• HollowNotion@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Am I missing something?

    Yeah. They want to kill the third party apps so everyone has to use the ad-supported Reddit app.

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not clear why they don’t just serve ads in the API and require them to be displayed, or implement profit-sharing with 3rd party devs (as in, they pay reddit a portion of their income from ads/subscriptions). The only clear reasons would be for control and to pump up numbers for the IPO.

      • DarkWasp@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Isn’t it possible all of the tracking and telemetry still wouldn’t be included and they want that information too? There’s probably a few things at play, some I can’t think of. Either way none of it seems to be with good intentions.

        • savjee@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          Good point. They wouldn’t be able to see what posts you’re looking at and how long. However, they would still see all the posts you interact with (upvote, comment) and build a profile based on that data. Surely that must be enough to serve somewhat relevant ads?

    • savjee@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Valid point. My proposed free-tier would make them no money. However, by charging a reasonable amount of money for the API, they could make way more than they are right now. Christian noted that Reddit makes about $0.12 per user per month. If they would charge say $0.99 for an average user, they’d have to run no ads and make 8 times more money per user than using their own app.