So it’s well known now that the developer of Apollo estimated the new API pricing would cost $20 million a year. For a source, see the title of https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/31/23743993/reddit-apollo-client-api-cost
But from https://apnews.com/article/reddit-blackout-steve-huffman-ceo-api-0a4f7b344ecfbf50c924b030c344c55e the price from supporting third party apps is $!0 million a year. And presumably this is all third party apps combined!
Huffman says the “pure infrastructure costs” of supporting these apps costs Reddit about $10 million each year.
Something’s very not balanced here. That one app would have paid for Reddit’s third party infra costs twice over.
I can not remember which ones now (can anyone help me out here actually?), but I think a few apps said they’d try to make it work with the new pricing.
Which means Reddit likely stands to make a huge pot of money once the new API changes take effect, in the short term.
Even if Reddit loses the best subs, the best communities, the best users, and the moderation goes to where the sun don’t shine, I could see that new revenue boosting investors confidence enough to lead to a successful (if slightly smaller) IPO.
If Reddit goes downhill and loses lots of value afterwards, well, spez has already made his quick buck, so I doubt he wouldn’t feel very sentimental about it.
Folks, please explain to me why I’m wrong. Please.
That’s the one line that jumped at my face as well when I read that interview. At least one other app developer said they’d have to pay about the same amount of money for Reddit. So all the third party apps would probably be something like 60 million+/year with those numbers.
Relay for Reddit is planning to go subscription only. They are currently planning 2-3 USD per month price point, based on their analysis of users using 100 API calls per day on average. But if the subscription fee drives away low-rate users, they will likely need to increase the price. https://www.reddit.com/r/RelayForReddit/comments/147152b/update_how_the_current_api_changes_would_impact/
Relay is that best reddit app that I used. I’ll be sad to see it go, because I’m not subscribing to a service to browse reddit.
DBrady’s latest message is more pessimistic on the price point
Hard to tell right now how many users will actually pay at all - I purchased the Pro license for Relay back in 2012 (when it was still called Reddit News and cost $1.99) and used it as my sole mobile way to access reddit, but have not opened the app this week at all (replaced the icon on my phone with jerboa for the toilet scrolling needs)
After the past week’s events, there is 0 chance I will ever pay money to reddit in any form, the platform is basically dead to me at this point.