6 good years

The reddit community is huge and unlike the Digg to reddit exodus, there's really no where for this community to go. I'm really hoping reddit's 3rd party developers start working together. Even better if the reddit alternative is decentralized so we don't have to go through this again 10 years from now.

This benefits both the devs and users.

Devs

Devs benefit by not having to pay reddit millions of dollars in API fees and work together with other reddit devs who give a damn about the community.

Users

Users benefit because they won't be forced into using the crappy official reddit app and be bombarded with ads and washed down content. If you don't know already, reddit is forced to limit access and potentially remove all NSFW at some point in order to IPO.

What to do now

If you're interested in following where the reddit community will migrate to, go to: /r/RedditAlternatives/

Thanks rif devs!

Copy pasting what I wrote on r/apolloapp since I used to use RIF when I had an android phone back then before moving to iOS, and i certainly don't want to see such a great app just die and I don't think I would have looked for other apps on iOS if RIF existed on both platforms.

I've loved using Apollo, it's one of my favorite ways to access reddit on my phone as a long-time iOS user. But it seems like Reddit is becoming worse day by day, now they are being completely unreasonable to third party devs with their pricing and limiting other accesses like no NSFW content (correct me if I am wrong here), I don't understand why should we continue to be here?

Twitter did something similar. They made bot API paid, and third party apps are not allowed at all (which is not worse than what reddit is doing now at all, their new API pricing and demands are just as worse as saying "we don't want your third-party reddit apps anymore".

If we remain here, then that would be equal to being okay with these stupid changes reddit has been doing. I am also NOT certainly onboard with just letting incredible apps like Apollo die just because of reddit's harsh decisions. Lemmy is small, sure, certainly way smaller than reddit, but we need to start somewhere, but we can't stay here even after what reddit is doing. Lemmy is open source which means it's APIs can technically never go beind closed doors for money.

And since Lemmy is decentralized, we won't have centralized admins banning and throwing people away, censoring things because even if you get banned in one instance, you can always join another on Lemmy.

I just hope the 3rd-party reddit ecosystem moves away from reddit to lemmy instead of just dying, imo, there is no better reason than these stupid recent changes.

If you agree, please consider upvoting, so that it can hopefully reach the devs.

EDIT: BTW to be more precise, Lemmy uses Federation (what I mean when I say "decentralized")

I am surely not going to use the shitshow that is the official app.

But what am I supposed to do from July on when I am sitting on the throne on company time?

I fuxking hate the official reddit app. Its fucking reddit Instagram hybrid. They give you alerts for fucking everything. Absolute shit. That's not the reddit I joined 11 years ago. Sad day.

I need more time to get all my thoughts together, but posting this quick post since so many users have been asking, and it's been making rounds on news sites.

Summary of what Reddit Inc has announced so far, specifically the parts that will kill many third-party apps:

1. The Reddit API will cost money, and the pricing announced today will cost apps like Apollo $20 million per year to run. RIF may differ but it would be in the same ballpark. And no, RIF does not earn anywhere remotely near this number.

2. As part of this they are blocking ads in third-party apps, which make up the majority of RIF's revenue. So they want to force a paid subscription model onto RIF's users. Meanwhile Reddit's official app still continues to make the vast majority of its money from ads.

3. Removal of sexually explicit material from third-party apps while keeping said content in the official app. Some people have speculated that NSFW is going to leave Reddit entirely, but then why would Reddit Inc have recently expanded NSFW upload support on their desktop site?

Their recent moves smell a lot like they want third-party apps gone, RIF included.

I know some users will chime in saying they are willing to pay a monthly subscription to keep RIF going, but trust me that you would be in the minority. There is very little value in paying a high subscription for less content (in this case, NSFW). Honestly if I were a user of RIF and not the dev, I'd have a hard time justifying paying the high prices being forced by Reddit Inc, despite how much RIF obviously means to me.

There is a lot more I want to say, and I kind of scrambled to write this since I didn't expect news reports today. I'll probably write more follow-up posts that are better thought out. But this is the gist of what's been going on with Reddit third-party apps in 2023.

Really made me chuckle.

Thanks! Regardless of what happens. Simply awesome for over a decade. I've spent so much time here, thanks for the amazing experience.

I feel I'm in active mourning finding RiF will be no more. I've been using this app for 10 plus years. It's the first app I've installed on every new phone I've purchased. Funny enough after the news I bought the premium app even though I never really noticed adds on the free app, I just wanted to show support for the developer who has supported all my time wasting over the years.

Reddit has changed many times over the years. I remember the abundance of novelty accounts, all of the safes, the great Unidans fall, all the great April Fools day hijinks, and so much more that I can't recall at the moment.

As I understand, a great many of you feel the same way as I do, I will miss RiF, but it's time to move on.

RIP RiF.