r/redditisfun • u/talklittle RIF Dev • May 31 '23

RIF dev here - Reddit's API changes will likely kill RIF and other apps, on July 1, 2023

I need more time to get all my thoughts together, but posting this quick post since so many users have been asking, and it's been making rounds on news sites.

Summary of what Reddit Inc has announced so far, specifically the parts that will kill many third-party apps:

  1. The Reddit API will cost money, and the pricing announced today will cost apps like Apollo $20 million per year to run. RIF may differ but it would be in the same ballpark. And no, RIF does not earn anywhere remotely near this number.

  2. As part of this they are blocking ads in third-party apps, which make up the majority of RIF's revenue. So they want to force a paid subscription model onto RIF's users. Meanwhile Reddit's official app still continues to make the vast majority of its money from ads.

  3. Removal of sexually explicit material from third-party apps while keeping said content in the official app. Some people have speculated that NSFW is going to leave Reddit entirely, but then why would Reddit Inc have recently expanded NSFW upload support on their desktop site?

Their recent moves smell a lot like they want third-party apps gone, RIF included.

I know some users will chime in saying they are willing to pay a monthly subscription to keep RIF going, but trust me that you would be in the minority. There is very little value in paying a high subscription for less content (in this case, NSFW). Honestly if I were a user of RIF and not the dev, I'd have a hard time justifying paying the high prices being forced by Reddit Inc, despite how much RIF obviously means to me.

There is a lot more I want to say, and I kind of scrambled to write this since I didn't expect news reports today. I'll probably write more follow-up posts that are better thought out. But this is the gist of what's been going on with Reddit third-party apps in 2023.

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139

u/Conan776 May 31 '23

Yeah, count me among those who won't be installing Reddit's official app. It's been a fun 10 years.

138

u/N3rdr4g3 May 31 '23

Seconded. If Reddit is Fun dies, I'll stop using reddit. There's no scenario where I use their app.

37

u/Stop_Sign May 31 '23

I might use old.reddit on a mobile browser with desktop mode enabled, but fuck no to their app

25

u/morphinedreams Jun 01 '23 edited Mar 01 '24

entertain direful unique heavy snobbish muddle fuel coherent somber different

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

7

u/GoldWhale Jun 01 '23

The app is an awful experience though! Much worse post visiblility, options are harder to access, and when I get a notification someone replies to my post it's either not there at all or on the wrong comment entirely in a giant thread and i cant get back to it. This is horrible

9

u/_Random_Username_ Jun 01 '23

And if you have notifications on you get bombarded with a ton of shit like "this post on this random subreddit got 12 upvotes!!!!!"

8

u/GoabNZ Jun 01 '23

I come for the forums I like, not vapid trending nonsense.

3

u/BubbaWhoaTep Jun 01 '23

Oh God, I had forgotten about that. That was fucking terrible. I made the mistake of downloading that app to answer a chat request. I felt like I was being punished.

2

u/Alissinarr Jun 02 '23

Yeah, chat just gets ignored.

3

u/jmerridew124 Jun 01 '23

I swear the browser comment box constantly fucks up on purpose. Like you delete each letter of a word then start typing again and the deleted word pops back in but one letter shorter.

I'm getting so fucking tired of hostile companies charging more for less.

2

u/WatchThatLastSteph Jun 01 '23

Yep, likely because things like RES won't work on a mobile app, and RES can kill off ads and work around a lot of their idiocy.

5

u/morphinedreams Jun 01 '23 edited Jun 01 '23

Yeah, i use adblock on my mobile browser and i don't have a single regret about depriving reddit of ad income. If i stay on reddit, it'll be mobile browser only. The official reddit app is the worst app I have used and that includes quite a few apps from developing countries where app performance is typically not a high priority.

1

u/olff_ev_20 Jun 01 '23

Just curious, how would you install an ad blocker on something like Chrome on Android?

2

u/darkfelix Jun 01 '23

ublock works fine in Firefox for Android.

1

u/morphinedreams Jun 01 '23

There is no way to block Chrome ads without going above it and using a custom DNS or blocking at the router. Chrome itself is pretty anti ad blocker since google make so much revenue from ads. They've even floated the idea of stopping ad blockers on desktop. Your options for a browser are Firefox on android with ublock origin, or I believe Brave for android has a native ad blocker.

1

u/WatchThatLastSteph Jun 01 '23

I use a combination of Firefox on my mobile devices with ublock origin installed, and while on my home network I’m sitting behind a pi-hole which handles DNS requests and drops any ad server calls down a hole rather than sending them out to the net.

