Reddit protests: 'Rif is fun', other 3rd-party apps say they are shutting down; Users dismayed
Reddit is arguably the biggest discussion forum on the web. According to Similarweb, it ranks 20th in the most visited websites in the world. Part of the reason for Reddit's popularity is its cohesive ecosystem that is maintained by users, moderators, third-party app developers, and Reddit administrators (the corporate team behind the platform) all working together. So, it was not really a surprise that after Reddit announced its new API policy and its pricing system, the entire ecosystem has been thrown into chaos due to the vehement protests against the move.
A perfect example came yesterday, June 12, as many major subreddits went private causing a Reddit blackout, the website suffered one of its biggest outages and users were left frustrated at not being able to access their favorite communities. And it was all sparked by one single event — the third-party apps declaring that they were shutting down their services.
At the forefront of this shutdown was Apollo, an iOS-based third-party app for Reddit. Its developer Christian Selig declared that the app would stop operating after June 30 as it would require him to spend a yearly $20 million just to keep the app running, an amount much higher than what he makes from the app. But Apollo is not the only app suffering from it.
Rif is fun for Reddit (formerly Reddit is fun) for Android is what Apollo is for iOS. With more than 5 million downloads, it is one of the most popular third-party apps for the platform and with an active developer releasing regular updates, many users have been using it as the primary mode to access Reddit.
However, shocking its userbase, its developer who goes by the username talklittle on Reddit, announced that the app will be closing by June 30.
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