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After a large protest against Reddit’s API changes ends on June 14, over 300 subreddits, including r/aww, r/music, r/videos, and r/futurology, will go dark indefinitely. This blackout prevents access to these communities.
After The Verge reported that Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said “Like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well” in an internal memo, this step was taken. In the memo, Huffman said the blackout hasn’t affected revenue.
On June 12-14, thousands of subreddits went dark to protest API changes that could shut down many third-party apps. On June 12, these subreddits went dark, causing a brief outage. According to a Twitter post, this blackout affected most Reddit activity. According to Huffman’s memo, many subreddits will be active on Wednesday. Developers created a subreddit tracker to inform users of dark, restricted, and public subreddits.
Reddit mods are planning a blackout tomorrow. While it is only around 5K subreddits, turns out a *large* portion of Reddit will go dark.https://t.co/HMhgEeO5l1 pic.twitter.com/PdDxj9SNYr
— Joao Neto (@joao_p_n) June 11, 2023
Several subreddits are extending the blackout to June 20 and ready to extend it indefinitely.
Reddit announced its API fee in April. In a call with Reddit earlier this month, Apollo developer Christian Selig learned about unaffordable API pricing. He closed the Apollo on June 30 after the company refused to negotiate. Sync for Reddit, ReddPlanet, and ReddIsFun also closed.
Huffman defended the new API pricing and criticized Apollo and Selig in an AMA. Reddit, unlike some third-party apps, is not profitable and will “continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive.”
Given that Reddit may go public this year, its strategy to make more money isn’t surprising. Last week, the social media platform cut 5% of its staff and slowed hiring to save money.
