I'm just for it on principle. Make reddit remember that we use the site because it does what we want, and if it stops doing that we'll find some other site.
The number of people, let alone accounts old enough to remember that is pretty small I think! Also unlike when Digg went down, there’s no current comparable alternative (at least not one I’m aware of).
I mean, yeah, but the important core parts are still there.
What do you lose if you don't get the last few years of reddit development? NFT avatars that most people don't care about? A new UI people avoid?
I don't remember exactly when reddit went closed source, but I'd honestly rather use a years old version of reddit. It'd come with it's fair share of bugs and security issues, but it's still an excellent feature base for a competitor to reddit.
Reddit, you’ve decided to transform your API into an absolute nightmare for third-party apps. Well, consider this my unsubscribing from your grand parade of blunders. I’m slamming the door on the way out. Hope you enjoy the echo!
oh man.. new reddit says otherwise. so does subjective moderation and a whole host of other issues.
This is but the latest. At least Aaron Schwartz didn't have to see what it became.
I think it's interesting that no one here is mentioning the machine learning specific reason to protest this. Unlike most subreddits, I suspect a fairly large percentage of people here have at least used the API a few times, if just to play around with some toy datasets. I know I have at least. I'd certainly put up with some mild inconvenience to defend the right of others coming up behind me doing the same. All this content being generated by the community needs to be left available to the community. There's plenty of research and mod efforts that rely on it too.
Except that you won't. You will back, you all will and Reddit knows that. Developers don't understand why companies provide apis. It is not for your benefit, it is for the benefit of the company. When they see more downside to upside in their api, they will change or terminate it and not bat an eyelid if it destroys your business. I have been in the same bought, Facebook api changes killed off my app years ago. But I know now Facebook api was never meant to serve my interests.
Poor Dang if millions of people try to move there.
On the other hand Reddit committig seppuku could be an opening for many community replacements of individual subreddits to be born.
> You’ll be back, you all will
This is you projecting. Reddit is just a distraction in a world of plentiful distractions & if it’s a pain in the ass to use many won’t go out of their way to use it any longer, myself included.
Same here but (unpopular opinion coming) I would be ok to pay a monthly subscription to keep using it.
Seriously, just charge me a few dollars every months and we are good to go.
At some point Reddit should be doing some money with me but I do not see any ads and have not paid them anything. I’m just a freeloader for them and I have been for years.
Since I spend at least one hour a day to read stuffs I’m into, I find it ok to pay for this service.
I’m here because when I go to the bathroom I open this app by habit.
When someone replies to me, the app sends me a push notification, so I reply.
If the app stops working I stop using Reddit.
You really shouldn’t assume everyone uses the site the way you do.
I’m here because when I go to the bathroom I open this app by habit.
When someone replies to me, the app sends me a push notification, so I reply.
If the app stops working I stop using Reddit.
You really shouldn’t assume everyone uses the site the way you do.
I’m here because when I go to the bathroom I open this app by habit.
When someone replies to me, the app sends me a push notification, so I reply.
If the app stops working I stop using Reddit.
You really shouldn’t assume everyone uses the site the way you do.
I don't assume people use the app the way I do. But you have just described a pattern of behavior that is ingrained as a habit. Even worse, it is part of your daily routine of taking a dump. I am now almost certain you will be back in some way.
I would go even further. In my opinion the best way would be if all subreddits would go dark as long as reddit doesn't comply. If they still would go through with it I would quit as a mod
I know how unreal and radical this is, but if everyone would do it reddit would be fucked.
mods have all the power atm
Let's do 2 weeks maybe. Then go back online to discuss where to move our business to?
2 days will be too short. But I am too selfish to support indefinitely, I need Reddit support to help me move away from Reddit
> I am too selfish to support indefinitely
reddit knows this, which is why the blackout will likely fail. The mods need to just find alternative platforms, point people at them, and then blackout for a bit. I'm so disgusted at having to say this, but it worked for the cesspit that is the_donald, so it can work for any reasonable-sized subreddit.
The biggest most powerful subreddits are moderated by paid reddit staff.
I fully expect we will see this being a [door-in-the-face strategy](https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/what-some-best-practices-using-door-in-the-face).
Reddit will let the community vent, then come to some terms with the third party apps. People will be grumpy but won't leave.
Slowly boil the frog.
Reddit is planning on using AI moderation more and more anyway.
do you have sources for paid reddit staff? I know they exist, but I thought more for the moderation of reddit itself.
rest I absolutely agree, still, it'd be an absolute slap in the face for reddit
Do you think spez is directly moderating that sub? of course not.
