Reddit Blackout: Thousands of Subreddits Go Dark to Protest Company’s Move to Charge Third-Party Apps for Access

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Thousands of Reddit discussion forums have “gone dark” — temporarily closing their virtual doors — for what’s planned as a two-day protest over the company’s move to charge third-party apps for API access to the site.

More than 6,500 subreddits as of Monday morning have gone dark, according to Reddark, a site that’s tracking the shutdowns. Those joining in the blackout include some of the most popular subreddits on the site, including r/funny, r/science, r/gaming, r/aww, r/Music, r/todayilearned and r/pics. “/r/Funny has gone private as part of the coordinated protest against Reddit’s exorbitant new API pricing,” says a notice on the forum’s landing page. “This community has shut down and will not grant access requests during the protest.” What kicked off the backlash: On April 18, Reddit announced it would start charging for access to its application programming interface (API) for third parties who “require additional capabilities and higher usage limits.” The new pricing is supposed to go into effect July 1, 2023.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, in a post Friday, acknowledged “frustration” among many moderators about the policy change. But, he said, “Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use.” Some app developers say they’ll be forced to shut down because of Reddit’s move to monetize API access.

Christian Selig, developer of Reddit client app Apollo, said Reddit’s new pricing would cost him as much as $20 million per year — and therefore Apollo expects to shut down on June 30.