The big changes are arrive reddit, and no one is happy about that. Reddit management is looking to take the company public, which means the money-minded people behind the scenes are feeling pressure to increase the free social media service’s budget. use. Naturally, those efforts excite the site’s users.
Back in April, Reddit announced it will tweak its API, affecting how third-party apps can use Reddit’s data and architecture. The company is essentially increasing its data usage costs to what third-party app developers claim can’t stand.
Christian Selig, who developed the popular iOS Reddit app Apollo, estimate the changes will cost his service up to $20 million a year to keep it going. Both Apollo and another highly used Reddit app, Reddit Is Fun, have announced that they will turn off rather than paying the cost.
Reddit’s move has drawn comparisons with recent earthquakes at another social networking site: Twitter. Earlier this year, the iterative company owned by Elon Musk announced that it would charge an excessive amount of API access fees, valuation many third-party services and force them to shut down.
Members of the Reddit community — or at least the noisiers who aren’t just permanent lurkers — were furious at the upcoming changes. Moderators of many popular subreddits have coordinated a two-day shutdown of their subreddits to protest the move. Yesterday, CEO Reddit Steve Huffman (aka u/spez) organize a AMA on the site to answer questions about the changes. The session quickly turned into a bloodbath, as angry users voted for Huffman’s comments and sank into oblivion.
The battle has also turned into a blame game of thumbs. (Selig wrote a long post criticized Reddit’s actions on the Apollo subreddit. Huffman commented on Selig in his AMA, saying, “I don’t know how we can do business with him.”)
It all gets very messy, which in a way also feels very specific to Reddit. Here’s hoping the march towards profit doesn’t lead Reddit to go the way of the Twitter dodo.
We’ll have more WIRED coverage of the Reddit API story next week. Now, here’s some more news.
Oh well, Amazon Prime will also have ads
Based on The Wall Street JournalAmazon is plan for an ad-supported level of its Prime subscription service. Chances are, it will be cheaper than the $9-a-month subscription to the service today.
That’s not a sure thing; companies are always toying with these ideas without actually implementing them. However, Amazon has shut down departments and laid off employees, eager to cut costs and make up for that money elsewhere. In addition, it has a predecessor to follow. Netflix launches its own grant advertising support last year (and finally just started Limit account sharing.) It was a success for streamers, with almost 5 million people on ad-supported plans. It’s easy to see how Amazon might want to create a bit of similar success.
AI eats ads
Speaking of advertising, have you used LinkedIn recently? The business-oriented social platform has set its sights on AI feverand is testing a tool for marketers that uses generic AI text prompts to create copy for the ad. By using OpenAI GPT technology, this feature will allow you to use remind to create all manner of marketing jargon.
This feature is currently only available in North America, but may expand further soon. And you know it had to create some particularly tasteless stuff agency post.
face to face
You may have heard that Apple has a mixed reality headset come next year. The Vision Pro, as the name suggests, is a $3,500 pair of goggles with a battery pack dangling from it. Apple introduced the device on Monday by positioning it as the next step in wearable technology. It will be the future of face computing? Is anyone really? want to wear thing?
All those questions and more unpacked this week utility laboratory audio file. Plus, details on all the other important stuff Apple announced at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
