Reddit Communities Resume Operations Amid Monetization Fears
A 48-hour strike by Reddit communities, a protest against the platform’s plans to charge third-party companies and application developers for access to data and the service’s API, has not swayed the company’s resolve to monetize it.
In fact, the decision by some subreddits to extend the strike indefinitely met with a firm response from the administration, which threatened moderators with replacement if they didn’t fulfill their direct duties. This forced many subreddits to reopen access to their forums, stating they did so solely due to the company’s threats. “You are seeing this post because Reddit threatened to open the subreddits irrespective of the mods’ actions and replace entire teams in the case of their refusal to restore access,” wrote one of the moderators in a post.
However, some subreddits with millions of subscribers, including r/music and r/aww, continue to operate either in private or in a restricted mode.
Commenting on the situation, Steve Huffman, the founder and CEO of Reddit, compared the protesting moderators to “landlords” in an interview with NBC News. He added, “People who became moderators first stay in place and pass this place to their descendants, which is undemocratic.” In an interview with NPR, Huffman said, “This is a small group that is very upset, but there’s no escaping it,” noting that the real victims of the protests are the “regular users.”
Reddit also reported that over 80% of the top 5,000 Reddit communities (based on the number of daily active users) were open as of June 15, attempting to downplay the impact of the strike. Trying to put a positive spin on the matter, Reddit announced that assistive apps, such as Luna, Dystopia, and Redreader, had signed separate agreements, which will allow them to continue operating, despite upcoming changes to the platform related to the monetization of API access.
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- I'm Vasyl Kolomiiets, a seasoned tech journalist regularly contributing to global publications. Having a profound background in information technologies, I seamlessly blended my technical expertise with my passion for writing, venturing into technology journalism. I've covered a wide range of topics including cutting-edge developments and their impacts on society, contributing to leading tech platforms.
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