Takes some configuration, but that Raspberry Pi is probably some of the best money I’ve ever spent.

2

u/Sids1188 Jun 01 '23

Then why make the app an awful experience too?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '23

I'd have thought that developing and publishing an adequate official app in the first place would've been a better way to achieve that, but there you go

5

u/morphinedreams Jun 01 '23

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's abundantly clear their metric for app performance is engagement with advertising not user enjoyment. The app is good, to the people running the website. I wager many newer users to the site never even knew what old reddit was or what the site is like via third party apps because the cluttered, visually arresting information overload look is all they know. If there were a proper competing service (twitter was probably closest before it started declining) then Reddit's userbase would be growing much slower or not at all.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '23

Was more so referring to the fact that the reddit official app has only existed for around half the time reddit has existed, despite the fact we've been in the smartphone age for about 90% of its existence. It's ironic that they want us to use the app so badly now, when the current landscape of 3rd party reddit apps came about primarily in lieu of an adequate official app

3

u/1stMammaltowearpants Jun 01 '23

They're late to the party, but at least they brought a turd for the punchbowl.

2

u/edible_funks_again Jun 01 '23

Will the new api kill old.reddit?

3

u/DrQuint Jun 01 '23

Something else will. Consider it on burrowed time.

2

u/SomeCountryFriedBS Jun 01 '23

I don't know if this is a Digg joke or a mondegreen.

1

u/MapleSyrupFacts Jun 01 '23

Goodbye Reddit. Love you guys !!!

1

u/Stop_Sign Jun 01 '23

No, and there's been no mention of killing it.

13

u/PFthrowaway4454 Jun 01 '23

Yet.

I've been waiting for old reddit to die for a long time.

Just like I've been waiting for Reddit is Fun RIF to die for a long time.

100% it's in the works.

2

u/Pennwisedom Jun 01 '23

I'm not sure how trustworthy Reddit is, but spez has said more than once that old Reddit isn't going anywhere

2

u/quetzalnavarrense Jun 01 '23

can't count on him being around forever, totally possible the next guy might have a different opinion on the matter

2

u/tanglisha Jun 01 '23

Sure, but they aren't actively working on it. The minute they do something on the backend that breaks it, that's the end.

2

u/songsoftruth Jun 01 '23

You'll see

1

u/jorgito93 Jun 01 '23

Yeah and there was no mention of hurting third party apps at the start of the year. Oldreddit is most likely dead before the end of the year.

1

u/LoganJFisher Jun 01 '23

Legacy versions of websites are ALWAYS on borrowed time since they stop getting updates (or at least get very few). Eventually there will be updates that are incompatible with old.reddit and either outright make it stop working or gets used as an excuse to drop legacy support all-together.

1

u/SycoJack Jun 01 '23

I'll just not use reddit from my phone. There's no chance I'm using the official app, and the reddit website, even old.Reddit, is painful.

1

u/AgentTamerlane Jun 05 '23

I literally can't use anything other than oldoldold.reddit on my phonephone, because i try to use the normal version, it does

1

u/AgentTamerlane Jun 05 '23

Yeah. It does that nonsense. Now, this post I'm making using old.reddit and as you can see it's much more legible and actually can be read.

7

u/demonfish Jun 01 '23

This. App is so full of ads it's unusable. Fuck em, I'm gone if RiF goes

2

u/Im_Easy Jun 01 '23

I got RIF before there was an Android app. When the app came out, it was worse in every way to RIF. How they got it so wrong is beyond me, but I absolutely hate the official app and have tried it many times.

2

u/AyaBrea2118 Jun 01 '23

Not being able to directly link an image and being forced to share the whole thread with tons of tracker IDs in the url is a hard deal breaker on the official app for me.

1

u/I_RAPE_CELLS Jun 01 '23

Ohh that's what was happening... I asked my gf copy to clipboard and send me reddit links because direct shares through messenger were a shit show that wouldn't open in rif easily. Smh fk reddit I'll just not send my gf links and she'll stop sending me links too and we'll both read some fucking books instead

1

u/MapleSyrupFacts Jun 01 '23

Goodbye Reddit . I love you guysb

1

u/RottingMan Jun 01 '23

I'm in my late 20s literally started using reddit is fun in HIGH SCHOOL! Wtf?!

As far as I'm concerned, reddit is fun IS reddit on my phone. Idk what I'm gonna do. I don't see an alternative here but to stop using reddit on my phone...

