Reddit is fighting a war, again!

50% subreddits are hidden to protest the "greedy" API pricing by Reddit. Community moderators are showing off their power. Reddit isn't budging. This is an all out war. It isn't new but.

Hola! This is Shantanu. I write on business, marketing and culture topics weekly out of Singapore. Today my writing spot is the Star Vista Mall in Bouna Vista. It was supposed to be NTU alumni club but the air conditioning made me run away. It was cold and I was wearing shorts without socks. The Star Vista is a good spot - just enough people, plenty of spaces to sit and work, and a good view (unlike the packed malls).

Weekends in SG are unique - the financial centre is empty, the shopping center of Orchard is crazy packed, and other parts are relaxed. Bouna Vista seems a relaxed kind of area. I like this.

Before we move on, tell me, tell me -

Have you found your “ice cream” yet? 😉

I encourage people around me to be brave - chase ambition without the shame of outcomes. My school-time “almost-bestie” has started capturing her fitness journey on a new Instagram page - WeGoGymToday. Possibly the strongest person I have come across in life. Her ice cream is fitness💪 She has done well in life, and will continue doing so - she is a fighter. If you like something and want to do more - please start today. The first step is the easiest in reality, but the most difficult mentally. Don’t let your mind play games and prevent you from starting. Cheers!

Moving on - I have been writing personal stories for the past few weeks. Last week got too personal and I want to get out of it. So for the next few weeks, I will focus on business and marketing. Reddit has been on my mind for some time. I have been positively surprised by this platform’s engagement quality.

Reddit management isn’t happy right now, unlike the mascot Snoo here

I started using Reddit 2 years back to ask questions about NTU. I was about to start my MBA and it was difficult to get a true picture of the school. I found Reddit to be crudely honest. People responded fast, actually answered questions, and gave detailed replies. Look at this - Which hall is 30 Nanyang Link? - even Google didn’t have the right answer. Long before AI chatbots came in, Reddit was a true assistant for any doubts. You can look at my Reddit questions and answers here. Recently I have been sharing supplement information with the help of perplexity AI.

Reddit is in a war, results are awaited.

Last week, Reddit broke out into an all-out war. Here is what happened -

1. Reddit decided to start charging companies for accessing its data (via APIs).

2. Third-party apps claimed the charge is too high. They refused to pay 4x more than their revenue. Most have decided to shut down on 30 June.

3. The protagonists of the war are CEO Steve Huffman, Christian Selig (developer of Apollo app), and Reddit Moderators.

4. Reddit CEO conducted an AMA (ask me anything)- after the AMA, moderators have further agonized.

5. Reddit is sticking to the pricing change. It claims that it is essential to make profits for the business given its scheduled IPO. Moderators are sticking to their guns, their logic being the pricing is unfair and meant to shut out 3rd party app developers.

If you want to read the details of what happened between Reddit CEO and Christian Selig, head to the Verge article on the issue.

Look at these messages -

r/gameofthrones is private and threatening to shut down forever

r/Theorryofreddit is extending the protest period.

Reddit is attacking claims by protestors by doing an audit

Reddit has taken actions to ensure they still help moderators - allowing up to 100 API calls per minute.

As of July 1, 2023, we are increasing the API limits for our free API usage from 60 to 100 Queries Per Minute for those using OAuth authentication.

Edit on June 15, 2023: We’ve seen lots of questions, and have confirmed today that fewer than 100 bots total (including both moderation and non-moderation bots) currently exceed our updated free API Rate limits of 100 Queries Per Minute for those using OAuth authentication. We've allowlisted all the bots that we can see are owned by moderators or taking moderator actions (out of the thousands of moderation bots that exist, less than 20 exceed the updated rate limits).

Anyways, we don’t need to get into specifics. The parties fighting the war will resolve it - we are an audience. It is interesting because the same communities that Reddit is built on is fighting against the central authority - the Reddit Management. I would get into the learnings from the crisis management and winnings for each party after the saga comes to an end.

