Popular Subreddits Going Dark to Protest Reddit Charging for API Access
Some of Reddit’s biggest communities are going dark on June 12 to protest Reddit’s plan to charge for API access.
In a Reddit post(Opens in a new window) announcing the protest, the subreddits (which include r/music(Opens in a new window), r/reactiongifs(Opens in a new window), and r/earthporn(Opens in a new window)) say Reddit is raising its API fees “to a level that will kill every third party app [on the platform], from Apollo to Reddit is Fun to Narwhal to BaconReader.”
As a result, the participating subreddits (a full list is available here(Opens in a new window)) will set themselves to private and be inaccessible to the public for 48 hours, though some will permanently lock themselves down until “the issue is adequately addressed.”
The post adds: “This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love.”
Reddit’s decision to start charging for access to its API has prompted a wave of backlash from third-party apps that say they can't afford it. In a viral thread, the developer behind Apollo, Christian Selig, said Reddit's expected pricing structure for API access would cost Apollo $1.7 million per month or $20 million per year, since Apollo made 7 billion API requests in 2022.
"Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $2.50 per month, which is over double what the subscription currently costs, so I'd be in the red every month," he said.
Reddit announced(Opens in a new window) it would charge third-party developers for API access back in April, in a move intended to stop tech companies from scraping Reddit’s data to train their AI language
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