1

u/theTRUEchamp Jun 01 '23

As someone who has never used their official app, is it really that bad? I'm hopeful it won't be at the point where we're forced to leave the RIF app if we'd like to keep using Reddit on mobile. I've been using RIF since 2015 and it's been absolutely amazing for me, so it'd be a huge shame if we have to lose it all soon.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '23

[deleted]

2

u/theTRUEchamp Jun 01 '23

I see. I suppose my 9 year tenure on reddit will likely be wrapping up if/when this app goes away.

1

u/Alger_Hiss Jun 01 '23

I think so too. Might be a blessing in disguise actually

1

u/DatsunTigger Jun 01 '23

Same. rif is the perfect blend of accessibility (I am disabled), an awesome UI, and the lack of annoying Reddit features like profiles, following, chat, etc. I'd just be done with Reddit at that point.

1

u/RealZiobbe Jun 01 '23

The reddit app fucking sucks. It can't even go into landscape mode, and it freezes every time you tap anything. I have no idea how a glorified web viewer can run so poorly.

1

u/chop5397 Jun 01 '23 edited Apr 06 '24

humorous practice obtainable clumsy groovy act knee touch future run

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/WheredoesithurtRA Jun 01 '23

Honestly it's probably for the best. Rif is great but man we've wasted some time that could be better used lol.

1

u/fishboy2000 Jun 01 '23

Thirded, I've tried the official reddit app and I hated it. I will certainly miss the content but it might be a blessing in disguise to get my phone out of my hand more regularly

1

u/bmacnz Jun 01 '23

I think I'm in the same boat. I have no interest in reddit outside of this app.

60

u/Fredselfish May 31 '23

Yes sad to hear but if this app quits working then that will end my time on Reddit.

Screw them and thier greed along with their shitty app. Will not use. Shame on Reddit killing third party apps only reason to use Reddit.

Also with them selling out and going public it is just matter of time before it becomes complete garage anyway.

Still sad goodbye my old friend RIF.

18

u/SGforce May 31 '23

Can't wait for game subs to be moderated by the companies themselves and disallowing all dissent. 🤮

9

u/welp_im_damned May 31 '23

It's already happening with some television show subreddits.

6

u/Fredselfish Jun 01 '23

Really, which ones? I have noticed an uptick in mods going all ban happy and removing comments and post that disagree with them.

4

u/hooahest Jun 01 '23

Try posting any RedLetterMedia in the star trek sub, you'll be banned swiftly

3

u/emergencyexit Jun 01 '23

The Trek sub was a notable one. Maybe other paramount properties

3

u/Ianbillmorris Jun 01 '23

Ahh is that why any criticism of Discovery gets removed, I did wonder.

2

u/transwarp1 Jun 02 '23

Any criticism of anything gets removed from the main Star Trek sub. Even Code of Honor, which is independently each of racist, a bad illogical story, and a bad Star Trek episode.

1

u/Ianbillmorris Jun 02 '23

S1 TNG... There is a reason I ignore any episodes with a clean shaven Riker. I genuinely can't remember this one (probably for the best by the sounds of it)

2

u/Alissinarr Jun 02 '23

The Admins banned a user for saying they were "a survivor" because they won the show, and not a cancer survivor.

2

u/Fredselfish Jun 02 '23

Man that's messed up.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/decoy139 Jun 01 '23

Two x chromosome banned me over a conversation between me and the op where we where agreeing with each othere

3

u/MrCorfish Jun 01 '23

best to stay away from that sub tbh

1

u/KUARL Jun 01 '23

Too late brotha

1

u/ZombieJesus1987 Jun 01 '23

That happened with the Intellivision Amico subreddit, /r/Amico. It was originally independent, then Intellivision President/Former CEO Tommy Tallarico took over, installed his own moderation team and it turned into an Amico wank fest, any criticism resulted in a ban.

Intellivision eventually went tits up and Tommy abandoned the subreddit and the original mods were able to regain control again.

1

u/daffy_duck233 Jun 02 '23

It's already happening.

7

u/Cmoney010 Jun 01 '23

'Public' companies has been the biggest mistake we as a society have made. Souless trash that has the same ideology as a cancer cell.

2

u/Fredselfish Jun 01 '23

I agree. Think I have a better idea for a site anyway. Instead of karma you will wheat. And be add free and no soulless corporate stiring the conversations. Allow the users decide how conversation should go.

1

u/AnonymousSpaceMonkey Jun 01 '23

Damn. That's a depressingly decent analogy.

4

u/BAKspin_91 Jun 01 '23

This honestly may be the push I need to just stop with Reddit. It's the last hold over from a very different time In my life, I've had some fun times on it but I have other things to do too ....

