They don’t even want you to use the website I don’t think. They’ve even done experiments where they blocked people from using the mobile website. The more they want me to use their app, the more I want to avoid Reddit all together.
Tracking. Ads. Selling data etc.
To quote ljdawson, the dev of Sync for reddit: “Apart from crashes I don’t track shit.”
He was asked how many API calls Sync’s users have on average. He simply couldn’t answer. That’s why we loved 3rd party apps.
Control and money. They can serve more ads and harvest your data more easily if they control the platform
To them, loss of 3rd party users is insignificant because they’re users they weren’t able to monetize to begin with
If that insignificant number is disproportionately active users and moderators, then they will significantly feel it.
At least until they just have bots commenting, posting, and moderating.
Everyone says that the loss of these 3rd party app users will destroy them, but I disagree. I don’t think that the quality of experience is as closely linked to profitability as most people think. Ad-Clicking viewers of cat gifs are blissfully unaware of the current fiasco.
Bang on. Can’t serve you ads if they can’t control what’s on your screen.
Don’t know if it’s been posted yet… money
If they streamline how users get access to Reddit, then they get to determine what they see. Now the third-party apps will get killed, the access through mobile browsers will be limited with the idea to force users into the app, old-reddit will be gone at some point as well. And then Reddit can spam users with ads and also force users into buying premium services to see no/less ads. Since all alternative ways of using the website will be gone, people have to swallow that pill no matter how big it is.
Profit. Simple as that.
The third-party API doesn’t let them see how people interact with the app, only what the user is accessing.
It’s just to further monetize the user’s interactions and sell the data, because the executive team are greedy little pigboi.
Correct. Mobile apps get privileged access on your device which they use to track you. They don’t want third-party apps having all that data.
Just from using reddit, I can only really see a few ways for them to make money.
-
Subscriptions/awards. Not many people do this, certainly not enough to keep the doors open.
-
Advertisements
-
Selling user data
Let’s start with 2. The reason they re-designed the UI in both the app and the desktop version is because they need to create as much space as possible for them to put ads into- and still have it not be so annoying for the user that they stop using the site. Now, on the website they can still put adds on old.reddit, just not as many- so they haven’t come for that yet, because it isn’t draining nearly as much income as the mobile market. Their new mobile app does the same as the frontend redesign- it maximizes ad space, and also allows them to collect other user data such as location to sell to marketing agencies.
ALL of the alternative Reddit clients (or at least, all I have used) have adblocker built into them. For some of them, you pay the app for that- a payment which is often less than Reddit Gold is, and is usually a one-time payment. And these apps hold the user data that can actually be sold, like location. So third-party apps disrupt all three of Reddit’s possible revenue streams by having people not pay for premium to hide ads, by blocking advertisements anyway and denying Reddit the ad revenue for them, and by keeping the user’s data away from Reddit.
That’s why I think they made the API price so ridiculously high- it isn’t just meant to scare them away, it’s meant to be a reflection of what they feel they are losing in revenue from users using third party apps. If it was just about any one of the 3 points above, the rate would be much more reasonable- but it’s all 3.
Can’t people request to block tracking with apps on iOS? I don’t have an iPhone myself but my impression is that the do not track applies to apps.
-
Ads.
Not only ads, but their app is the only one that supported their NFT system. And their Twitter Spaces clone. And their upcoming shorts feature. And so on. They desperately want to be every other social network, and that means copying features that are mobile-centric.
I really don’t get why all these social platforms try so hard to just be copies of each other. I like having diverse and different platforms for different things. Once they all started homogenizing, I really stopped using most social media.
And when LinkedIn added their ripoff of Instagram Stories I was like…aaaaand that’s it for me. Why does a professional site need a stories feature?
Because companies don’t want money. They don’t want a lot of money. They want ALL the money. If another company has a feature that people like and use, then this company wants that money as well. So they either buy that other company or copy and push the feature in the hopes of converting users.
This is why YouTube has these asinine shorts shoved into your layout. They know YT users don’t want them. This is why you can’t disable them. They know that another company makes money with shorts and they want it - so YOU are gonna use them goddammit.
