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Reddit—Implemented API pricing that forced closure of popular third-party apps

In June 2023, Reddit implemented API pricing changes that effectively killed third-party apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync. The pricing ($12,000 per 50 million requests) was prohibitively expensive. Over 8,000 subreddits participated in blackout protests. CEO Steve Huffman compared volunteer moderators to 'landed gentry' during the controversy.

Scoring Impact

TopicDirectionRelevanceContribution
Worker Rights-againstprimary-1.00
Overall incident score =-0.590

Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.59)

Evidence (1 signal)

Confirms Policy Change Jun 12, 2023 verified

Implemented API pricing that forced closure of popular third-party apps

In June 2023, Reddit implemented API pricing changes that effectively killed third-party apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync. The pricing ($12,000 per 50 million requests) was prohibitively expensive. Over 8,000 subreddits participated in blackout protests. CEO Steve Huffman compared volunteer moderators to 'landed gentry' during the controversy.

The Verge(opens in new tab),Business Insider(opens in new tab)

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