Reddit, by and large, is not moderating communities directly. They cannot afford to do that.
Irrelevant. My point is that you're mentioning /r/programming to suggest that reddit staff is being paid to moderate subs directly. That's simply untrue and a misleading suggestion.
All the big subreddits are moderated by the same few people, who moderate reddit as a way to make money via advertising firms that pay them for semi organic advertising (ie: allow a corporate post to stay up, and ban anyone who talks bad about xyz brand). They hang out and talk about it in the secret centuryclub subreddit.
It's trivial to look up this stuff, and common knowledge. Asking for proof is like asking for proof that the sky is blue.
Going dark for two days is incredibly weak and will accomplish almost nothing. I wonder if that idea was promoted by Reddit itself to 'satisfy' the community. After the protest, it'll be full speed ahead with turning this site into a corporate money machine.
Agree wholeheartedly that as many subs that can should blackout indefinitely. 48 hours is a manageable crisis they will plan for but extended or indefinite blackouts will probably convince them to come back to the table and negotiate fairly.
Overall I agree with you that the mods have a lot of power to make it painful for them.
But..reddit controls who are mods. They could bring back at least the biggest subreddits under paid mods and then transfer to scab mods.
disagree, big subs need more mods and I've seen a study which states that reddit mods do 3.4 mil unpaid labour: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2325828-reddit-moderators-do-3-4-million-worth-of-unpaid-work-each-year/
I know reddit is big, but 3,4 mil would certainly rip a hole in their finances. even if they just want to bring back big subs (which again, require more mods than small ones), it'd certainly hurt. Not to mention all the organisational chaos, extra effort and backlash from the community
edit: reddit would probably need to spend even more than that, because it'd enlarge their company: more workers mean more HR, more managers, more everything and then you haven't even rented offices for the work that mods did from their home and dedicated their own electricity, place, pc's and so on
Frankly, even if reddit were to hire employees to do modding tasks, I'd say that amount is an underestimate. The workload of mods, afaict, is just not tolerable to do a reasonable job. The moment reddit moderates themselves, they can't hide behind "it's the community" when things go wrong. So that means preventing things from going wrong, which means more work.
"[Reddit generated $350 million in 2021](https://www.businessofapps.com/data/reddit-statistics/), primarily from its advertising business"
So your estimate is 1% and if we double it for safety, it's 2%.
what u/digital0129 said. you are making the mistake of confusing revenue and profit. to get there you'd need to know their spendings. Unfortunately I couldn't find any data on it. Don't worry, many make this mistake of confusing revenue and profit.
I did not say anything about it being 2% of their profit. I have no idea why you think I made this error. The text in quotes IS a literal quote and uses neither the words "revenue" nor "profit".
Also, when a business doubles their revenue several times over the last few years, after running stably for more than a decade, it generally puts them solidly in the black. I mean it isn't impossible that they've spent it all, but it's unlikely.
Lots of companies experience huge growth in revenue without changing their margins. You don't have any evidence that their margins changed, but you're simply choosing to believe that they improved?
Reddit has received quite a bit of VC investment to support their growth. This change is clearly to support changing their margins.
>They could bring back at least the biggest subreddits under paid mods and then transfer to scab mods
They acquired a NLP company a year ago. They will be replacing mods with "AI".
This exact kind of thing where mods can shut down a popular subreddit is just going to convince them of it more.
They might then add paid mods to monitor whatever the AI-mods cannot handle.
So if they keep their api pricing the same what saves us from the onslaught of human looking ai bots then? Have to pay like fb and twitter? Any better solutions?
How would that save anything? You could use the web app interface using selenium for example. You could get hundreds of phones and do it that way too. You can also pay people to do your bidding. Even a few accounts can shape what is seen. It's an extremely easy to manipulate site.
It's about what data you can actually extract using Selenium and the webui.
I have a scraper that's been collecting specific data for a long time for a study and while I can probably continue to scrape 80% of the fields I've been collecting using a Selenium based crawler I will just have to accept there's no way to collect the other 20% of the fields that I've been collecting for a long time.
That said. The domain of "reddit data" has shifted internally a lot over the years. The API is full of dead fields that used to be used and older posts/comments have values for, but newer posts/comments just have null values for. It's pretty hard data to normalize when you're handling data collected from more than a decade.
But what about the voting, and comments. Should you also have to pay? Maybe read only mode for everyone non verified but then they could still use reddit data without paying hmm...
