Alex Omenye
Numerous discussion forums on Reddit have undergone a temporary closure, known as “going dark,” as a form of protest against the company’s decision to impose charges on third-party applications for accessing the site’s API.
According to CNBC, the protest which started on Monday is expected to last for a duration of two days.
During the blackout, participating subreddits will be private, preventing both non-subscribers and subscribers from viewing or posting on new or updated content. Many subreddits that are protesting will be read-only.
Participants are urged to voice their opposition to the API changes by submitting unfavourable evaluations of the official Reddit app and by boycotting the website in favour of non-Reddit platforms in order to reduce traffic to the site.
A third-party app’s ability to communicate with a website through API access has previously been free.
All user interactions with a third-party app, including upvoting, commenting, browsing subreddits, and other actions, need API requests.
Beginning July 1, API usage-based pricing will apply, making it prohibitively expensive for many third-party programmes.
Many independent makers of popular programmes, such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync, have stated plans to cease down by June 30 due to the expense. According to a recent blog post by Apollo creator Christian Selig, the new pricing would cost Apollo $20 million year and is “just not economically feasible” even if the app raised its subscription prices.
The firm is not planning any additional API upgrades, according to a Reddit spokesman, and the pricing adjustments are based on usage levels that the company considers to be equal to its own costs.