It's about ads and tracking sure, but they're also trying to build a TikTok-style algorithm-powered black hole that keeps you sucked in by way of constantly shoving more things in front of you, including posts from subreddits you're not subscribed to. They also want to be able to force whatever new half-baked features they add to work with prominent positioning in their apps.

But to what end? You have a bunch of users who you know are willing to pay real dollars for a different experience. You couldn't ask for better segmentation getting people with wildly different desires and expectations to both be hooked on your platform.

I think it's probably because users paying to be able to use third party clients can't be sold as growth potential — it's a relatively static number, and they're paying for an entirely static experience. They don't want whatever gimmick Reddit is pushing at the moment (like NFT avatars), they want their simple chronological feed and that's it. The limit of worth for those users is the subscription they're paying, whereas if they're using the official app they're theoretically monetizable in N different ways.

> If I pay Reddit $50/yr why would they care what app I use?

Then why is that not an option? The narrative that they want more tracking and control makes sense with the facts we have.

That is an option, considering Reddit is charging third party developers the equivalent of ~$2.5/mo per user for API access, so the tracking argument already goes out of the window. They are already giving up control, for a very low price too, but just implementing it in the most brain dead way possible.

That is what the 3rd party dev has to implement, Reddit already has a premium feature, but there is no api-unlock, there is just dev payments. That’s a big part of the issue. If people paying Reddit would unlock api access, most issues would disappear.

Every reddit account gets API access with OAth. No payment needed.

Uh, no, that’s the upcoming change.

Sorry friend, you are incorrect.

* https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update...

"If you are using OAuth for authentication: 100 queries per minute per OAuth client id

If you are not using OAuth for authentication: 10 queries per minute"

Wait, what? This is news to me. Why is this not mentioned anywhere? How does this not solve this for almost everyone? I already authenticate through oAuth anyway, wouldn’t this then just require inputting my own API key?

edit: Ah, it also requires applying for an API key on their support website which may or may not be granted to you by Reddit and might take some amount of time. That is not comparable to having proper API access.

And even worse, it’s not clear you are even allowed to use your own API access with a third party API, the ToS might forbid that as it’s not your (the person requesting the API key) app you are using it for, but someone else. That would make the whole thing completely useless.

Which 3rd party YouTube app are you using?