Reddit Shows No Signs Of Backing Down From Controversial API Changes In Heated AMA

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has finally broken his silence following outrage over its unpopular API change policy. Just like Twitter, Reddit appears to be in no mood to let others – aka developers, moderators, and bot creators – have a free hand with valuable user data that is accessible via its APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). In his promised "ask me anything" session, Huffman showed no signs of backing down from the controversial move but reasoned why Reddit is shifting gears in the first place.

He began with the standard argument that Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to that end, the company can "no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use." The API pricing shift was announced in April, and in the weeks that followed, thousands of popular Reddit communities have joined hands in protest, while some popular third-party clients like Apollo have decided to shut down over the inability to pay millions of dollars in API fees.

Huffman, however, did admit that the window given to developers and moderators was tight. He revealed that more than 90% of Reddit apps fall into a category they won't have to pay any fee, because the number of APIs callbacks they make per minute is quite small. He added that when the policy change goes into effect, Reddit will start charging a sum of $0.24 for every thousandth API call, which he says is "less than $1.00 per user/month for a typical Reddit third-party app."

Addressing the imminent shutdown of apps like Apollo, Huffman wrote that they "have decided this pricing doesn't work for their businesses and will close before pricing goes into effect." However, some Redditors are claiming that Huffman is lying about the situation, citing the call; transcripts, and recordings that were shared by Apollo creator Christian Selig in a detailed post. Additionally, a cursory look at the main AMA page's comments section suggests that most Reddit users are not buying into Huffman's arguments.

As far as the "charitable" aspect of Reddit goes, it will only be reserved for tools that make Reddit a good place, and which rely on the hard work of unpaid moderators. The only concession being made is that the APIs will be free for "non-commercial, accessibility-focused apps," or bots and tools that help moderators keep the conversations from descending into absolute chaos.

It's evident that Reddit will no longer allow free API access to products that make a profit. It is unclear if Reddit ever internally explored an option where it could share a cut of the revenue generated by apps that rely on high-volume API calls to its servers. According to Selig, he was exploring an Apollo sale to Reddit, but those discussions never took off. For now, it looks like Reddit is okay with the death of its most popular third-party clients because it couldn't milk money from them, even though the official Reddit mobile continues to remain a butt of jokes.