Here is why thousands of sub-Reddits are going dark in the next two days.
If you are an average Reddit consumer, you might notice a couple of your go-to sub-Reddits turning private. This "blackout" is a widespread protest that thousands of sub-Reddits have participated in - some for the next 48 hours, and some indefinitely. The 18-year-old social media is facing this protest due to Reddit's drastic monetization plans which would cease countless third-party operations. More info below.
Reddit to launch drastic plans to monetize data
On April 19 2023, Reddit announced that it'll start charging users for any use of its Application Programming Interface (API), or in simple language, its data, from June 16 onwards. Although this policy will not affect users with "academic or non-commercial purposes", a plethora of third-party applications will face the brunt of this change.
One of the third-party apps that will take a painful hit is the feed app, Apollo. Apollo allows users to browse Reddit more efficiently with extra features of sorts and it hosts more than 1.5 million users daily.
According to Apollo's creator, Christian Selig, Reddit is asking developers to pay $12,000 for every 50 million requests. This would result in 20 million USD for a year, which he deems extreme pricing.
Consequently, many third-party apps would suffer the payment or they will have to shut down. Due to this, Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Sync, and ReddPlanet have all announced that they will pull the plug on their operations.
"Apollo will close down on June 30th. Reddit’s recent decisions and actions have unfortunately made it impossible for Apollo to continue," Apollo's creator tweeted.
There were tons of backlash against this revelation, not only from developers but users worldwide. However, a recent Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) by Reddit's CEO, Steve Huffman, only fanned the flames. He had not only defended the monetization plan but also gave foul comments to the creator of Apollo in the AMA thread.
Source: r/reddit
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Reddit Blackout begins following monetization protest
Reddit's monetization policy and its CEO's disastrous AMA caused Reddit users to plunge into a massive protest. The Reddit Blackout was planned by sub-Reddit moderators and users to stop members from accessing the forum content. The blackout on the $10 billion dollar platform starts on Monday and will end after 48 hours. However, some sub-Reddit moderators will continue the blackout until Reddit reverses the monetization policy.
As of now, more than 6,500 sub-Reddits have joined the blackout including popular sub-Reddits such as r/gaming and r/Music. An example of a server blackout can be seen below.
You will land on this prompt that stops you from accessing the sub-Reddit. A message at the bottom will read: "The moderators of [sub-reddit] have set this community as private. Only approved members can view and take part in its discussions."
We will continue covering the Reddit Blackout on our site. Until then, stay tuned on Esports.gg for more gaming news and updates!