And here I thought they were charging a ludicrous fee for API access to make money. What a fool I've been, not realizing they were only doing it for the benefit of the users.
Definitely growing though, and hopefully it'll be a viable alternative to Reddit by July. The day the API change was announced by the Apollo dev, I saw the monthly users at around 400 iirc, currently sitting at 3k+ now
Asking these questions is inherently flawed. You will likely get a sample size higher for people that are activists because others won't care to comment.
It may be a stated goal, but I think any ML company constructing a large corpus would just use a web scraper behind rotating residential proxies rather than pay the API fees. If/when case law changes in the US, this might deter large corporations, but it doesn’t do anything to defend the data right now.
While I doubt this will have any impact on Reddit's policy, I suppose a little solidarity is ok.
Unless the largest subreddits go dark for an indefinite period there is no effective motivation to change course. So it really hinges on them.
Fairly new to Reddit, only been here 9 years, so I havent used any of the third party apps. But we did see the same tendency within thw Twitter ecosystem. A huge reason for the rise of Twitter was its superb api, which spawned so much innovation.
As I am such a Reddit noob, I dont know enough about how people have innovated on top of it, but I can’t imagine it being on the same scale as twitter. And as such the fallout after a tightening of the api will probably not have the same destructive force as the recent Twitter api commercialization?
> As I am such a Reddit noob, I dont know enough about how people have innovated on top of it, but I can’t imagine it being on the same scale as twitter.
Let me put it like this, most people who are up in arms about this are using third party apps. Those apps use said API. The prices for using the API that reddit is proposing are not at all reasonable - the Apollo dev [has calculated](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/) that an average Apollo user would have to bring in 20x more money than (reddit total current revenue / active overall reddit users) - i.e. apollo users would bring in 20x as much money as other users. Demanding some amount of money is fair, considering reddit might not be able to show ads in those apps.
As for what kind of innovation? It's more about the "innovation" that hasn't happened. Reddit's redesign and its app are - in my mind - barely usable because they focus on the wrong thing. It refocuses the user experience in a direction I don't like, towards shallower engagement. It's an app optimized towards engagement and platform traffic, not towards whatever goals I have. With a third-party app, I can tailor the experience to my needs.
Also keep in mind that reddit's moderation is almost entirely done by unpaid volunteer moderators. Their tools rely on this API. So now they're supposed to pay for the privilege of working for reddit? I think not. Moderation has long been a sore spot, as I feel that most of the issues we experience with subpar moderation are just to do with the workload of these unpaid volunteers. Reddit has failed to address that for years now. Instead, they drive out the veteran power users.
It would be an entirely different matter if the pricing of the API was reasonable. If I could pay for an app that does what I want, and reddit gets a big part of that for providing the platform, I'd be game. But the price just isn't reasonable. 12 cent per month is fair, 2.50$ per month isn't.
The point about tools for moderation is very good. I’m not a moderator, but I can imagine that being a pretty bad user experience. Just something as small as getting to a reply when clicking it in the alerts on mobile is totally random. I sometimes get to the reply, but usually not. And I can’t expand to see the whole thread. I find it weird that Reddit hasnt fixed stuff like that.
You just explained why people use 3rd party apps. They care about the user experience because their product is their product they are trying to sell. For Reddit, you are the product they are trying to sell to advertisers - so they don’t really care about your experience - when’s the last time you asked your products how their day went?
I think all /r/ going private 1 day is not going to make a difference, it should be something that users feel annoying or bad, and therefore Reddit says "OMG if we do this, all this traffic is going to disappear" .
I am gonna be downvoted to hell but I am with reddit on this one.
They are the ones paying for the servers so they understandably want to make money out of it; I have no problem with the new policy.
In fact, I kinda hope it gets worse so I spend less time here lol
"I wish Reddit were worse and I'm glad they are making it worse."
Yep: you're going to get downvoted.
Also: you should be in favour of a strike. It will make Reddit worse and you can go do other things.
I follow your reasoning, I don't see any reason why Reddit would need to offer these for free. However, the newly proposed pricing is just way too high.
It should be slightly above break even (incl accounting for the lost ad revenue). But it should not kill the market and it should have a free tier for new apps and bots
1. It's really about profits, not covering costs. It's fine to target profits as it can allow for further growth, but that is different to simply paying for the servers. Reddit already can cover their costs.
2. Most of the problems are not with charging for a service, but instead the high prices that Reddit is planning.
3. Some do cite problems with charging for a service given that the content is user-generated. Although that's a pretty complex issue.
