Are Reddit’s Prices for 3rd Party App Users Affecting their Popularity?

This was passed very hard despite the statement “we appreciate everything moderators and you as developers of tools do for them”. to the fact that’s the job moderators do reddit likely to yield more than the lost opportunity cost from third party app users.

Playing the devil’s advocate for a moment: to what extent is this a fact? In other words: can you make this hard? Not necessarily you, but developers of 3rd party apps/tools in general.

Because now I’m just one user, using Apollo and paid for Pro, but not paying for Ultra. Yes, I think Apollo is by far the best Reddit client. Yes, the Reddit app sucks, both in terms of performance and features. But if it comes down to the fact that Apollo can still exist in the future, but only if each user purchases a subscription of €10/month, then it is very simple for me: then I will use the Reddit app (assuming there is no free 3rd party clients left).

And now I’m very much in the corner of the simple users who just follow a few communities and contribute, nothing more. But when I see what passes by in r/ApolloApp, then that is also 90% just as simple souls as myself.

What I’m saying with this is: I also think it’s ridiculous what prices Reddit is going to charge and especially that they don’t look at use cases and use price groups per type of use case. I totally understand when they charge LLM/AI scrapers gold money, that huge data is invaluable. At the same time, I do understand the exception for clients/tools that focus on accessibility, which is basically good. And asking 3rd party clients like Apollo money is not crazy, but the prices they ask are. I also can’t imagine that the prices they are presented with correspond 1:1 to the loss of revenue per user that would otherwise be on Reddit itself. Although it is of course true that you do not see promoted posts or advertisements in Apollo. But isn’t that also the trick of the API? I think that can be implemented very well, because I sometimes see advertorials or advertising posts in my RSS feeds, for example, which are not filtered either. So if Reddit did that, I think half of the problem would already be solved, all that remains is the actual use of the platform itself, which then runs through a 3rd part client, but then ask a normal amount for it and it is fine for everyone.

In any case, we already live in a subscription world where nowadays even cars on subscription (Volvo, Lynk & Co) are available, but also literally every service. And because it is simply not feasible for most people to take out a subscription for literally everything, everyone makes their own choices. If I had to pay a small amount to Apollo, I would still think it was worth it, I think € 10-15 per year. But it certainly shouldn’t be more than that, purely because I can also do almost the same via my own app / website. However, it now seems that the developer of Apollo and others in the same boat should start asking that amount per month, from every user, without exception. Well, that’s only going to do at most 5% of course. Because that is of course the problem if you beat it flat: if it is free or for a small amount (so I bought the € 6 Pro unlock, but not the € 60 / year Ultra subscription) then everyone is at the forefront, but higher amounts immediately cause a huge selection.