The Reddit API protest started recently, and users are taking down their Subreddits to protest the website’s high-price policy and other changes that are on the way. Today, we will explain the protest’s details and talk about the Subreddits going dark list.
Thousands of Reddit groups, commonly called subreddits, will go black from June 12 to June 14 in protest of upcoming API changes that will basically kill off many third-party applications.
Reddit, which calls itself the “front page of the internet,” is among the top 20 most visited sites and has an estimated 430 million active users every month. However, the latest policies may change this in the future if the website board decides to pursue the changes.
What is Reddit API protest, and why is the “subreddits going dark list” expanding?
Application programming interfaces, or APIs, are regarded as the foundation of the contemporary web. Simply said, they enable the exchange of information between two apps, enabling the creation of additional features and capabilities.
Reddit has, up to now, provided open access to its API. On the other hand, the business said on April 18 that, starting July 1, 2023, it will be charging developers for API access as part of an update to its API conditions. After Twitter announced it was suspending all third-party apps and requiring users to use its official app and website, Reddit made its choice a few months later.
Reddit’s CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman stated that “more than any other place on the internet, Reddit is a home for authentic conversation” in an interview with the New York Times from April. However, the Reddit API protest might take that title from Huffman’s website. The “subreddits going dark list” proves it right.
Crawling Reddit, generating value and not returning any of that value to our users is something we have a problem with.
Steve Huffman, CEO and co-founder of Reddit
What will change for Reddit and its users?
The Reddit we’ll see over the coming days could be a mere shell of what it once was. Reddit’s upcoming API changes have prompted more than 100 subreddits to go black so far, and many more are expected to do the same, according to the website Reddark. It is a website that keeps track of subreddits that are going down one by one.
A lot of third-party applications, such as Apollo and rif is fun for Reddit, will be forced to shut down as a result of API modifications, which is why there are objections. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman’s recent replies had intensified the community’s opposition, which was already simmering when developers started responding to the changes this week.
The Apollo app’s creator, Christian Selig, estimates that at the current rate of seven billion monthly queries, the increased fee would cost him $20 million per year to maintain operations.
Apollo will close down on June 30th. Reddit’s recent decisions and actions have unfortunately made it impossible for Apollo to continue. Thank you so, so much for all the support over the years. ❤️ https://t.co/HOJaLMW8fx
— Christian Selig (@ChristianSelig) June 8, 2023
Other well-known applications, such as Reddit is Fun, Sync, and Reddplant, have also declared their closure as a result of the costs.
Huffman, who goes by u/spez, defended the changes in an exciting “Ask Me Anything” open forum on Friday in response to user outrage. He said: “Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use.” Huffman affirmed that the business has no intentions to reverse the upcoming API modifications in spite of strong opposition.
Here is the subreddits going dark list
The “subreddits going dark list” expands as more admins and users join the protest. However, we listed some of the most popular ones. Here are some of the most known subreddits on the website that will go dark for the Reddit API protest:
- r/funny (49 million subscribers)
- r/gaming (37 million)
- r/aww (34 million)
- r/todayilearned (31 million)
- r/Pics (30 million)
- r/Videos (26 million)
- r/Music (23 million)
- r/food (23 million)
- r/Art (22 million)
- r/gadgets (21 million)
- r/sports (20 million)
