Apollo / Reddit app, API shenanigans.

[lsg1r]

I think they just keep raising funding to keep themselves a float.

And for some reason people keep paying it

It’s the hosting of videos and images and having a strong infrastructure to distribute this data that is going to be costing them a lot. And Unlike Facebook that has your real name and a lot of personal data to Monetise, they are confined to trying to figure things out based on your subreddit choice.

Is all that stuff actually costing them as much as they're likely making out...a fair bit of the (admittedly limited) stuff I see seems to be just posted links from youtube/tik tok etc or primarily words, if it's images it's pretty low quality/file size and while I'm sure it soon adds up they can also buy things at reduced rates due to being a big business etc.

To be fair a website can monitor your usage in so many different ways these days, cookies, IP address, login details (they would love you to login, so much so you can't even sort viewing order unless you're logged in) and I'm sure there are others, especially with their mobile app (think I saw a post saying 1000 pi hole requests....). You don't actually need a name these days to be linked to other things.... just think how much advertising industry is worth.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

And for some reason people keep paying it


Is all that stuff actually costing them as much as they're likely making out...a fair bit of the (admittedly limited) stuff I see seems to be just posted links from youtube/tik tok etc or primarily words, if it's images it's pretty low quality/file size and while I'm sure it soon adds up they can also buy things at reduced rates due to being a big business etc.

To be fair a website can monitor your usage in so many different ways these days, cookies, IP address, login details (they would love you to login, so much so you can't even sort viewing order unless you're logged in) and I'm sure there are others, especially with their mobile app (think I saw a post saying 1000 pi hole requests....). You don't actually need a name these days to be linked to other things.... just think how much advertising industry is worth.

Technically people stopped paying which is why they are doing an IPO.

From what I have seen/remember only YouTube can be embedded in the site. Every other video they host. Images are a mixed bag of self hosting and embedding from other sites. In terms of what they need to store data wise they are probably on par with insta.

From what I have gleaned listening to Luke from LTT talk about floatplane, paying for bandwidth to distribute your content and then server space within the networks data centre to house server caches is where the real cost lies.

No idea what costing is like but I don’t think economies of scale really works as effectively when it comes to buying bandwidth from a provider.

Is Reddit able to track people off site? Like how Facebook and Google is everywhere.

 

[lsg1r]

Is Reddit able to track people off site? Like how Facebook and Google is everywhere.

Not in the same way as google and facebook, they've got all their website 'plugins' but Reddit probably can at least to some extent.

 

[Minusorange]

No idea what costing is like but I don’t think economies of scale really works as effectively when it comes to buying bandwidth from a provider.

I always wonder how google can afford to store everything from youtube, I was also wondering why nobody hasn't come up with a foolproof way to store files encoded into video and then you basically get unlimited free storage from youtube

 

[smogsy]

I always wonder how google can afford to store everything from youtube, I was also wondering why nobody hasn't come up with a foolproof way to store files encoded into video and then you basically get unlimited free storage from youtube

you can, one guy recorded this data into whitenoise & uploaded it to youtube

YouTube As Infinite File Storage

Anyone who was lucky enough to secure a Gmail invite back in early 2004 would have gasped in wonder at the storage on offer, a whole gigabyte! Nearly two decades later there’s more storage to…

hackaday.com

 

[Stumble Bum]

Yet somehow the 'CEO' is worth multiple millions, yes it's not billions like facebook etc, but considering reddit is basically just a huge forum it's not exactly bad....

Also if you consider they're not paying the people who post on the site and/or moderate, yet have numerous trackers and adverts etc I find it highly unlikely they're not making a profit, it's more likely, they're not seeing the profit they want, especially considering the valuation of AI which has been using it for it's learning process etc.

EDIT: quick check... reddit made around 350mil in 2021 and has around 2000 employees.... I know hosting costs a fair bit these days but if they're not making a profit on 350mil they're doing something wrong.

Twitter is not profitable.
Spotify is not profitable.
Twitch is not profitable.
Reddit claim they also do not make a profit.

Yet somehow you know better and Reddit must be making a profit and are just 'doing something wrong'

Lol ok.

 

[hurfdurf]

Yet somehow the 'CEO' is worth multiple millions, yes it's not billions like facebook etc, but considering reddit is basically just a huge forum it's not exactly bad....

Also if you consider they're not paying the people who post on the site and/or moderate, yet have numerous trackers and adverts etc I find it highly unlikely they're not making a profit, it's more likely, they're not seeing the profit they want, especially considering the valuation of AI which has been using it for it's learning process etc.

EDIT: quick check... reddit made around 350mil in 2021 and has around 2000 employees.... I know hosting costs a fair bit these days but if they're not making a profit on 350mil they're doing something wrong.

A couple of decades ago a lot of new companies got funded on the business plan that said we have literally no strategy at all for how to make money but we'll get a gazillion users then charge them later. they're (and unfortunately we're) collectively now in the Find Out phase of that.

The original money is out, people aren’t investing in the company with more money anymore, and there is no profit to keep the company going.

 

[t2na]

Twitter is not profitable.
Spotify is not profitable.
Twitch is not profitable.
Reddit claim they also do not make a profit.

