155 upvotes, 6 direct replies (showing 6)
View submission: An Update Regarding Reddit’s API
[deleted]
Comment by iamthatis at 18/04/2023 at 17:45 UTC*
170 upvotes, 9 direct replies
I'm still not quite that pessimistic. Apps like Apollo are still minuscule compared to the official app in size and provide many people a way to access Reddit where they would simply not use the service if the app didn't exist. Reddit's also been warm, passionate, and communicative in a way that they didn't have to be.
And if it's stuff like ads, there's a million ways to solve that. Integrate ads into the API (with part of your license agreement being that you can't filter them out), require Reddit Premium for third party apps, etc.
Comment by ryecurious at 18/04/2023 at 17:51 UTC
83 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Every dev that considers building on someone else's platform (especially this new "Reddit Developer Platform") should understand the concept of Enshitification[1].
1: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
tl;dr services are good for users until the users are locked in, then they're good to vendors (in this case devs) until the vendors are locked in.
Then, after everyone is locked in, they stop making the service good, and all excess value is extracted for the shareholders/executives. After all, it's not like the vendors can leave, their livelihood depends on it. And users want those vendors, so they'll stick around as the pot is slowly raised to a boil.
Comment by MustacheEmperor at 18/04/2023 at 20:29 UTC
38 upvotes, 1 direct replies
now Apollo users like me aren't earning Reddit money because I don't see ads
More than that, you aren't browsing Reddit through their 1st-party mobile app which is designed to maximize the amount of browsing data they can collect and monetize - way more than what they get through a 3rd party like Apollo.
So much of reddit's engineering effort has gone into degrading the mobile browsing experience to drive users to the app - I won't be surprised if their next step is to degrade the API that enables 3rd party clients for the same reason.
Comment by Le_saucisson_masque at 20/04/2023 at 15:06 UTC*
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm gay btw
Comment by parentis_shotgun at 19/04/2023 at 14:28 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm a developer for Lemmy[1], which is an open-source, federated reddit alternative, that connects to the fediverse (mastodon, pleroma, etc). I've also made an open source android app for it, called Jerboa[2] . Lemmy has an open API so it'd be nice to get some more app devs in its ecosystem.
2: https://github.com/dessalines/jerboa
Comment by HaikuBotStalksMe at 09/06/2023 at 21:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Yeah, that's the unfortunate part of your entire business/livelihood relying on the decisions of another company.
Isn't that literally known as "work"?