Thousands of Subreddits Shut Down in Protest of New API Pricing
Over 6,000 subreddits, including popular communities like r/funny, r/aww, r/gaming, r/music, and r/science, have gone dark in protest of the upcoming pricing changes for the social discussion platform Reddit’s API. This means that even users who were previously subscribed to these communities can no longer access them publicly.
Many subreddits participating in the protests will be private for 48 hours from June 12 to June 14, but some plan to remain private until things change, reports The Verge.
“None of us do this lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible for us to continue doing what we love,” r/Toptomcat said.
Christian Selig, an Apollo app developer who posted on Reddit about API pricing that sparked much of the initial furor, said the unity of the Reddit community against the proposed changes was “unbelievably amazing.”
“I really hope Reddit is listening,” he wrote on the Apollo subreddit.
“I believe that showing humanity by apologizing and acknowledging that this process has been poorly managed, along with concrete promises to give developers more time, would make people feel heard and instill community trust,” Selig added.
Last week, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session to discuss the platform’s controversial API changes and confirmed that Reddit will not revive its upcoming API pricing changes, which have prompted several developers to announce they are shutting down apps.
In the hearing, Huffman continued his accusations about Selig’s “behavior and communication” “all over the place” and said he couldn’t see Reddit continuing to work with the developer, TechCrunch reported.