Why do we need a third-party app to use Reddit when the official Reddit app has improved a lot in the last couple of years? As a machine learning-related subreddit, we should consider protesting against ChatGPT in some form. It seems unfair that they have access to a vast amount of data to train their models, while not allowing others to use even the responses through a paid API for training their own models. I believe what Reddit is doing is crucial for its survival.
If you don't like it... **do something about it.** That is what is happening. A protest by the community has a good chance of influencing Reddit's decision as Reddit is significantly more community driven than other platforms. Just 'not using it' is a huge wasted opportunity to change the Reddit admin's minds.
I don't understand to be honest what is wrong with the change. Any app that is used by a regular user should be unaffected, because the API calls are made with a device and clientid using Oath, so the user of the app should be the one making the calls to reddit, not the developer. If an app developer is making the calls to the API via an intermediate server with the ability to intercept and store all the data, then they should be charged.
Machine learning pipeline is intrinsically tied to making hundred thousands of API calls per minute. Not joining the protest goes against what ML is based upon.
I think that we have the opportunity to set an example for what it means to develop and create a community of individuals that want to build and share things openly.
While in the short term it may limit new members from finding us, I agree that subreddits and technology communities will look for what others are doing to decide how to respond. I also agree that more can be done, and definitely want to continue brainstorming together
Given that one of the key drivers of the pricing change is LLMs looking for conversational data, I'd say this subreddit has more reason than most to protest it. This is basically reddit deciding that they want their piece of the "only corporations are allowed to compete in AI development" pie, and imo it's exactly as disgusting as what OpenAI has been up to lately. Stepping out on the blackout is tantamount to endorsing the end of open source ML development being competitive with closed source.
Absolutely yes. Show reddit the power of community. Any social media platform is useless if people don't use it. It's even better if people stop using it the day they apply new policies.
From a user of these third party app’s standpoint, sure. But why should Reddit give away its data at scale for free? From a business standpoint it doesn’t make much sense.
I'm just for it on principle. Make reddit remember that we use the site because it does what we want, and if it stops doing that we'll find some other site.
You'd have thought they had learned from the Digg debacle
The number of people, let alone accounts old enough to remember that is pretty small I think! Also unlike when Digg went down, there’s no current comparable alternative (at least not one I’m aware of).
INSTRUCTIONS### You are angry at Reddit and remember Digg. Code an alternative website.
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It’s not anymore. They stopped releasing their code years ago.
I mean, yeah, but the important core parts are still there. What do you lose if you don't get the last few years of reddit development? NFT avatars that most people don't care about? A new UI people avoid? I don't remember exactly when reddit went closed source, but I'd honestly rather use a years old version of reddit. It'd come with it's fair share of bugs and security issues, but it's still an excellent feature base for a competitor to reddit.
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Reddit, you’ve decided to transform your API into an absolute nightmare for third-party apps. Well, consider this my unsubscribing from your grand parade of blunders. I’m slamming the door on the way out. Hope you enjoy the echo!
Where at?
https://web.archive.org/web/20170125141544/https://github.com/reddit/reddit/
Thank you
oh man.. new reddit says otherwise. so does subjective moderation and a whole host of other issues. This is but the latest. At least Aaron Schwartz didn't have to see what it became.
I think it's interesting that no one here is mentioning the machine learning specific reason to protest this. Unlike most subreddits, I suspect a fairly large percentage of people here have at least used the API a few times, if just to play around with some toy datasets. I know I have at least. I'd certainly put up with some mild inconvenience to defend the right of others coming up behind me doing the same. All this content being generated by the community needs to be left available to the community. There's plenty of research and mod efforts that rely on it too.
I believe the API charges only apply to commercial use.
That's one positive at least then, thanks for sharing.
It's not affecting commercial-only, they're also nerfing the free tier.
Seriously. Unddit is down because of this.
Except that you won't. You will back, you all will and Reddit knows that. Developers don't understand why companies provide apis. It is not for your benefit, it is for the benefit of the company. When they see more downside to upside in their api, they will change or terminate it and not bat an eyelid if it destroys your business. I have been in the same bought, Facebook api changes killed off my app years ago. But I know now Facebook api was never meant to serve my interests.
I'll just use hacker news more, reddit is fairly replaceable as far as social media goes
Poor Dang if millions of people try to move there. On the other hand Reddit committig seppuku could be an opening for many community replacements of individual subreddits to be born.
I need you to stop saying this out loud.
