TL;DR

Reddit is apparently falling apart.

I sometimes lurk around in Reddit, although not too much. Many times it pops out with answers to questions I ask to search engines.

Then, of course, there are kitten photos.

They lately decided to introduce a change where they’re going to charge for API usage. They’re trying to make it pass like a move for bare survival, but the cost and the little time they’re giving to adapt to these changes are actually a move to oust third-party apps (which people love) and re-gain dominance of people’s eyeballs, I guess mostly for advertising reasons.

Nothing really new under the sun: a private platform in Internet is trying to monetize, and the community (/communities) that use that platform are having a cold shower.

I can’t predict what will happen, although one thing I understand is that most if not all of the content on the platform is totally contributed. I mean, Reddit is actually only providing the platform: important, sure, but is it enough to win this arm wrestling?

This reminded me of secession plebis, i.e. the secession of the people; while patricians initially thought they would have the upper hand, they eventually had to concede the creation of a new representative figure for… people.

Here, probably, many people will be held hostage by some either us, or no community. I don’t know, time will tell. My solidarity goes to the redditors/moderators, but this should be yet another reminder that leaning too much over a private, commercial service is subject to these kind of sudden changes.

Cheers!