Why do APIs for content sites must be free? Are you paying the cost of upkeep for that social media site? You said no ? Then you should shut up. Every social media site is a for-profit business. You, the user, can not dictate how they run their businesses. If you don't like the way things are going, feel free to pack your stuff up (proverbially speaking) and find yourself a new place. As simple as that.
I am unable to understand this bruhaha about reddit as I am an occasional user of this website and mostly in lurking mode.
Was there a promise made to those 3rd party app authors and users that their access would be perpetual, not to be taken away from them, no matter what ? I don't think any for-profit company makes such promises.
If you play in someone's walled garden, you should be ready to see them change the rules as they see fit. I am not sure why reddit decided to nix the 3rd party apps but my gut feeling is, this is a financially motivated move. And if it is so, can you blame them?
I wish someone could explain me why everyone is in an huge uproar today.
If they had made prudent allowances for uses of the API other than 3rd party frontends, this likely would have been a much smaller deal.
Moderators(who are doing tons of free work to make reddit a tolerable place) use API based tools to help them moderate. If reddit is going to make their (volunteer!) job harder, why shouldn't they just pack up and leave?
The official reddit app reportedly does not make adequate accommodations for some disabled users, but dedicated third party developers did. They later said that they would give exemptions for accessibility use cases, but stipulated that they could not charge for their service. Some people the perceived this as: "we won't make our app accessible, we'll give permission to do free labor for us if you want, but don't you dare try to get paid for it."
Then there is the disingenuous interactions with the Apollo developer.
All-in-all, people think that reddit is acting in bad faith.
()Allowances ? You mean don't ask them for more money, even though those apps are making money. How is this a good business idea? I mean for Reddit.
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()Moderators are not forced to work for free. If they do, they are doing this willingly and if they choose to quit, nobody is blaming them.
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()If original reddit app doesn't make accommodations for handicapped people, it is neither the duty of the 3rd party apps to provide them nor to enforce them. It is just a fringe angle reddit opponents are bringing forward. It is not why this ordeal got so out of proportion.
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()... we won't make our app accessible, we'll give permission to do free labor for us if you want, but don't you dare try to get paid for it. ...
Although it may not be the wisest idea, the owners of the walled garden can say this and it is up to those non-compensated moderators to stay or leave. It has nothing to do with the 3rd party apps
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(*)After all, is said and done, reddit wants more money out of the pot. So does the 3rd party app developers. It is like a Mexican standoff. And I can guarantee you, first party to blink will not be reddit.
There's a surface-level and deeper-level answer here.
Surface-level: the API price hikes are at a glance meant to force out third-party Reddit interfaces. To speculate, this is aimed to funnel users to Reddit's official application. I can say that because the mobile website is getting crippled over time to "encourage" users to use the app.
Deeper-level: it is reflective of Reddit corporate's attitudes towards its users. They are gearing for an IPO, so they want to tell investors that they will be profitable (read: milk its users, monetize everything, remove convenient features if it will mean profits, etc.)
This story sounds similar. Just yesterday I read about enshitification[0] form a HN post. What is most interesting is how Reddit has ripped a page or two from Musk's twitter playbook for enshitification.
The deeper issue is the C-suite being unresponsive to users wants and needs. Reddits comments are a goldmine for LLMs, hiking the price on the API is to cash in on data greedy AI. 3rd party apps are just a pawn. Yes it is reddit's site, but the product is the community, and the community knows it.
People are mad because instead of being open and honest about their play, reddit tried sneak it it in. They are trying to give Reddit shareholders their win while everyone else loses.
The two biggest issues I've heard brought up (other than the fact that apps like Apollo just work better than the official app and don't have ads) is that moderation tools are dependent upon third-party apps, and third-party apps are more accessible for people with disabilities than the official reddit app.
If only my director has time to follow up our periodic, weekly 1:1 meetings. It is on my calendar, every Monday at 10:00 AM but I haven't had one in may be 3 months with an exceptional, ad-hoc touch base chat out of this scheduled time slot once every blue moon.
Although, I am with the original poster of this question. I've been in IT trenches for longer than 30 years now and I really do not need to "touch base" with my supervisor. Just let me know what is needed and when it is needed, I will get it done. If I run into a administrative block, I know where my director lives and can reach out to him asking help to remove the mostly corporate politics induced blockade.
