hey everybody how's it going I hope
you're having a lovely day today I'd
like to discuss how Reddit a website
that was critical to me developing
awareness of right to repair my YouTube
channel and above all the idea that you
can fix motherboards it is not
impossible seems to be shooting itself
in the foot in one of the worst ways
possible one of the great things about
Reddit is that they have a sub Community
for literally anything if you want to
read about Finance you can read about
that if you want to go to a community of
people that are stacking silver and
coffee beans for the apocalypse you can
read about that I'm confident that if
you wanted to find a community of people
that enjoyed having their third toe
tickles you could probably find a
community of people that enjoy having
their third toe tickled I'm not kidding
Reddit is one of those places everybody
likes to complain about it but at the
same time it is one of those places
where you could really hone in and find
people that have similar Hobbies similar
beliefs similar problems in life and
really feel like you have found a home
there and I've used it to great success
in promoting right to repair and
promoting the idea that you should
should be able to fix your own stuff and
in promoting my educational content that
shows people how they can fix their own
stuff as well as driving legislative
engagement getting people in individual
communities to actually show up to their
state legislature or call members of
their state legislature to try to get
consumer protection legislation passed
it's a great tool for that even if you
don't necessarily always like what front
pages or what you see at a certain
communities and I think it's very
unfortunate that they appear to be
shooting themselves in the foot by
really screwing over third-party
developers I'm going to go over a post
by I am that is who is an Apollo
developer whose post is both informative
and unfortunate it says here how to call
with Reddit to discuss pricing bad news
for third-party applications they're
announced pricing as close to Twitter
pricing and Apollo would have to pay
Reddit 20 million dollars per year to
keep running as is and we are linked
here to a article on Twitter that had
out of this world API pricing that we
will get back to later now it says I'll
cut to the chase 50 million requests
cost twelve thousand dollars a figure
far more than I could have ever imagined
Apollo made 7 billion requests last
month which would put it at about 1.7
million dollars a month or 20 million US
dollars per year even if I only kept
subscription users the average Apollo
user uses 344 requests per day which
would cost 2.50 a month which is over
double what the subscription currently
cost so I'd be in the red every month
I'm deeply disappointed in this price
Reddit iterated that the pricing would
be reasonable and based in reality and
that they would not operate like Twitter
Twitter was publicly ridiculed for its
obscene price of forty two thousand
dollars for 50 million tweets Reddit is
still 12 000. for reference I pay Imgur
a site similar to redder and user base
and media 166 dollars for the same 50
million API calls so 50 million API
calls with imager cost 166 dollars
whereas with Reddit it's going to cost
12 million dollars which is considerably
more now he goes over the pricing
structure and he does a little bit of
math here to estimate that there's about
500 to 600 million dollars in Revenue
per year and he divides this by the
number of active users they claimed in
2019 and assumes that they didn't grow
which comes out to about 12 cents
monthly so Reddit is making 12 cents per
month off of each user yet they are
looking to Bill people about two dollars
and fifty cents per month if they want
to use a third party application which
is approximately 20 times the amount of
money they make if somebody actually
uses their app and uses their site which
begs the question as to what their
intentions actually are if you are going
to Bill people 20 times as much money
for using a third-party app as what you
would make if they used your app or your
website it doesn't seem to be as much
about making money at that point as it
does to be about just destroying and
killing off third-party applications and
a big part of the problem here is that
third-party applications and third-party
stuff is really a big part of what makes
moderation and many of these communities
possible being able to use certain type
of bots being able to use certain type
of applications that are better than the
stock Reddit app and website to be able
to moderate moderation is a serious
issue on Reddit and it's something that
I've gone over many times we whether
we're talking about Samsung's deceptive
use of Reddit or companies like item
medical who in my opinion were taking
part in very obvious and transparent
Astro turfing campaigns to try and make
their company seem better than it was
there are a lot of times where you can
log into a Reddit thread and just the
man it really seems like this is a bunch
of bots talking here moderation even
with the current third-party tools
available can be very difficult if you
take those tools away it's going to be
infinitely more difficult and it really
does beg the question if this is about
money and not destroying third-party
apps why are you billing people this
