“The ongoing strike, spurred by Huffman’s plan to charge fees to third-party apps that serve up Reddit content,”
Then it goes on to talk about commercial AIs scraping reddit data through their api for deep learning for free.
But the reality is people weren’t upset about the api charge, they were upset at the exorbitant price they released. There are so many other ways to be fair and to stop commercial use if that was really an issue. Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if reddit is being scraped without the api from the front facing website anyway.
Then, reddit double downed and spez just made a complete ass of himself. I could have done a better job as CEO, that guy is unqualified and delusional. If he stays at the helm reddit will surely sink
All they had to do was make a special agreement for 3rd party apps that require vetting to get cheaper API access. Then you can keep the higher price for other non mobile app uses. It’s still baffling that RIF had a profit sharing agreement with Reddit that /u/spez exited from and then goes onto act like they’re all freeloaders.
I did not know that RIF detail. It just gets worse.
The timeframe was also a big issue. The big apps already had people that paid for a year of the premium service and you can’t change the terms of an existing agreement. So even if they wanted to increase fees to pay reddit they’re not able to in this timeframe.
maybe I’m just not rich enough to understand, but I can’t imagine anyone would see this farce and think “yeah that’s a CEO I want to invest my money with” after all this. I really hope the IPO fails spectacularly
Still, with a chunk of Reddit shut down, there’s no initial public offering. So if Huffman really wants to go public, he will need to find a way to align moderators and investors. One option would be to pay mods, or – if they don’t want to become de-facto employees – reward them in other ways. For example, he has pledged to develop new tools to replace the beloved apps. Either path involves higher costs, and a more tortuous path to profitability.
In short, the mods have shown that Reddit needs a business-model tweak. And potential investors will want to see it in action before shelling out for the shares, which makes a rushed IPO seem unwise. The self-branded “front page of the internet” has been waiting to IPO since 2021; it may have to moderate its expectations again.
Gotta love it.
Honestly this is the thing that matters the most. He can not listen all he wants, but if he won’t, then fuck him and his IPO.