Few political question I asked, were immediately answered with a heavy dose of ultra liberal answers. Of course expecting anything else from the brain child of Mountain View communists would be too much to ask. So, bard is not artificial intelligence. It is an artificial mouthpiece.
Those are not tech companies who are colluding. They are scummy Indian sweatshops and t is time that they are put out to the pasture and not let play games on US immigration. The candidates they bring in are generally nothing more than seat warmers.
Hopefully, lifehacker will again become a blog of life hacks rather than "your kid is trans and not yet know it" propaganda outlet. I definitely give them another chance under ZD ownership. Their current style is abysmal and even god damn tasteless.
Idiotic utopia, geared towards crowded European cities. In the US, it is moronic idea at best. I'd rather be in the driver seat of that truck and not die as a result of an accident. Trucks are not stupid. They are useful vehicles if you live in Rural places. What is stupid is the creator of this video.
Did you watch the video? The author has nothing against trucks themselves, it's SUVs (light trucks) in suburbia and cities that he argues is the problem. Specifically, the many cases where people never even use the capabilities of the larger car (off roading, towing, stuffing it full of shit) and instead the choice of a larger car becomes an overall negative for society (more dangerous for the other guy in any collision, harder to see around, harder to see kids or pets as the driver, headlights more blinding to oncoming traffic die to their greater elevation). Anyhow, you sound very angry and closed minded, maybe give other opinions a chance, you don't have to agree but you also don't have to be an ass about it
This is a liberal utopia in US terms. The author is blissfully ignoring the fact that, The Netherlands is a postage stamp size country, smaller then most US states individually. There are only 9 states which are smaller than the whole country of the Netherlands. Even in the big, highly congested cities like NYC, LA, SF, the city sprawl is very big, making bike transportation very unfeasible. Should we uproot our cities and build them to welcome an utopia? I don't think so. I lived in Europe for the first 32 years of my life, all in big cities of several millions of people population. Even there, despite the traffic congestion, biking to work or shopping was not an option. Netherlands, especially the large cities in this country, like Amsterdam, are exceptions or happenstances. Taking them as a blueprint is unrealistic for the most part in the rest of the world.
Nothing is set in stone and the choice is not all one or the other. The US being so large means different regions can experiment with different things (I wish there was more of this). Plus, cities are somewhat like living, organic things. NYC made Times Square pedestrian-only and that's widely been viewed as a success (and there's more biking than ever in NYC in general last time I visited).
I live in a fast growing area where the city is actively building greenways and has started to encourage a lot more dense, vertical development strategically around certain areas. Construction is happening one way or another, why have yet another urban area sprawling in every direction?
So the point of the article is that if you decide something now it will effect how the world looks in 50 years. The picture with the 2000 vision shows how others thought at that time. If the Dutch would have chosen that path, it now would look like that. City architecture are the way they are because we made decisions on how we wanted it to be.
Expect to get downvoted by every left leaning US-suburbia-upbringing city transplant on HN. I've always assumed this is entirely about rejecting their idyllic childhood and parents' lifestyle, since victimhood is the currency of their social circles. An exclusively American phenomenon in any case.
Sincerely,
fellow European with a nearly identical life experience to yours.
Don't believe in Gavin Newsom's new bullshit.
Last I heard about this, a Vial of generic insulin was going to be $35.
Walmart sells the same insulin (regular or suspended varieties) for $25
It is just a publicity ploy.
Even at $25/vial, Walmart insulin has a very nice mark-up. Why buy it from state of CA for a more expensive price tag?
To boot all of this, if you do not have health insurance, Walmart sells the insulin to you without prescription. CA? Not so much.
I am sick and tired of this quasi-populist sounding stories from California nad other liberal inundated locations.
Because, the powers that be, a.k.a. corrupt Biden family, sold to chinese commies, do not want what this balloon was all about, because their chinese overlords want to keep it hidden. After the payload of spy data was delivered home, i.e., china, the vehicle is destroyed. Otherwise, capturing it and reverse engineering what it was doing in US airspace, and what data it collected as it traversed the whole fucking country, would be very useful. Don't you think?