much money I don't even bother using the
Reddit app on my phone because in my
opinion the Reddit app is horrible how
many times have you guys clicked a
Reddit link on your phone and use the
Reddit app instead of the browser and
just seeing the stupid little Reddit
logo spinning over and over again even
if you have a good internet connection
how many times have the Reddit app just
not load something that you were very
easily able to load using a web browser
and old.reddit on your phone I would
rather use old.reddit on my phone than
the red app because the Reddit app is so
bad I don't use this application the
Reddit app is just fundamentally bad and
a new website is very very bad I like
the old version I always use old.reddit
when I use Reddit and I don't use the
app because the app on the phone is
horrible further this is also going to
affect disabled people again the Reddit
app as I've said is crap the new reddit
website compared to the old one again
it's not exactly ideal and there are a
lot of people who are going to be
screwed by this particularly people who
are disabled many of these third-party
apps that are no longer going to afford
to function are applications that
actually take into account disabled
users using them people who are going to
be using screen readers people who are
blind using the application whereas the
stock Reddit app barely works for people
that have functioning eyesight as
somebody mentions in my Matrix chat in
the letters to Lewis link down below the
proposed changes to reddit's API will
not only isolate blind users from a
social network used by millions of
people thus disconnecting us from The
Wider World they will also largely
decimate communities for blind people
and disabled people in general which
have thrived on Reddit despite the
company's perceived indifference the
subreddit r slash blind is an invaluable
resource for blind and visually impaired
people around the world the information
on the subreddit has helped countless
people in various stages of blindness
with such things as finding strategies
to check their pet dog for ticks
providing insight Titan had a best shop
for clothes giving suggestions to job
Seekers or providing resources to people
losing their Vision who are unsure of
what to do or how to cope additionally
our slash transcribers of Reddit and are
slash description please are two
subreddits collectively composed of six
thousand volunteers around the world who
have written 276 000 transcriptions
around Reddit over the past six years
according to their founder it's the
Joker who also co-founded the nonprofit
which funds the infrastructure for the
two subreddits the work of these
volunteers allowed Blind and Visually
Impaired redditors to not only read text
and images throughout Reddit but also
receive descriptions of visual content
within images and videos all of these
communities would be demolished by
reddit's API changes as blind people
will find it extremely difficult to use
Reddit and to add insult to injury it
has become clear that Reddit is
apparently aware of the impact of their
decisions according to it's the Joker
who stated the following in a message
which I have received permission to
reprint it's not that Reddit has a
thought about marginalized Community
specifically the blind Community I have
had multiple Zoom calls with a Reddit
staff member about these requirements
and the importance of API access for
both third-party apps and for Trans
description they just don't care [ __ ]
you Reddit blind users have already
effectively been de-platformed on
Twitter where API pricing shuttered
third-party clients that improved
accessibility for blind users
furthermore accessibility on twitter.com
and the mobile apps is also
precipitously declined after the entire
accessibility team was fired Twitter was
also invaluable to Blind and disabled
communities without public awareness the
same will happen to the community's
Reliant on Reddit which I think is a
crying shame now the one thing that I
can say in potential defensive Reddit is
it's not a publicly traded company we
cannot see all their finances when we
talk about things like Twitter's API
pricing being out of control one of the
very important things to understand
about the fever dream of the 2010s is
that many companies that became very
very popular that were very well known
were never actually profitable they
focused on things like getting as many
users as possible getting as much
revenue as possible getting as much
advertising have hype is Possible having
the biggest headquarters and everything
else and having investors pick up the
slack for the fact that they never made
a profit because there was so much
investment in the 2010s into all this
random crap as a result of interest
rates being close to zero and the
problem you have with this is that many
people wind up getting used to services
and just expecting them to exist
permanently that never actually made
sense even the website that I'm posting
this video to he lost lots of money
every single year and around 2014 or
2015 around there alphabet stopped
itemizing out the amount of money that
YouTube lost I want you to think about
this if you're a publicly traded company
wouldn't you want to brag if one of your
projects was making money they don't a
lot of people just assume that something