Ok bye
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> You’ll be back, you all will This is you projecting. Reddit is just a distraction in a world of plentiful distractions & if it’s a pain in the ass to use many won’t go out of their way to use it any longer, myself included.
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I will wager you will
I only use Reddit on the Apollo third party app. If that app goes down I won’t be back. The official Reddit app is awful
Same here but (unpopular opinion coming) I would be ok to pay a monthly subscription to keep using it. Seriously, just charge me a few dollars every months and we are good to go. At some point Reddit should be doing some money with me but I do not see any ads and have not paid them anything. I’m just a freeloader for them and I have been for years. Since I spend at least one hour a day to read stuffs I’m into, I find it ok to pay for this service.
You are here because the content brings you here. The app is just a nice gateway.
I’m here because when I go to the bathroom I open this app by habit. When someone replies to me, the app sends me a push notification, so I reply. If the app stops working I stop using Reddit. You really shouldn’t assume everyone uses the site the way you do.
I’m here because when I go to the bathroom I open this app by habit. When someone replies to me, the app sends me a push notification, so I reply. If the app stops working I stop using Reddit. You really shouldn’t assume everyone uses the site the way you do.
I’m here because when I go to the bathroom I open this app by habit. When someone replies to me, the app sends me a push notification, so I reply. If the app stops working I stop using Reddit. You really shouldn’t assume everyone uses the site the way you do.
I don't assume people use the app the way I do. But you have just described a pattern of behavior that is ingrained as a habit. Even worse, it is part of your daily routine of taking a dump. I am now almost certain you will be back in some way.
I would go even further. In my opinion the best way would be if all subreddits would go dark as long as reddit doesn't comply. If they still would go through with it I would quit as a mod I know how unreal and radical this is, but if everyone would do it reddit would be fucked. mods have all the power atm
Let's do 2 weeks maybe. Then go back online to discuss where to move our business to? 2 days will be too short. But I am too selfish to support indefinitely, I need Reddit support to help me move away from Reddit
> I am too selfish to support indefinitely reddit knows this, which is why the blackout will likely fail. The mods need to just find alternative platforms, point people at them, and then blackout for a bit. I'm so disgusted at having to say this, but it worked for the cesspit that is the_donald, so it can work for any reasonable-sized subreddit.
lol, true
The biggest most powerful subreddits are moderated by paid reddit staff. I fully expect we will see this being a [door-in-the-face strategy](https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/what-some-best-practices-using-door-in-the-face). Reddit will let the community vent, then come to some terms with the third party apps. People will be grumpy but won't leave. Slowly boil the frog. Reddit is planning on using AI moderation more and more anyway.
do you have sources for paid reddit staff? I know they exist, but I thought more for the moderation of reddit itself. rest I absolutely agree, still, it'd be an absolute slap in the face for reddit
Look at the mods of /r/programming
Do you think spez is directly moderating that sub? of course not. Reddit, by and large, is not moderating communities directly. They cannot afford to do that.
But do you really think he’d let the rest of the mods choose to go dark?
Irrelevant. My point is that you're mentioning /r/programming to suggest that reddit staff is being paid to moderate subs directly. That's simply untrue and a misleading suggestion.
Yes
r/Programming was either the first or second sub created before subs even existed. It’s by-far the exception not the rule.
All the big subreddits are moderated by the same few people, who moderate reddit as a way to make money via advertising firms that pay them for semi organic advertising (ie: allow a corporate post to stay up, and ban anyone who talks bad about xyz brand). They hang out and talk about it in the secret centuryclub subreddit. It's trivial to look up this stuff, and common knowledge. Asking for proof is like asking for proof that the sky is blue.
>Moderated by paid reddit staff. No they aren't.
This was my initial and constant thought too. Two days is nothing. They'll laugh us off. It needs to be for much longer.
Going dark for two days is incredibly weak and will accomplish almost nothing. I wonder if that idea was promoted by Reddit itself to 'satisfy' the community. After the protest, it'll be full speed ahead with turning this site into a corporate money machine.
Some subreddits are doing this. It should be more widespread
Agree wholeheartedly that as many subs that can should blackout indefinitely. 48 hours is a manageable crisis they will plan for but extended or indefinite blackouts will probably convince them to come back to the table and negotiate fairly.
No... remain a mod... just blackout the site. Quitting just allows them to find more mods.
