r/redditisfun • u/talklittle RIF Dev • May 31 '23

RIF dev here - Reddit's API changes will likely kill RIF and other apps, on July 1, 2023

I need more time to get all my thoughts together, but posting this quick post since so many users have been asking, and it's been making rounds on news sites.

Summary of what Reddit Inc has announced so far, specifically the parts that will kill many third-party apps:

  1. The Reddit API will cost money, and the pricing announced today will cost apps like Apollo $20 million per year to run. RIF may differ but it would be in the same ballpark. And no, RIF does not earn anywhere remotely near this number.

  2. As part of this they are blocking ads in third-party apps, which make up the majority of RIF's revenue. So they want to force a paid subscription model onto RIF's users. Meanwhile Reddit's official app still continues to make the vast majority of its money from ads.

  3. Removal of sexually explicit material from third-party apps while keeping said content in the official app. Some people have speculated that NSFW is going to leave Reddit entirely, but then why would Reddit Inc have recently expanded NSFW upload support on their desktop site?

Their recent moves smell a lot like they want third-party apps gone, RIF included.

I know some users will chime in saying they are willing to pay a monthly subscription to keep RIF going, but trust me that you would be in the minority. There is very little value in paying a high subscription for less content (in this case, NSFW). Honestly if I were a user of RIF and not the dev, I'd have a hard time justifying paying the high prices being forced by Reddit Inc, despite how much RIF obviously means to me.

There is a lot more I want to say, and I kind of scrambled to write this since I didn't expect news reports today. I'll probably write more follow-up posts that are better thought out. But this is the gist of what's been going on with Reddit third-party apps in 2023.

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u/Smallzfry Jun 01 '23

They don't care about long-term users. All of the changes they've made recently have been to pull in new users from other sites. That's why there's avatars and actual profile pages you can follow individually now. There's that weird livestream feature on r/pan and the new interface sends updates when you get upvotes on comments. None of this appeals to old users because they don't care about any of us.

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u/EggCouncilCreeps Jun 01 '23

There's profile pages?

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u/Smallzfry Jun 01 '23

Kind of, yes. Click on someone's username on old.reddit and compare it to the same page on new reddit. Some people have custom avatars, links to other sites on the side, and pinned posts, plus you can follow them directly. It's not the same as other sites, but still very different than what I'm used to.

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u/EggCouncilCreeps Jun 01 '23

New reddit? oh fuck that.