Tag: third-party apps

Reddit Says 80 Percent Top Subreddits Open After Blackout Over API Pricing Protest

Reddit said that most of the company’s communities were operating as normal — four days after a protest that shut down thousands of its online forums in protest over its plans to raise fees. In a blog post-Thursday, the company said that 80 percent of its top subreddits, or digital message boards, are currently open. The post was Reddit’s first since June 9. 

The website Reddark, which has been tracking the blackout on the site, indicated on Thursday evening that more than 5,000 subreddits still were limiting access to their content. That’s lower than the almost 9,000 forums that initially pledged to go dark for a protest starting on June 12, which was slated to last at least two days.  

The dissent stems from Reddit’s decision to charge for access to its application programming interface, or API, which allows developers to embed Reddit’s functionality into their own apps. The developer of one popular app, called Apollo, wrote that he would have to pay Reddit $20 million (roughly Rs. 160 crore) a year to continue operating under the new pricing policy. Apollo plans to shut down on June 30, the day before Reddit’s pricing change will take effect. 

Reddit has defended its decision to start charging its biggest users, who rely on its technology to make apps for browsing the site and organizing its troves of posts and data. It also responded to concerns over the fate of accessibility-focused apps, such as those geared at reading posts to the visually impaired, and said certain apps would be exempt from the new charges.

In Thursday’s post, Reddit said that 98 percent of third-party apps wouldn’t have to pay anything under the new fee structure, and that the fees it would charge developers were in line with its own costs.

“Mods and users want communities to be open and accessible,” the company wrote, and after expressing their point of view “many communities have decided to reopen.”

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Reddit’s New API Policy Forces Third Party Apps Like Apollo, Sync, RIF, More to Shut Down

Reddit will implement a new API policy on July 1 that would charge excessive fees to developers of third-party apps for the website, thereby resulting in the shutdown of many popular applications such as Reddit is Fun (RIF), Sync for Reddit, Apollo, and ReddPlanet. Apps like BoostForReddit and BaconReader have not outrightly confirmed their shutdown yet. The new API pricing plans will end up costing third-party apps millions of dollars each year to keep their businesses running which is financially untenable for any indie developer.

Several third-party Reddit apps announced today that their apps will shut down on June 30. Among those apps, some of the major ones are Apollo, Sync for Reddit, Reddit is Fun, Infinity for Reddit, and ReddPlanet. These third-party apps helped users on iOS and Android smartphones to access Reddit easily and with a customised user interface before Reddit had its mobile app. Even after the official app launched, many users favoured the flexibility of third-party apps.

The new paid API that Reddit announced last month is the major reason behind these apps shutting down. Apollo, an iOS-exclusive app, said that they were forced to shut down operations because the new pricing would make them pay over $20 million (roughly Rs. 160 crore) per year, which is way more than these third-party apps can afford.

With these new API restrictions, the third-party apps would not also be allowed to run advertisements or show any explicit content on their platform, among other imposed rules. Apps like Bacon Reader and Boost for Reddit have not yet announced an official shutdown of operations.

Reddit had previously said that they do not want to restrict API access for third-party apps. But the new API pricing is an excessive amount for any small-time application developers. Apollo developer Christian Selig pointed out that no matter the cost and API price did not match up. Reddit said on Wednesday that they will work on an exemption for some of these apps that are non-commercial.

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Twitter Confirms It Intentionally Blocked Access for Third-Party Apps Like Tweetbot, Twitterrific

Twitter access went down for third-party apps that utilise the popular microblogging site’s API last week. Users were unable to access their accounts on third-party Twitter apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific. Amid claims from developers that the Elon Musk-owned platform intentionally blocked their apps, Twitter has now issued a statement revealing that it did revoke access for third-party apps on purpose. In a brief tweet, the official TwitterDev account (@TwitterDev) said on Tuesday that the website was enforcing its “long-standing API rules.”

The tweet added that the move might result in some apps not working. The Twitter Dev account, however, did not elaborate on what its long-standing API rules were, or why the site chose to enforce them now.

The tweet, however, did come as confirmation for what third-party developers already suspected — apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific did not lose access to Twitter as result of a bug, but were instead blocked by the microblogging site from utilising its API intentionally. An API is a software interface that allows communication between two or more programs. All Twitter third-party clients utilise the Twitter API to access the service.

Twitter’s confirmation comes after Tweetbot developers had decried the platform’s silence over the blocked access. Tweetbot co-creator Paul Haddad had said in a Mastodon post that he had not received any communication, officially or unofficially, from anyone at Twitter. Tweetbot lost access initially, along with Twitterrific, and the former briefly resumed working on Sunday when the developers swapped out its API keys, only to be blocked again.

Haddad, in a Mastodon post also responded to Twitter’s vague confirmation, saying “I want to publicly apologize to Twitter for breaking its long-standing API rule of ___.”

According to a report earlier this week, Twitter’s internal Slack communication mentioned that the site had revoked third-party access on purpose. As previously mentioned, Twitter is yet to provide clarity on which rules were broken by the popular third-party apps.

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