Right now both parties are fighting for their survival. Both have pretty valid points. Where will they find a middle ground? I don’t know. But Reddit is not going to disappear. It is the best community-based social media platform out there.

Reddit is the best and it won’t go anywhere

Here is why I feel Reddit is the best - better than Discord, Twitter, Facebook, and any other social platform combined.

1. Reddit is built on communities, unlike Instagram, Facebook, Quora, or Discord. The communities roll-up and complete the platform. There are a total of 8800 subreddits - possibly addressing every specific niche in the world. You can find them here.

2. Each community has a very specific purpose - r/funny makes you laugh, r/skincareAddiction handles everything on skincare, and r/aww shares everything cute. I go to r/NTU for everything related to NTU matters - ranting, questions, polls, and opinions.

3. Reddit users are rated by the Karma system. Your credibility goes up as contribute positively. You get negative points for spam, misinformation, spreading hate, and not following rules.

4. Communities have defined rules they operate by. Don’t dare to break those rules - you will be banned or deleted. It is a rule-based society, unlike a lot of places on Earth.

5. Everyone is anonymous on Reddit. Now people can share their names and other details - however, 99.9% of Reditters are anonymous. This is quite distinct from the world of Instagram and Tiktok where your identity, face, and body determine your success. You must have good knowledge and writing capability to succeed on Reddit. You have to consistently deliver value to the system to level up. I would say the Reddit system is meritocracy based.

6. Each community has a group of active moderators managing the community. Moderators are users with high Karma. They do a pretty awesome job, like a company CEO.

7. Almost every type of content is allowed on Reddit - even porn and hate. Roughly 20-24% of subreddits are NFSW. Lately, they have started curbing hate and harassment as shown in the 2020 new policy announcement below.

8. Finally, moderation is top-notch. There are automated bots tracking your activities, ensuring you stick to the rules, and banning and removing rule-breakers. Moderators take community management seriously and track everything happening in their community. Moderation is effective because policymaking is strong. Look at the policy document below and assess for yourself. This is just a small snippet of policies that run the communities.

Reddit’s policy update of 2020

I have spent the whole day on Reddit reading major announcements and discussions. They are fascinating. I have collated a bunch of those while building the draft for this edition. I cannot paste all of them here because you might tired. If you are interested, you can head over to the Google Doc here.

This isn’t Reddit’s first war.

Reddit has faced backlash several times. In fact there is a Wikipedia page detailing these events. However, let’s look at the 3 recent backlashes.

1. 2015 - Reddit banned multiple subreddits and fired Victoria Taylor, the talent director at the company. She was widly famous among the moderators. They staged protest to remove the then CEO, Ellen Pao. After 160K signatures on the petition, she resigned. Reddit also accepted its failures - lack of proper moderator tools and the communication gap with communities. They released a Sorry Note, which is a fascinating read in itself.

2. 2020 - Reddit banned 2000 subreddits post the 2020 New Content Policy to handle hate and racism on the platform. The events were insinuated after the murder of African Amaerican by police authorities. I could not find exact happenings on Reddit during the time but I can imagine the whole place would have gone nuts - White vs Black debate in full glory.
   The simpler old content policies or rules is a powerful set in itself. I think I should do a breakdown of the 8 rules.

3. 2023 - This we talked about today. Reddit is about to go for its IPO and needs to fix its revenue streams. So it increased its API charges. Moderators did not like this. They use third party apps to manage their communities. These apss are shutting down after an increase in prices.

Reddit has been strong after every backlash. It has constructively engaged crisis and came out stronger. I believe it will happen this time too.

Okay that’s a wrap for this week 30 edition. I know there is a bunch of reading material I have given you this week. You might want to come back and go through the specific reddit announcements - they are exemplary.

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For next week, I am thinking of sharing advertising playbook for DTC brands. It builds on my learnings over the past 2 months.

Thanks for reading till the end. I feel blessed 😇

Hahah, yes Jisoo is looking at you. Okay bye! 🤗