Reddit, Twitter, Spotify walling off their APIs alienates users and wastes developer efforts

Many communities will go dark on June 12th to protest changes to the Reddit API.

On April 18, 2023, Reddit announced changes to its application programming interface (API), effectively charging a premium fee for third-party developers to integrate their tools into Reddit. Application programming interfaces essentially allow developers not employed by Reddit to write software that can interface directly with the platform and extend its functionality for end users.

This API is used to create bots, moderation tools, and quality of life improvements that improve the overall user experience of the platform. The changes introduced break many applications that read and write to Reddit directly, including third-party clients such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun (RIF), and Narwhal. Reddif for blinds, Luna for Reddit, and BeaconReader. These are apps to give users a faster experience on her Reddit and improve the accessibility of the platform for visually impaired users. These third-party customers simply cannot afford Reddit’s exorbitant new usage fees, which Apollo developers calculated at $20 million per year.

Many communities and subreddits will go dark on June 12th to protest this change. Some other communities have switched to private.

List of participating subreddits is incomplete and growing
By ModCoord’s u/SubManagerBot

Reddit has used clever language in communicating the hefty fees it’s introducing to third-party developers, and has wrapped up the changes as making the ecosystem more sustainable, but that’s what the platform and its users are doing. The impact is devastating. Reddit cut off the API shortly after A similar change was introduced on Twitter, which also had the effect of preventing third-party clients from connecting with the platform and extending its functionality. Spotify also previously updated his API policy in May 2021 and most recently in March 2023, which stopped third-party apps from working.

Reddit apparently introduced this change as a response to artificial intelligence models managing content on the platform and deriving value that was not fed back to the platform, but there was clearly a commercial motive there and development There were unrealistic expectations of what people could deliver. These third parties many of his clients are passion projects, some with premium features, but the changes only drive up costs for the end user.

Also featured on Twitter $42,000 fee Allowing access to previously free APIs while completely disallowing third-party clients. The change is apparently to ensure that users retain ownership of the content they generate on the platform, a policy followed by Reddit as well. No matter how you indulge in this bitter pill, the stark reality is that these changes will only alienate users and will not materially increase revenue for the platform in question. This is a totally unrealistic expectation.

Spotify is next, which probably gets a little less attention than the other two. Spotify has introduced functionality natively in its own clients and blocked similar functionality in third-party apps. For example, the Spotify Friend Mix and Blend features are exactly what Rekl was able to do when it was operational. Playlist generation and sorting tools like Playlist Miner, Smarter Playlists, Sort Your Music, and the very cool Boil the Frog have all stopped working and Spotify has no equivalent.

These third-party applications are tightly integrated with even more third-party applications such as IFTT, and the sudden change disrupted the data processing pipelines that users had set up for their own use. For example, it was possible for a user in the household to play a custom his playlist on Spotify from the tracks he listens to most at the moment. These settings take time and effort on your part, and that time is wasted if there is a sudden drastic change that breaks your app.

In addition, it requires developer effort. Most third-party apps are passion projects that developers start in their spare time, so they solve a specific problem you’re experiencing. These can evolve into large-scale collaborations, where groups of developers spend valuable time building tools that can suddenly stop working due to unexpected API changes. In addition, some companies are making serious investments in building third-party he tools that provide a great user experience. This change is not sustainable for these 3rd party developers and I highly doubt it is really sustainable for the native platform.

It’s a heartbreak for developers, as evidenced by the farewell posts from Sync and ReddPlanet developers. The reason the app charges are exorbitant is that you will be charged per call or whenever a third party app communicates with the platform. A flat rate is a more realistic and “sustainable” approach, especially considering that third-party apps ultimately drive traffic to the underlying platform.

The initial protest will last for 48 hours, but it’s entirely possible that at least some communities will extend the blackout. The team at Gore, who created a Reddit alternative known as Spyke, with much of the same functionality as Reddit, noticed a sudden (and intentional) spike in users after Reddit announced the change. rice field. The app is still in beta and under active development, but is available for iOS and Android. The team sees the protests as a good opportunity to invite users to alternatives, and says it’s ready to make the API public if there’s demand for it. Interested readers can sign up for his Spyke beta on his website.