A third party YouTube app doesn’t have to show these shorts so YT wouldn’t be able to pressure their users into consuming that format.
I happen to like the shorts. I only wish your shirts subscriptions were separate from your regular subscriptions. Otherwise I don’t have any issues with it.
However, I do know a lot of people do take issue with it, and that’s okay!
I heard they are planning on adding pants soon, cant wait to see the drama around it
YouTube Pants™ coming soon to a mobile app near you!
LinkedIn is the most stupid thing because it is a fucking job board that wants to play to be Facebook and is the most unnecesary thing in the world. Before the Instagram Stories clone they were already too far by adding like 20 other social network features that a page like LinkedIn doesn’t need.
Yeah they really took it downhill dramatically didn’t they?
This kind of feature creep was also common in the web2.0 days. Lots of forum plugins were basically “you can have a facebook profile and feed page and a twitter feed, but they’re all
wish.comequivalents because they’re locally hosted and can only be seen by the other people on this forum”. These features were generally quite popular too, heck I installed a few on my own forum. Besides money and things, I think it’s enticing to want to make your site into a “one stop” site. Throw in the fact that these are all capitalist hegemons trying to become the next ring to rule them all, and I think you’ve got your answer.That’s precisely what they don’t want. The modern fight isn’t directly for your money, but for your time.
If you’re binge watching Netflix… You’re not playing a Nintendo game. If you’re playing a Nintendo game… You’re not listening to Spotify. Or going to the movie theater. And so on.
For social media platforms it’s the same. People like short videos now? Well, if Facebook doesn’t add them to their app you’ll close it and go browse TikTok. In the next board meeting, executives are going to ask the team why the hell are they not working on adding short videos.
It’s a vicious battle for your time, and then figuring out later how to monetize that attention. Usually ads.
A platform’s development is entirely in the hands of its userbase. If the users stay on the platform longer due to a change, they’ll make that change and keep it. It just so happens that humans like what humans like, so all social media tries to cater to the same things that humans like, which leads them to implementing the same features because it drives engagement. It’s a trend towards mediocrity.
I understand the logical concept here but struggle to really get it. As platforms do this homogenization, I lose interest in all of them. I’d far rather have several platforma that do one or two things really, really well instead of a bunch of platforms that do everything, but poorly.
I like your comment about a trend toward mediocrity!
Oh sure, they push away some subset of users, but there are large swaths of the population that it appeals to. Significantly more than it annoys.
I have to say, there’s something peak hilarious to imagining someone at redsit huffing and puffing that "THEY’RE NOT USING OUR NFT’s!
Oh dear god, not Shorts… Everyone’s trying to copy the TikTok model with Shorts…
I hate, hate HATE shorts, especially on YouTube.
For my work I sometimes produce 30-60 econd video clips and trying to show them to a client when YT insists on having them in the Shorts format is frustrating. I realise I can change the URL manually to override it, but it’s just so stupid. And it also means I can set a custom thumbnail, as Shorts desnt allow that.
They’ve gotta reclaim all that lost valuation for their IPO somehow!
Eyes on ads
Click through data
Ad impressions
This is why the often run “experiments”.
A native app offers the most control. Ad blockers are harder to obtain and use.
I’d say at least a good chunk of third party app users would eventually figure out about Revanced
Revanced manager already has patched for reddit
Ads and data mining
Money. Not only can they better monetize it, it makes their numbers look better for the potential IPO.
The IPO is everything, I’m sure. So much of any valuation is entirely speculative, but the higher that speculation is the more money the stakeholders will be able to get out when they sell.
Presumably spez is a major stakeholder, and if so, a short-term inflation of particular usage metrics would directly mean more dollars in his pocket when they sell. It doesn’t matter if it then all falls over in a heap, if the monetisation isn’t actually viable; he (and others) have already cashed out, and the folks who bought into the valuation are left holding the bag.
Money. It’s always just money.
Ads and tracking.
So $$$.
They can force-feed ads to you and track your every click and sell that gobs of data to companies using it to make more $$ and to further develop their tracking to make yet more $$$
So, as always, the answer to such questions is: Money.
