Counter to what many will want you to believe, I think there may be a business case to what they’re doing… but how they’re doing it is completely dumb.

Imagine you run Reddit. You’ve got 15+ years of history and baggage (I.E. those of us who knew which sub /u/spez moderated). You’ve got handful of loyal users that have been very resistant to changes. They’ve been vocal about the new UI where you can spam ads. They’ve been vocal against chat in favor of legacy PM. But you’ve got no way to convert them to the new and shiny features which helps you monetize better that you’d want to focus more effort on.

So what do you do? You sunset older interfaces like the i.reddit.com / .mobile interface. You cripple old reddit. You don’t give new features to the API. You continue to build your new site and acquire new users who’s entire experience had been the new system with nothing to compare to. Old users resistant to change will either be forced to convert or leave… until eventually you get only users in the new system.

Killing the API and third party apps is just a very aggressive step. They’re pruning their old user base for the new.

Is it the best way? Heck no. The older users are active contributors. Their solution aren’t up to speed yet. And they’ve literally thrown decade+ of goodwill down the toilet. But, they have metrics, and I’m sure their bean counters have guaranteed their leadership that they will survive… and they almost certainly will. Just look at Twitter still limping along despite the mass exodus. Just like Digg before Reddit, Reddit will survive and continue to exist. It will be very different than what you and I are used to both in terms of look and feel, functionalities, and communities. But it will survive.

I don’t think I would’ve approached it the same way. But maybe that’s why I’m not rich and running big companies. 🤷‍♂️

It's probably pretty straightforward, if clicks are what they're looking to increase as a metric, then sorting by rising was probably not meeting their expectations in terms of clickrate.

As breathtakingly stupid as what spez has been doing appears to be, I thinkthat the short term plan is a fast cash out, and the long term plan is to coast on the brand name while simultaneously stifling the reddit experience. Coasting, like Tim Horton's, licensing out names and logos like Playboy, Harley Davidson, Schwinn. Sure, the product might be shit, but Facebook seems to be able to retain enough dipshits, so...

I don’t think there was a whole lot of forethought other than “third party app users would make us more money if they switched over to the official app”

I don’t get the sense that there was even clear communication within Reddit administration itself given they were assuring devs that they would work with devs and it would be affordable initially.

Because reddit is run by a bunch of greedy losers who want to go public, pump, dump, and fuck off to wherever the next Little Saint James is.

I'm not convinced that spez' elevator goes all the way to his office.

I really just think they didn't want the API user base anymore. They want a tightly controlled ecosystem of vanilla content by vanilla users to sell to vanilla investors. TLDR they sold out, and the fact that we've moved on so quickly means we were ready to move on anyway.

My guess is that they know they will lose their DieHard users that cost them the most money even though they produce the most content.

What will happen in the vacuum is that other users will rise up to fill in the gap that are more in line with modern Reddit and will make Reddit more money in the long term.

I mean of course they are selling their soul to their venture capitalists (or at least whatever remains of it) in the process but I guess as long as their primary shareholders go home with a fat wallet they're okay with whatever happens.

You will enjoy the experience the way we intend.

To start, I don't agree with what Reddit are doing. However, to play devil's advocate, the company is losing money. They're not profitable. What if Reddit had to declare bankruptcy due to it? How do you propose they make money? Asking for donations? Even with offering Reddit Gold, or whatever pay-for entitlements, they aren't profitable.

ChatGPT is seemingly making a lot of money off of comments on Reddit, and Reddit are giving them that data for free. It makes sense, to me anyway, to charge OpenAI, Microsoft, et al., for access to that data. It seems third party app users were caught in the crossfire. Perhaps that was a lack of foresight, but perhaps it was a calculated (albeit incorrect) risk.

Spez wants to be facebook. That's what it comes down to.

You can't be facebook if your mods are engaged and dedicated. You can't be facebook if the user base is doing more than scrolling brainlessly and hitting vote buttons.

Why do you think that the first targets are image based subs?