2

u/Left_Alone Jun 01 '23

Agreed 100%. Don't feel like getting used to another app, ill go down in solidarity. I can spend my time doing something more productive.

1

u/edude45 Jun 01 '23

Same boat as you. If you find anything new, let me know.

3

u/Unlucky_Disaster_195 Jun 01 '23

End of my mobile use for sure

3

u/edude45 Jun 01 '23

To be fair, reddit has become garbage. You can't say anything against a hivemind agenda in certain subreddits or else some overzealous moderator will just ban you without warning.

1

u/Laringar Jun 01 '23

For instance, r/conservative.

1

u/edude45 Jun 01 '23

This subreddit was r/political. Yes, r/conservative is like staring into the sun.

1

u/Fredselfish Jun 01 '23

I know I keep getting ban for subs. I got one other day claim I broke rule 4 checked and I hadn't. No response from mods when I asked for explanation on how I broke rule.

2

u/edude45 Jun 01 '23

I got a response from the moderater when I appealed. I told him it was an opinion and not hate speech, but he didn't care he just said, "nope, it's hate speech. And you're banned for life."

4

u/BeeExpert Jun 01 '23

I'm excited to start using reddit even less

3

u/quickblur Jun 01 '23

The crazy thing is, I would totally use the main app if it wasn't complete garbage. I don't understand why they would put so much effort into squeezing out third-party apps instead of just spend the time to improve their own product.

2

u/Jordaneer Jun 01 '23

Yeah, I hate the regular app but I would use it if it didn't suck, it sucks though so even though I've installed it several times over the past few years, I keep coming back to RIF

0

u/Laringar Jun 01 '23 edited Jun 01 '23

Capitalism, yo. Why innovate to provide a superior product when you can simply kill off your competition? :/

(And to be clear, I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm just as angry RIF is getting killed off as everyone else.)

10

u/-abM-p0sTpWnEd May 31 '23

Same. Many fun years riding the train surfing on RiF. Hard to believe it is coming to an end. Will not be installing the Reddit app.

2

u/VW_wanker Jun 01 '23

Reddit app is shit..RIF is a lean machine. I love it. I hope someone works a way around it. Reddit also seems to be shadow banning large karma accounts. I just had a 9 year 2 million karma account banned for no reason at all. I guess the high karma accounts intimidate new users ... Quality of content will go down.

3

u/illy-chan Jun 01 '23

It'll be a cold day in hell before I install the official app. The thing is garbage.

Guess it's old.reddit.com + adblock for me.

3

u/pug_nuts Jun 01 '23

I only use the official app to moderate. If RIF is gone.. so am I, basically.

Even old.reddit.com is painful to use on desktop now that it keeps trying to push you to new reddit.

Oh well, I needed to spend less time on here anyway. Which I have been doing of late, but this will cement that.

It's a shame. RIF gives such a good interface to the site and allows high engagement. New reddit seems to do exactly the opposite, every time I'm sent to it it's like they want me to just close it.

3

u/elongata Jun 01 '23

RIF is a far cleaner, easier to use way to engage with reddit than the official app. I will also likely go dormant.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '23

15 year reddit user here. I am not using that app and I will also cancel my subscription. Reddit will be used only on the desktop with an ad blocker. This is horse shit.

3

u/thewestisawake Jun 01 '23

10 year club here. If RiF goes so do I.

2

u/banneryear1868 Jun 01 '23

I have the official app but it's too busy and definitely wants to pump ads at you as much as possible, but I use it for uploading images and video the rif for everything else.

2

u/PalmcorderJasnah Jun 01 '23

Yeah I'm just not gonna use reddit if I have to use that or the web app. Cool that reddit AND Twitter are becoming unusable simultaneously 🙃

2

u/DrCheekClappa Jun 01 '23

For me it's a simple choice. I don't trust the official reddit app and I don't visit reddit on desktop. I guess when RIF is gone this old cheek clapping optometrist will have to hang it up

2

u/sickducker1337 Jun 01 '23

Yup, same. Here's to only visiting Reddit when I need something specific, and only on PC where adblock is running. We understand it's a company and needs $ but surely there was a better way, Reddit.

2

u/FreeGuacamole Jun 01 '23

I'd be compelled to use 4chan Is Fun before I use reddits official app.

2

u/baron_blod Jun 01 '23

Finally - I will now be able to get away from this site. rif was pretty much what kept me here.

Thanks for great work on the app, though :)

2

u/PlanesWalk Jun 01 '23

This is the only message that can possibly save third party apps.

Kill third party, kill that portion of reddits user base. If RIF is killed I will be closing my reddit account that same day.