More than 7,000 Reddit communities have gone dark as of today to protest against the company's new developer billing structure. The blackout organizers are objecting to Reddit's upcoming hefty fee for API access, which will force many third-party app developers to shut down. As a result of the new fees, Apollo, the most popular third-party app for Reddit, will be shutting down at the end of this month. - According to Apollo developer Christian Selig, Reddit's new pricing would require him to pay $20M per year for his app.
- As a result of the changes, moderators of many subreddits, including popular ones like r/funny and r/gaming, have restricted access to their communities as of today.
- While some communities are privately protesting for 48 hours, others plan to stay private until the changes are addressed.
- Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has defended the API changes, saying that in order to become a self-sustaining business, the platform can no longer support commercial entities that rely on extensive data usage.
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