Thousands of subreddits have “gone dark” in mass protest against Reddit‘s recent API policy changes. The moderators of these subreddits have set their communities private, blocking access for people who aren’t already subscribed. Some of these Reddit communities have more than 30 million subscribers.
This mass protest began on Monday, June 12. As of this writing, almost 8,000 subreddits have joined the protest. These include at least one with more than 40 million subscribers (r/funny) and five with over 30 million subscribers (r/aww, r/gaming, r/music, r/science, and r/todaylearned). A Twitch stream tracking the protest states that around 300 more subreddits have pledged to go dark. Among those is r/pics, which currently has 30.1 million subscribers.
Reddit CEO’s AMA with users seems to have further fueled the protest
The Reddit community announced this mass protest several days back after it emerged that the company’s new API policy severely affects third-party apps. It has set exorbitant prices for APIs, which have been free all this while. Unable to afford the cost, several Reddit apps are shutting down at the end of this month. These include some with millions of users, such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Sync, and ReddPlanet.
But when the Reddit community originally announced the protest, only around 3,000 subreddits pledged support. It appears thousands more have joined in recent days, particularly after Reddit CEO Steve Huffman’s AMA (ask me anything) with users on Friday. During the AMA, Huffman showed no signs of leniency toward third-party apps and instead lashed out at some developers.
The Reddit CEO made it clear that the company’s API prices are final and are in the best interest of its business. “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,” Huffman said on Friday. “We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive. Unlike some of the 3P [third-party] apps, we are not profitable.”
Many communities opted for an “indefinite” protest
Meanwhile, the mass protest from the Reddit community is growing. The original plan was to go dark for 48 hours, which ends today for most subreddits. However, dozens of them have called it an “indefinite” protest, so they may not be back until the company responds. It remains to be seen what Reddit has to say on the matter. For now, the company doesn’t seem to be worried much.
“We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private,” Huffman wrote in his AMA post last week. “We are all responsible for ensuring Reddit provides an open accessible place for people to find community and belonging.”