck around even without a third party app, using only the old.reddit interface for as long as that was going to work with Reddit Enhancement Suite.
• Allowed ads to get through my ad blocker on Reddit.
• Kept my old comment/link history accessible on the site.
• Continue to use reddit.

Now I'm basically unwilling to do any of those things. The interviews they gave up through the first 2 days of the blackout made me pledge not to actually pay reddit any money (and I've paid for gold from when it was first announced, as a "charter member," till when they decided to dramatically increase the price in exchange for a complicated "premium" offering).

And since then, the hamfisted way they've dealt with mods and protests are getting me to leave the site early, too, and going out of my way to delete my old comments and posts that actually added information to the site, plus deleting or otherwise breaking the URLs of my content that have been linked from anywhere on reddit (whether in a post by me or reposted by someone else).

The option they should have gone for was to put the onus of 3PA on users: Either you pay for reddit premium or you use the app. This would have worked out more and I absolutely would pay a fair price to keep using Boost. This is what they should have done.

But, they didn't. And then offered a tight window, and that's why we're here.

Reddit needing to make $ to maintain the resources is understandable.

There were other ways to generate revenue without being greedy.
For example, users pay for awards like gold etc on Reddit. This concept could have expanded to a marketplace for 3PA stickers. If 3PA apps have stickers that they were pushing as additional revenue for the developers, Reddit could have stepped in and developed a marketplace to host and promote them for the developers as well. It would be a similar model to the Google Play and Apple App stores taking a commission for in app purchases. It doesn't have to be in the vicinity of 30% either. It's not a perfect example by any means, so don't flame me or the idea.

I deleted all of my accounts, posts and comments after the clusterfuck of an AMA. The interviews Huffman gave the following week to The Verge and other media sites totally reinforced my decision not to go back. I still go back to get some tech resources that I need but it's through alternative addresses so I don't add to their analytics stats.

For me, it didn’t have to do with ads at all. It was about Reddit charging exorbitant fees for the APIs needed for tools required to make moderation fun enough to actually do, combined with his actions related to 3PA devs and moderators after the fact.

Reddit could have invested in their API and made it an ad distribution platform; instead they invested in NFTs and let the API system remain a mess.

A few years ago when I could afford it I bought a lot of Reddit coins to award posts. At the end of the day, this is the thanks I get.

Reddit could have avoided protests if they had said something like: "We're going to roll out a plan to start charging third party app developers to cover the cost of API access and/or lost ad revenue, as it is unsustainable for us to keep foregoing these funds. We're going to be super transparent about the process. We're going to apply a small mark-up (say, 10%) but we will allow devs ample time (>=1 year) to plan for this. And we will provide public support to help these developers work through this with us."

Of course, they would have to actually back up that talk with actions. A big part of the reason for the protests is how many blatant lies Reddit has made around this situation, including baseless accusations against the Apollo app, clearly false statements about their pricing plans and their plans to charge for API access during 2023, etc. So tbh at this point I don't trust anything Reddit says anyway. Show, don't tell.

Nobody is against them making money, but personally it was just the iicong omn the cake. The censorship was my biggest issue, then they started requiring emails, etc....losing my apps and then threatening mods was it.

I'm not entirely sure why Reddit was going to charge outlandish fees for the third-party APIs. Looks like none of the apps are actually going to pay them, so he's not getting anything out of it. It's really a combination of pushing them out of the market and then being a smug little bitch that really nailed it in the coffin for a lot of people.

I would be just as disappointed as I am now. I am never using their dogshit app, ever. How they killed my beloved 3rd party app makes no difference at all. I'm gone just the same, and sabotaging the subreddits I mod just the same.

IMO the issue that people are upset about, and as a result all the publicity going on, is just related to how much they wanted to charge people for the API.

If they rolled out something reasonable for pricing, and allowed people to use their own individual API keys in third party apps on a free tier, I think a few would have complained here and there, but otherwise it would have been fine.

Obviously they need to make money to pay for costs of running things somehow, there's nothing wrong with that.

I would be happy to pay a fair price to remove ads and gain access to 3rd party apps. They should just bake that into the Reddit Gold perks.

Reddit killed internet fora. By being easier and cheaper, while making no profit.

If they suddenly do want to make profit?
The terms change, there are alternatives.