This article from TechCrunch had a line that really confirmed some suspicions I’d had about this:
[Spez] told the publication that he was the person inside the company who was responsible for this policy change that affect these apps.
If you thought Reddit’s absolute refusal to do anything in light of all the bad press was borderline sociopathic, there you go. Spez is taking all of this personally.
There was a way for everyone to win here, given some concessions. Yet no. Huffman decides to go nuclear with the API pricing to try to maximize profitability. This seems to tell me that the way Reddit was sold to investors it was way over valued.
YET, I still firmly believe that Reddit does not know what to do with its user data, or has not figured a way to conveniently, and concisely package it in any usable manner. As is, Reddit should be profitable based on the data users provide. Facebook does it with user data and remains free to use. This might explain some of the weird development choices Reddit has made over the years with new Reddit and the mobile app. They’re trying to shoehorn users into a system that allows their data to be usable, yet a large portion of the user base hasn’t followed along. They’ve utilized RES. old Reddit, and 3rd party apps instead of the official app which tries to compile user data into something that can be more easily packaged into something that can be sold to advertisers.
Now they’re on their 3rd year trying to go public, and they haven’t made measurable progress. Investors are waiting for their return, and Huffman is under the gun to produce some measured result…hence the API pricing and this nuclear option.
It’s a nearly 20 year old company that does not have a financially sustainable, robust business model (contrary to lemonade stands). It might be profitable, despite what they claim, but they are still just shooting in the dark, randomly iterating ideas.
These leaders are fucking jokes, they wouldn’t get hired as junior analyst at any consultancy/bank.
I wish they actually did a bit of research on why people are protesting. Saying the third party apps simply “keep communities vibrant” completely misses some major points. Personally, I’m more furious how spez handled the AMA. He showed that the reddit staff has no interest in listening to anything that concerns the community. We’re all just an obstacle between them and their deserved money.
while this article sheds light from another angle on the investablility of reddit as a commercial property, it still misses the mark regarding the real issues that spez has caused while making the mods appear as somewhat entitled thugs rather than the exploited laborers that they are. in any case, spez is made to look incompetent nonetheless.
i think the clock is ticking for either spez to walk things back, renegotiate API terms, or simply resign. I believe the latter will be the well-earned end result.
