That's ok, you've certainly used their services for free, as most of us, and they don't owe you anything.

I get the feeling that some people are trying to spin this into a crusade of sorts, I fully get this feeling from your words.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that I guess, but look a the big picture as well: you've used the services of a private company for years, paying zero cents. They made a business decision after potentially delaying it for years, and you rant about control. This outrage makes little sense, we don't own Reddit, never had. We're just making noise because some of us confused private property for their own.

I absolutely get your point. I'm not saying they're not free to make whatever business decisions they want -- of course they are. And, of course, I want Reddit to be profitable and survive.

But if they're profitability involves alienating me as a user then I'm going to be alienated and I'm going to act like I'm alienated. I think the outrage makes perfect sense in this case. I'm equally outraged at other companies doing things that manipulate their customers for a tiny bit more profit (like shrinkflation).

Ironically they could have turned this situation into profit from me as I'm happy to pay for Reddit if it was required to allow me to use it in the way that I'm accustomed. Instead of embracing me as a customer, they want me gone.

Valid point. I think people are turning this into a 'crusade' partly because they are just shocked and appalled by the way Reddit handled this whole thing.

In the end, it's their site and their decision to make, but it's understandable many people are upset by their actions and no longer want to use the site (which, btw, even if you were using it for "free" you may have been contributing in other ways via posts, comments, moderation, etc).

It also means losing potential customers - I would have been willing to upgrade to Reddit Premium to continue using Apollo, for example, but now I wouldn't even consider it.

> And there's nothing inherently wrong with that I guess, but look a the big picture as well: you've used the services of a private company for years, paying zero cents.

While that's not false, look at it the other way: I've provided content for a private company for years, taking zero payment. Millions of us have. Reddit lives and dies by user submissions and comments, and taking what seems to be a stance that's wildly hostile to users feels very foolish to me.

To me that makes even less sense. You provided that content knowingly for free, voluntarily, fair and square. No one forced you to, it wasn't an unfair nine to five job. You decided to do it.

Can you realistically expect to have some sort of return, wether in control or whatever for that? It feels more aligned to a tantrum rather than a coherent argument. Have we consiously forget how Web 2.0 works?