Comment by lwansbrough | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lwansbrough | Hacker News Reader

Yeah I don't know, this seems so simple. All spez had to do was:

1. Identify the core value of reddit's service (community of communities who upload posts, videos, images, etc.)

2. Identify the cost factors associated with operating those services (app servers, CDNs, bandwidth, employees, etc.)

3. Identify 3rd party clients as competitors that impact reddit's ability to maintain and improve those services (reddit pays the cost of running the services, competing 3rd party clients do not.)

4. Extend an olive branch to the third party devs by offering them jobs (+ big bonuses if they onboard their respective apps' users onto the official app), and an opportunity to integrate users' favourite features from the third party apps into the official app.

It's not a total win, it was never going to be. But good lord, what an intensely poorly managed situation. Typically you get paid a lot as a CEO for moments like this, if you can't handle this then what are you being paid for?

Or you know, just tell 3P apps, 30% of your top line is ours and call it a day. Would leave everyone thinking, well this is fair. The crazy part is how they are back tracking on things like API usage for mod tools and accessibility. They gave this zero thought when they made the decision. It’s kind of disgusting.

Exactly. It was an exercise in making everybody hate you instead

So third-party devs would have to manually cut them a check every month? How would Reddit validate that they’re getting the correct amount? Multiply this logistical nightmare by hundreds of third party developers.

...yes? It's just an invoice. Determining exact rates are why sales teams and account managers etc exist. Reddit can trivially check app traffic levels. Seems a bog-standard API usage agreement to me.

The problem here hasn't been "reddit charges for API access"; it's the totally unreasonable pricing and switchover timeline.

GP is saying Reddit could trivially skim 30% off of third party app revenue. How is checking app API traffic levels relevant? This is revenue that apps would get through IAP or ads, where Reddit has no visibility. Good luck enforcing any kind of revenue split contract with hundreds of hobbyist devs.

Reddit stated that non-commercial apps keep free API. Reddit leadership doesn’t like that itself isn’t profitable and that others get to profit without paying anything, unjust enrichment. Reddit won’t touch any dev that’s too small, only the ones with large traffic matter. So probably only a handful or two. They can easily determine if anyone’s lying. And if anyone is suspected of lying, they can ask for audited financial statements and tax returns to keep API access. Would be pretty dum by any of them to lie to pay a smaller bill to risk getting your entire business wiped out.

> an opportunity to integrate users' favourite features from the third party apps into the official app.

"A clean and readable layout with no/less annoying ads" is a feature of most apps, except the official one, and I doubt Reddit is willing to have that.

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