Opinion: Reddit must not betray its community for profit

Reddit’s recently announced API changes have caused uproar, including a 48-hour “black out” of thousands of subreddits.

With the company making over US$500 million last year, CEO Steve Huffman’s claim that the website is not “self-sustaining” does not hold water, especially as Reddit is currently valued at $10 billion.

This latest move from Reddit to implement API charges is a betrayal of the community that the platform relies on to exist. Third-party mobile apps, which are reliant on the API to function, filled a void that Reddit itself refused to for years. Reddit turning around to these developers, who clearly love the site, and telling them to scrap years of their work just so Reddit can make even more money from advertisements and data harvesting is awful.

Reddit must now listen to their community’s clear call and cancel their changes.