Back when reddit was arguing in favor of net neutrality against Ajit Pai, I wrote them a note which they included in their FCC filing. I think there were all of five or so redditors they included for that.
I wonder how the pro net neutrality reddit feels about this cynical shutting down of 3rd party access?
Thanks for the years, RIF. I hope Tilde works out for you too! I can’t wait to try it!
Net neutrality and reddit’s API changes are pretty different situations.
Losing net neutrality could have raised prices on the entire internet, but the important thing is ISPs have too much of a monopoly on internet infrastructure. Many consumers across America only have one or two options for their ISP.
Reddit and twitter’s decisions to privatize their APIs isn’t a new phenomenon. Other companies already do this for a variety of reasons. Reddit’s worry about AI driving up their cost is valid, but instead of tackling the problem as a bot problem, they took an easier way out and damaged the user experience.
Where the situations are different is: it’s accessible, cheap, and profitable to rebuild a site like Reddit and create competition. It’s not any of those things to compete against an ISP.