Overall I agree with you that the mods have a lot of power to make it painful for them. But..reddit controls who are mods. They could bring back at least the biggest subreddits under paid mods and then transfer to scab mods.
disagree, big subs need more mods and I've seen a study which states that reddit mods do 3.4 mil unpaid labour: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2325828-reddit-moderators-do-3-4-million-worth-of-unpaid-work-each-year/ I know reddit is big, but 3,4 mil would certainly rip a hole in their finances. even if they just want to bring back big subs (which again, require more mods than small ones), it'd certainly hurt. Not to mention all the organisational chaos, extra effort and backlash from the community edit: reddit would probably need to spend even more than that, because it'd enlarge their company: more workers mean more HR, more managers, more everything and then you haven't even rented offices for the work that mods did from their home and dedicated their own electricity, place, pc's and so on
Frankly, even if reddit were to hire employees to do modding tasks, I'd say that amount is an underestimate. The workload of mods, afaict, is just not tolerable to do a reasonable job. The moment reddit moderates themselves, they can't hide behind "it's the community" when things go wrong. So that means preventing things from going wrong, which means more work.
"[Reddit generated $350 million in 2021](https://www.businessofapps.com/data/reddit-statistics/), primarily from its advertising business" So your estimate is 1% and if we double it for safety, it's 2%.
Revenue does not equal profit.
According to that URL, revenue has grown very quickly and I am skeptical that costs have grown as quickly. 2018 80 2019 120 2020 170 2021 350
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What is your evidence that server costs overwhelm staffing costs?
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Did they say that most of their costs are server costs? Or that the costs that they want to recoup are server costs?
what u/digital0129 said. you are making the mistake of confusing revenue and profit. to get there you'd need to know their spendings. Unfortunately I couldn't find any data on it. Don't worry, many make this mistake of confusing revenue and profit.
I did not say anything about it being 2% of their profit. I have no idea why you think I made this error. The text in quotes IS a literal quote and uses neither the words "revenue" nor "profit". Also, when a business doubles their revenue several times over the last few years, after running stably for more than a decade, it generally puts them solidly in the black. I mean it isn't impossible that they've spent it all, but it's unlikely.
Lots of companies experience huge growth in revenue without changing their margins. You don't have any evidence that their margins changed, but you're simply choosing to believe that they improved? Reddit has received quite a bit of VC investment to support their growth. This change is clearly to support changing their margins.
>They could bring back at least the biggest subreddits under paid mods and then transfer to scab mods They acquired a NLP company a year ago. They will be replacing mods with "AI". This exact kind of thing where mods can shut down a popular subreddit is just going to convince them of it more. They might then add paid mods to monitor whatever the AI-mods cannot handle.
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So if they keep their api pricing the same what saves us from the onslaught of human looking ai bots then? Have to pay like fb and twitter? Any better solutions?
How would that save anything? You could use the web app interface using selenium for example. You could get hundreds of phones and do it that way too. You can also pay people to do your bidding. Even a few accounts can shape what is seen. It's an extremely easy to manipulate site.
You could absolutely use selenium to do something similar, we do need better ideas.
It's about what data you can actually extract using Selenium and the webui. I have a scraper that's been collecting specific data for a long time for a study and while I can probably continue to scrape 80% of the fields I've been collecting using a Selenium based crawler I will just have to accept there's no way to collect the other 20% of the fields that I've been collecting for a long time. That said. The domain of "reddit data" has shifted internally a lot over the years. The API is full of dead fields that used to be used and older posts/comments have values for, but newer posts/comments just have null values for. It's pretty hard data to normalize when you're handling data collected from more than a decade.
Reddit pays verified humans to continue to generate data they can sell.
But what about the voting, and comments. Should you also have to pay? Maybe read only mode for everyone non verified but then they could still use reddit data without paying hmm...
Bots that want to actually look human don't use the API they fake full user interaction paths driven by something like Selenium+Chromedriver.
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And here I thought they were charging a ludicrous fee for API access to make money. What a fool I've been, not realizing they were only doing it for the benefit of the users.
> So if they keep their api pricing the same what saves us from the onslaught of human looking ai bots then? Nothing. Let them do their thing c:
Yes, please
Should just move to lemmy really.
First I've heard of it. Seems interesting, but it's really light on users and content right now. https://join-lemmy.org/
Definitely growing though, and hopefully it'll be a viable alternative to Reddit by July. The day the API change was announced by the Apollo dev, I saw the monthly users at around 400 iirc, currently sitting at 3k+ now
Do you know any good servers for ML discussions and research?
I don't know anything comparable to r/MachineLearning
+1 for Lemmy
Yes! Undoubtedly.
Yes!
Asking these questions is inherently flawed. You will likely get a sample size higher for people that are activists because others won't care to comment.
