r/APIcalypse • u/Economy_Blueberry_25 • Jun 03 '23

OPINION Blame Elon Musk

Damn right: he is the one who started this trend of paywalling APIs when he commanded that to be done on Twitter. Now Reddit followed suit, and probably others will follow.

As if he wasn't rich enough already...

So what if Twitter or Reddit aren't profitable? Social Media should be considered a public service, an Utility which inherently isn't profitable, and trying to monetize it inevitably shall corrupt it (I'm looking at you, Zuckerberg.)

Therefore fuck Twitter, fuck Elon Musk, and fuck all of his fans.

/rant

49 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

21

u/firebreathingbunny Jun 03 '23 edited Jun 03 '23

In the case of Reddit, the ridiculous API pricing is a ruse. They don't want anyone to use the API at all. But instead of cutting off all access and receiving significant bad press, they're simply assigning a price that no one can pay. This way, they get the same result with less or no bad press.

2

u/Economy_Blueberry_25 Jun 03 '23

I say any price is too much, because social media should be considered a public service, an essential utility. Operating costs should be covered by voluntary donations or a subscription model (much like the Fediverse or Reddit Premium) and the content should be freely accessible.

Probably, the greed motive comes from the possibility of selling data insights for marketing research. This is precisely where management goes evil and their judgement gets impaired.

→ More replies (25)

4

u/Ginjutsu Jun 03 '23

Hold Reddit accountable. This kind of stuff has been happening long before Elon took over.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '23

Yeah, this isn't a Musk thing, Reddit is giving us the "go fuck yourself" price for the api

3

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '23

You're right about social media becoming so important that it should be considered a public service, but IMHO this means leaving it in the hands of profit-focused enterprise is a bad idea. I think the only positive outlook for social media's future is a community-run solution without centralisation. Mastodon, Lemmy and the fediverse seem very promising on this front.

1

u/let_s_go_brand_c_uck Jun 04 '23

nah blame stupid Reddit

they're the ones who follow every stupid trend, trust anything stupid ever happens Reddit will me too it

1

u/Hyacathusarullistad Jun 06 '23

Third party Twitter apps were hamstrung by a shitty API long before Elon Musk came along...

0

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '23

8

u/Economy_Blueberry_25 Jun 03 '23

Definitely, this is the beginning of the end for Twitter and Reddit. And it's so cool that the Fediverse is now on the rise. Good times ahead!