is making money because it exists when
in reality it may not be making money at
all look at Twitter if you look at
Twitter's 10K Twitter is a company that
bleeds money 2012 lost 79 million
dollars 2013 lost over half a billion
2014 lost over half a billion 2015 lost
half a billion 2016 lost 456 million
2017 lost 108 million 2018 they made 1.2
billion 2019 they made 1 0.4 billion and
in 2020 they lost 1.1 billion and in
2021 they lost 221 million this is a
company that for the most part every
single year is lighting half a billion
dollars on fire many modern social media
companies many modern tech companies
make no Financial sense they are based
on this model we are going to grow our
user base and grow our Revenue without
ever thinking about what it actually
costs the 2010s were this fever dream
era of investment where people were
throwing money at all this stupid [ __ ]
trying to figure out a way to make
returns because interest rates were
hyper low and as a result of it you have
a bunch of companies that never made
dollars and never made sense that
continue to function these zombie
companies that live off of investor
money that don't actually make a net
profit to be clear anybody who's
familiar with my channel knows that I
there is no love lost for Elon Musk here
I think he is a piece of crap in many
different ways that being said he
purchased a company that could not
continue as it was this company bleeds
money every single year and he is trying
to figure out ways to not make it bleed
money throughout this entire wired
article it talks about all the different
people who are going to be negatively
affected the data researchers the
academics and this that and the other
that are not going to be able to afford
this and while I feel sympathy for them
while they say that no one can afford to
pay that even Rich institutions can't
afford to pay half a million a year for
a thumb full of data you have to
understand that this business model that
Twitter has doesn't make any sense I
can't look at reddit's inside numbers I
can't look at their 10q or their 10K
because they're not a publicly traded
company so for all I know maybe the
reason they're doing this is because
they are not financially viable or
sustainable as a company as is and if
that's the case I strongly suggest that
they come out and say that and explain
that and be transparent with their users
so that their users do not assume the
worst because if what they are doing is
coming up with this pricing that is way
way more than what you would pay for
imager and if what it's the Joker said
is true I've had multiple Zoom calls
with them about these requirements and
importance of API access both for
third-party apps and transcription they
just don't care is true
that really comes off really bad and
what it's going to cause a lot of people
to do is say F you read it we're not
using you anymore you have to keep in
mind that there have been many
iterations of online communities over
the years there are many online
communities that I was a member of in
the early 2000s that went away when
Myspace become popular Myspace went away
when Facebook became popular at some
point in time Facebook will go away and
at some point in time Reddit too will go
away the community will remember what
you did and screwing over vast swaths of
disabled people is a really really great
way to look like the type of piece of
[ __ ] that nobody wants to give money a
revenue to ever again so I would
strongly suggest that Reddit reconsider
this or at the very least if they're not
going to reconsider their pricing
decisions
give some damn good reasoning for it
because this is going to result in a lot
of people refusing to use Reddit or
people using Reddit with the most
restrictive ad blocking humanly possible
to ensure that you guys never make a
dime off of the community ever again let
me know what you think in the comments
down below do you think this is
reasonable or unreasonable again when I
just look at the numbers here I honestly
kind of wonder how is Reddit even making
12 cents off of each user per month when
I think about that I'm just trying to do
some basic math here I mean when I think
about like the 12 cent thing
I have 1.79 million subscribers
God damn I wish I made 12 cents off each
you a month I mean like I really though
those numbers are just absolutely out of
this world to me uh
damn
I don't know let me know what you think
in the comments down below Blackberry
just did the thing when she actually
looked straight at the camera which is
one of the cutest things I've ever seen
in my life
she really is cute
I'll link you to all these threads uh if
if not just to kind of raise awareness
for what is going on with this website
and again anything that's going to make
moderation more difficult for people
it's this is a step in the wrong
direction again the amount of
astroturfing the amount of companies
that game the system to make it seem
like there is honest engagement is just
this you have to understand that this is
with people having access to all these
moderation tools that are no longer
going to be available or as effective
you have to understand stuff like this
is going to be a mess anyway let me know
what you think in the comments down
below this has become a bit of a rambly
video so I'm going to end it here I'll
see you later