Thousands of Subreddits Protest on Platform Against New Payment Conditions

Reddit, the world’s largest online discussion platform, has seen thousands of subreddits go dark in protest against new payment conditions announced by the American tech company. This has made several discussion groups inaccessible to users, and some subreddits have millions of members making the protests significant. The protest is likely to last until Wednesday.

Starting July 1, 2021, independent app developers will have to pay to access the content posted on Reddit, which has left the moderators of discussion groups angry. These app developers who develop their own app versions for Reddit were popular because users claimed they were better than Reddit’s own app. However, Reddit has announced that it will now charge app developers for displaying Reddit’s content on their apps.

A popular third-party app, Apollo, has already announced that it will stop because it will be “unprofitable” to keep the app available otherwise. The Apollo developer, Christian Selig, estimated that they would have to pay Reddit around $20 million annually to continue providing their content on their app. Due to the high costs, Selig said that he will be losing money every month.

Despite the protests, Reddit has refused to roll back its new payment conditions stating that “Reddit must be a self-sustaining company”. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman explained that they can no longer subsidize commercial companies that use data at scale.

Among the Dutch subreddits protesting is r/theNetherlands with 800,000 members and r/Eredivisie with over 70,000 members. The most popular subreddit that has gone dark in protest is r/funny, with over 40 million members. Normally, the subreddit is packed with jokes and humorous content, but now users receive a message that the page is private.

The ongoing protest showcases the anger and frustration of independent app developers and moderators of discussion groups. It puts Reddit’s self-sustaining business approach in tension with the users and developers who contribute to the platform’s success. The protests may lead to a significant decline in Reddit’s popularity among its users if not resolved amicably.