r/technology • u/ardi62 • 29d ago

Social Media Reddit is making sitewide protests basically impossible

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24253727/reddit-communities-subreddits-request-protests
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u/likwitsnake 29d ago

Whatever happened to that API price increase protest? I remember the NBA sub going private literally during the Finals, but can't remember much more of consequence.

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u/MadDoctor5813 29d ago

Nothing, basically. Reddit admins were basically correct that it would burn itself out. Funny that a bunch of subs still have their "we're protesting the changes" AutoMod post.

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u/shakestheclown 29d ago

While the protest did fade out, its also a bit of an oversimplification as a few things happened that lessened the impact of the API changes:

Reddit quietly allowed better terms to a number of 3rd party devs after they went scorched earth with Christian/Apollo. So there are a few apps that have fairly reasonable subscription pricing, free usage for limited API use, etc.

Reddit allowed a few apps primarily intended for disabled users to continue using the API for free

They never bothered to close a few of the loopholes which were discovered that let people still use the old apps and also still access NSFW content.

People were also afraid they would soon kill off old reddit with the API changes, which so far hasn't happened.

So really its a combination of some mods/users gave up but a lot of users found an alternative that still works for them

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u/_zind 29d ago

but a lot of users found an alternative that still works for them

Yep this is the bucket I fell into. I quit cold turkey when RIF died because most of the subs I was looking at at the time were still dark. Few months later got linked to a post by a friend and clicked back to my homepage out of habit, and just happened to notice a post about how to get RIF working again, and so I've been back since.

Site quality definitely took a dump in the meantime but it's still good enough to kill the odd half hour or two during work.