More than 7,000 Reddit communities went dark Monday to protest the company’s new API changes, a policy that will charge third-party apps to continue using its platform.
Some of the largest subreddits including r/funny, r/gaming and r/Music – which each have more than 30 million subscribers – are set to private, which means the communities will not be available to the public.
Why are are Reddit communities going dark?
On April 18th, Reddit announced changes to its API. The new policy would charge third-party apps $0.24 per 1,000 API calls, which forced third-party apps Apollo and Sync to shut down because of the high prices.
“With my current usage (it) would cost almost $2 million dollars per month, or over $20 million per year,” an Apollo developer said on Reddit. “It’s been an amazing run thanks to all of you.”
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What is an API?
An API – application programming interface – allows third parties to access Reddit’s data so they can create apps that work with Reddit.
Third-party apps used Reddit’s API for free prior to the new policy change. Many mobile users used these apps to browse Reddit instead of using the Reddit app.
“Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use,” Steve Huffman, one of the founders CEO of Reddit said Friday.
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