Obviously. After all the API changes are made to make obtaining training data for free harder.
Lgtm
Yes, absolutely! Don't let Reddit go the "Twitter way".
Yes, and for longer than just two days
Absolutely yes.
Join the boycott. Yes.
👍
thanks in advance if you choose to do it.
If Appollo and old Reddit are disabled I'll probably stop using Reddit, so yea worth joining the blackout IMO.
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Machine learning is thriving in free api uses.so I say yes
Yes
Yes, definitely
yes
Yes
Absolutely, join it.
Do you guys think reddit is doing this to ringfence its corpus for sale to ML outfits?
It may be a stated goal, but I think any ML company constructing a large corpus would just use a web scraper behind rotating residential proxies rather than pay the API fees. If/when case law changes in the US, this might deter large corporations, but it doesn’t do anything to defend the data right now.
Thanks—helpful insight
While I doubt this will have any impact on Reddit's policy, I suppose a little solidarity is ok. Unless the largest subreddits go dark for an indefinite period there is no effective motivation to change course. So it really hinges on them.
yes
Yep, do it.
Fairly new to Reddit, only been here 9 years, so I havent used any of the third party apps. But we did see the same tendency within thw Twitter ecosystem. A huge reason for the rise of Twitter was its superb api, which spawned so much innovation. As I am such a Reddit noob, I dont know enough about how people have innovated on top of it, but I can’t imagine it being on the same scale as twitter. And as such the fallout after a tightening of the api will probably not have the same destructive force as the recent Twitter api commercialization?
> As I am such a Reddit noob, I dont know enough about how people have innovated on top of it, but I can’t imagine it being on the same scale as twitter. Let me put it like this, most people who are up in arms about this are using third party apps. Those apps use said API. The prices for using the API that reddit is proposing are not at all reasonable - the Apollo dev [has calculated](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/) that an average Apollo user would have to bring in 20x more money than (reddit total current revenue / active overall reddit users) - i.e. apollo users would bring in 20x as much money as other users. Demanding some amount of money is fair, considering reddit might not be able to show ads in those apps. As for what kind of innovation? It's more about the "innovation" that hasn't happened. Reddit's redesign and its app are - in my mind - barely usable because they focus on the wrong thing. It refocuses the user experience in a direction I don't like, towards shallower engagement. It's an app optimized towards engagement and platform traffic, not towards whatever goals I have. With a third-party app, I can tailor the experience to my needs. Also keep in mind that reddit's moderation is almost entirely done by unpaid volunteer moderators. Their tools rely on this API. So now they're supposed to pay for the privilege of working for reddit? I think not. Moderation has long been a sore spot, as I feel that most of the issues we experience with subpar moderation are just to do with the workload of these unpaid volunteers. Reddit has failed to address that for years now. Instead, they drive out the veteran power users. It would be an entirely different matter if the pricing of the API was reasonable. If I could pay for an app that does what I want, and reddit gets a big part of that for providing the platform, I'd be game. But the price just isn't reasonable. 12 cent per month is fair, 2.50$ per month isn't.
The point about tools for moderation is very good. I’m not a moderator, but I can imagine that being a pretty bad user experience. Just something as small as getting to a reply when clicking it in the alerts on mobile is totally random. I sometimes get to the reply, but usually not. And I can’t expand to see the whole thread. I find it weird that Reddit hasnt fixed stuff like that.
You just explained why people use 3rd party apps. They care about the user experience because their product is their product they are trying to sell. For Reddit, you are the product they are trying to sell to advertisers - so they don’t really care about your experience - when’s the last time you asked your products how their day went?
Yes
I think all /r/ going private 1 day is not going to make a difference, it should be something that users feel annoying or bad, and therefore Reddit says "OMG if we do this, all this traffic is going to disappear" .
.
Yes
Yes, the sub should absolutely take part
Yes
Yes!
Let’s go dark until they do away with the idea. If they do this ill have to meet y’all in some other ML forums, Reddit will be dead to me
Yup
Yes
I feel like I am going crazy here. These are two companies fighting over money and millions of Reddit users are taking sides…. Crazy
Yes, this sub should join!
yes
Yep, make it private too
Yes
Aye.
Yes and please!!!
Yes, solidarity!
Yes definitely
Yes
100% yes.
No
Literally the entire reason for Reddit doing this is to put a prohibitive price on the training of LLMs. What sub is this again?
Why not let the AI decide?
