Let’s be absolutely clear, they didn’t just kill third-party apps.
And to be fair, third party apps often bypassed their ads. So Reddit had a legitimate grievance there. The apps were contributing nothing, were collecting money from Reddit users, and the app I’m going to talk about, Apollo, actually had a recurring subscription if you weren’t one of the first ones to buy it.
So Apollo was kind of the big dog and so Reddit basically went after them primarily. After the conversation did not go well for Reddit, Reddit’s CEO started telling everyone that the Apollo dev tried to extort Reddit. The Apollo dev did make a joke about money changing hands, but he absolutely did not extort Reddit, and he brought the receipts. He transcribed the call… for those who didn’t have time to listen to the actual recording, which he also shared.
With a big pie in their face, Reddit reacted by killing third-party apps entirely. And it was mostly based on a lie.
Reddit is run by the Epstein class anyway. Heck, I was banned just for suggesting longer prison terms for people who prey upon children. I guess they took that as a threat against their leadership? And/or certain politicians who they support (or who support them)?
tangentism@beehaw.org 7 hours ago
It did because there was a noticeable quality bump after third party apps were cut off so while it didn’t cause most users to leave, it made a substantiative jump further down the enshittification path that will eventually alienate everyone.