Reddit Communities Temporarily Go Private in Protest Against API Fees

• Some communities, including major crypto subreddits, have opted to go private for 48 hours.
• One of the modifications is a restriction on users’ ability to freely use APIs and other tools.

As a form of protest against Reddit’s contentious charges against developers of third-party applications, some communities, including major crypto subreddits, have opted to go private for 48 hours.

Five of the top 10 communities on the site, with memberships of more than 30 million people each (r/gaming, r/aww, r/Music, r/todayilearned, and r/pics), are among the 3,489 subreddits that have gone black in protest.

High Fees for Using APIs

Moderators play a crucial role in the operation of Reddit. However, in April, the social media business revealed that it will be updating its interface. One of the modifications is a restriction on users’ ability to freely use APIs and other tools.

Before Reddit’s official app was released in 2016. Users had to rely on third-party applications like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Sync, and ReddPlanet. In order to access the site from their mobile devices.

Now, Reddit has implemented a set of fees for programmers who desire to keep using its Application Programming Interface (API). It is the back-end code that enables third-party applications to discover and display content from Reddit. Because of Reddit’s increased API fees, all four of these applications have announced they would be closing down.

Popular crypto subreddits such as r/Bitcoin, r/CryptoCurrency, and r/Cardano are vocally opposing the move. Between June 12 and 14, hundreds of subreddits, including these, will be locked or restricted to readers only in protest of the changes.

In addition to planning for an IPO, Reddit is demanding that developers pay $12,000 for 50 million requests. The developer working on Apollo estimated that using Reddit’s APIs would cost his company $20M annually.

The community is asking Reddit to take back the modifications, and the protest might go longer than 48 hours on certain subreddits.