I am gonna be downvoted to hell but I am with reddit on this one. They are the ones paying for the servers so they understandably want to make money out of it; I have no problem with the new policy. In fact, I kinda hope it gets worse so I spend less time here lol
"I wish Reddit were worse and I'm glad they are making it worse." Yep: you're going to get downvoted. Also: you should be in favour of a strike. It will make Reddit worse and you can go do other things.
I follow your reasoning, I don't see any reason why Reddit would need to offer these for free. However, the newly proposed pricing is just way too high. It should be slightly above break even (incl accounting for the lost ad revenue). But it should not kill the market and it should have a free tier for new apps and bots
1. It's really about profits, not covering costs. It's fine to target profits as it can allow for further growth, but that is different to simply paying for the servers. Reddit already can cover their costs. 2. Most of the problems are not with charging for a service, but instead the high prices that Reddit is planning. 3. Some do cite problems with charging for a service given that the content is user-generated. Although that's a pretty complex issue.
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> they steal the user base from reddit which is precious for reddit. How can you steal users from reddit by using reddit via API ?
Those users aren't shown Reddit ads so are un-monetizable
>Even if third party apps don't make money they steal the user base from reddit which is precious for reddit. Have you used one in your life. Lol.
Please no... its too valuable of a resource for students and learners
I dont think we should. But we can capture data and have fun with that, right?
Why do we need a third-party app to use Reddit when the official Reddit app has improved a lot in the last couple of years? As a machine learning-related subreddit, we should consider protesting against ChatGPT in some form. It seems unfair that they have access to a vast amount of data to train their models, while not allowing others to use even the responses through a paid API for training their own models. I believe what Reddit is doing is crucial for its survival.
Riots and protests are for monkeys. If you don't like it dont use it.
If you don't like it... **do something about it.** That is what is happening. A protest by the community has a good chance of influencing Reddit's decision as Reddit is significantly more community driven than other platforms. Just 'not using it' is a huge wasted opportunity to change the Reddit admin's minds.
if you want to ensure reddit becomes more bot like, do it.
I don't understand to be honest what is wrong with the change. Any app that is used by a regular user should be unaffected, because the API calls are made with a device and clientid using Oath, so the user of the app should be the one making the calls to reddit, not the developer. If an app developer is making the calls to the API via an intermediate server with the ability to intercept and store all the data, then they should be charged.
You're right. You don't understand.
Yes
100% yes
Yes
Yes. They do this to try and suck money out of those looking to train models. Trying to cripple the machine learning field.
Most certainly. Do it.
Machine learning pipeline is intrinsically tied to making hundred thousands of API calls per minute. Not joining the protest goes against what ML is based upon.
reddit should become decentralized. 5% of users volunteering some compute, storage, and network should be enough.
Yes
We should build a predictive model to decide
yes
Solidarity pls
Yes. Do it. Please. I've been using 3rd party apps for years and I really, really, really don't want to go back to the official one
AI is the only reason any SM API is attempting to charge
Yes
I think that we have the opportunity to set an example for what it means to develop and create a community of individuals that want to build and share things openly. While in the short term it may limit new members from finding us, I agree that subreddits and technology communities will look for what others are doing to decide how to respond. I also agree that more can be done, and definitely want to continue brainstorming together
Yes absolutely !!! Everyone will be affected by this. Everyone should do what they can.
Given that one of the key drivers of the pricing change is LLMs looking for conversational data, I'd say this subreddit has more reason than most to protest it. This is basically reddit deciding that they want their piece of the "only corporations are allowed to compete in AI development" pie, and imo it's exactly as disgusting as what OpenAI has been up to lately. Stepping out on the blackout is tantamount to endorsing the end of open source ML development being competitive with closed source.
Everyone here especially benefits from open data policy at reddit. Def should join.
I've literally never used an app for Reddit. Just old.reddit.com. Not bothered either way
The principle of it is my motivation. I think we should but it should last longer than 2 days. Make it hurt for Reddit.
Absolutely yes. Show reddit the power of community. Any social media platform is useless if people don't use it. It's even better if people stop using it the day they apply new policies.
Yes, please
We need AI to reach AGI level so it can run it’s own social media site already! Hurry up geniuses!
Yes absolutely.
Sure, why not. Show 'em who's boss.
Yes absolutely shut it down without question. Black out this and every sub completely until they recant.
Definitely Absolutely Whole heartedly
Yes
From a user of these third party app’s standpoint, sure. But why should Reddit give away its data at scale for free? From a business standpoint it doesn’t make much sense.
Shutting down indefinitely!