Thousands Of Subreddits Go Dark To Protest API Pricing Announcement, Including r/Malaysia

Have you tried heading over to Reddit, only to find that many of the subreddits have gone private? This is because thousands of them are protesting upcoming changes to the way the site works with third-party apps. More specifically, the site will start charging third-party app makers extremely high fees for API access. As a result, many communities are taking part in a 48-hour blackout.

Many of the most popular subreddits, like r/funny, r/gaming and r/memes have been made private as part of their involvement with the protest against the Reddit API pricing announcement. According to a post in the still open r/ModCoord, a moderator coordination community, the current number of subreddits participating in the blackout is 7,266, with a total subscriber count of over 2.6 billion. Listed among them are r/Malaysia and r/Malaysians.

Though it’s worth noting that the post does not distinguish between subreddits that are strictly sticking to the 48-hour time window and those that are doing so indefinitely. Some of the notable ones that fall in the latter category include r/iPhone.

Reddit first announced that it will be charging API access slightly under two weeks ago, going into effect later this month. One of the third parties hit by this was the Apollo app on iOS, which provided an improved browsing experience for the site. Its developer, Christian Selig, shared that once these API prices go into effect, it will cost the app US$20 million (~RM92.35 million) a year to keep it running. Seeing that as untenable, Selig decided that Apollo will be shut down, naturally upsetting its many users.

Following this was the Ask Me Anything (AMA) session held by Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman, which went poorly to say the least. Due to the poor responses and the shortage of answers (the latter being especially ironic for an AMA), the mods of some subreddits decided that they would be protesting indefinitely, until the company walks back on the API pricing.

(Source: Reddit [1], [2], [3], [4])