Reddit is going dark in protest at Reddit’s new API pricing, after third-party app Apollo was faced with an unaffordable bill of $20M per year. Dozens of the biggest subreddits plan to go private for two days, with hundreds of others joining in.
In other app news, Elon Musk’s claim that Twitter advertisers have returned appears to be misleading …
Reddit going dark
A Reddit post explained the plan for hundreds of subreddits to go private for two days – including dozens with more than a million subscribers each.
On May 31, 2023, Reddit announced they were raising the price to make calls to their API from being free to a level that will kill every third party app on Reddit, from Apollo to Reddit is Fun to Narwhal to BaconReader.
On June 12th, many subreddits will be going dark to protest this policy. Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed, since many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app. 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.
Going private means that the subreddits won’t be accessible to those browsing the site, only to current members of them.
The post says that this won’t be the end of things. If Reddit doesn’t backtrack on the policy, unspecified “further action” will be taken.
Apple advertising less on Twitter
In other app news, the New York Times questions Elon Musk’s recent claims that “almost all advertisers have come back.” The report says that this is directly contradicted by an internal report.
But Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May was $88 million, down 59 percent from a year earlier, according to an internal presentation obtained by The New York Times. The company has regularly fallen short of its U.S. weekly sales projections, sometimes by as much as 30 percent, the document said.
That performance is unlikely to improve anytime soon, according to the documents and seven current and former Twitter employees.
Ad sales staff report that advertisers are being put off by rising hate speech on the platform since most of its moderators were laid off. This was topped by last week’s resignation of Ella Irwin, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety.
Apple is named as one of the tech giants that has reduced its spend.
Some of Twitter’s biggest advertisers — including Apple, Amazon and Disney — have been spending less on the platform than last year, three former and current Twitter employees said. Large specialized “banner” ads on Twitter’s trends page, which can cost $500,000 for 24 hours and are almost always bought by large brands to promote events, shows or movies, are often going unfilled, they said.
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