Yet somehow you know better and Reddit must be making a profit and are just 'doing something wrong'

Lol ok.

You have to wonder how any of these businesses aren't profitable - or at least aren't able to turn those original millions of dollars worth of investments into a sustainable company and business model.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

I always wonder how google can afford to store everything from youtube, I was also wondering why nobody hasn't come up with a foolproof way to store files encoded into video and then you basically get unlimited free storage from youtube

Their infastructure system must be amazing. I doubt anyone in YouTube even knows the full extent of it. Like the US army not knowing how many military bases they have .

I seem to remember that there are users who use Youtube as a personnal video backup site on a corporate scale.


Side note: You can use AWS (Amazon CloudFront) to estimate how much it would cost to distribute information, to different geographic regions

AWS Pricing Calculator

AWS Pricing Calculator lets you explore AWS services, and create an estimate for the cost of your use cases on AWS.

calculator.aws

 

[Stumble Bum]

Moderators have created custom tools to help operate their communities using browser add-ons, custom scripts, and other tooling that uses the Reddit Data API. Our API allows free access to moderators and developers creating these tools for non-commercial use cases.

As of July 1, 2023, we are increasing the API limits for our free API usage from 60 to 100 Queries Per Minute for those using OAuth authentication. Please see our Reddit Data API Wiki for more details about our legacy API resources, usage, and rate limits.

The vast majority of moderator bots and other tooling using our Data API will fall into the free API tier. If you have a bot that is going over these rate limits, is broken, or is otherwise impacted by updates related to the API, please contact our team. We are committed to working with you to find a solution for your moderator tooling.

Edit on June 15, 2023: We’ve seen lots of questions, and have confirmed today that fewer than 100 bots total (including both moderation and non-moderation bots) currently exceed our updated free API Rate limits of 100 Queries Per Minute for those using OAuth authentication. We've allowlisted all the bots that we can see are owned by moderators or taking moderator actions (out of the thousands of moderation bots that exist, less than 20 exceed the updated rate limits).

If you are concerned a high-volume bot that does not perform traditional moderator actions but is used to help with moderation might be one of the ~80 bots impacted once the rate limits are enforced, please reach out to us here so we can exempt it.

Developers looking to port over an existing moderation bot or tool to Reddit’s Developer Platform will be granted immediate access. Please contact the Developer Platform team to request access. Please indicate that you are in need of tool porting assistance in your message.

Reddit posted this at the top of the feed today. Not sure mods of subreddits can have any issues over the tools they need to do their job. So yep I can definitely see subreddits finding new mods if they ever needed them in the event of force reopening subreddits.

 

[UberTiger]

Looks like Reddit are trying to restore deleted content from unhappy users from the last few days

Reddit - Dive into anything

reddit.com

 

[ci_newman]

Reddit posted this at the top of the feed today. Not sure mods of subreddits can have any issues over the tools they need to do their job. So yep I can definitely see subreddits finding new mods if they ever needed them in the event of force reopening subreddits.

Reddit introduces API.

3rd party apps strip adverts out of Reddit.

Reddit loses revenue.

Reddit monetises API.

3rd party apps - surprised Pikachu face.

That's the TL: DR version. Reddit is a business, businesses need to make money to operate.

Which brings me back to the original post I made.

This has got nothing to do with moderator tools and everything to do with the community resisting adverts and actually generating revenue for Reddit.

Someone else (Apollo and other 3rd party apps) was making bank on the shoulders of Reddit, and now Reddit want their slice of the pie back again.

Apollo has 1million users, in order to actually post as a minimum you have to buy their $5 one-time subscription. Do the math...

 

[Hades]

Twitter is not profitable.
Spotify is not profitable.
Twitch is not profitable.
Reddit claim they also do not make a profit.

I'm not saying this is the case for the above companies. But some companies operate to avoid profits due to the tax burden. Instead they aim to spend every penny.

So how do they make money to pay their owners? Simple; they take out loans and pay their owners with the loans. Loans are a cost, not a profit.

 

[UberTiger]

3rd party apps strip adverts out of Reddit.

There was never anything to strip out. The API never accommodated ads, that's on reddit.

 

[jpaul]

Someone else (Apollo and other 3rd party apps) was making bank on the shoulders of Reddit, and now Reddit want their slice of the pie back again.

Apollo has 1million users, in order to actually post as a minimum you have to buy their $5 one-time subscription. Do the math...

so Apollo will be one of the bot tools that will be have to pay under the new API regime (as stumble posted) ?

I don't use apollo just ublockO in windows to read reddit & kill adds - but, ublocko is a filter/direct interface to reddit so is not a bot - can't Apollo have similar interface

( don't read twitter much as content just frivolous, but it's slow & I'd like to see twitter have a more open interface so ublockO would work effectively )

 

[lsg1r]

Twitter is not profitable.
Spotify is not profitable.
Twitch is not profitable.
Reddit claim they also do not make a profit.

Yet somehow you know better and Reddit must be making a profit and are just 'doing something wrong'

Lol ok.

Yet somehow they're not applying for bankruptcy.... no bank/investor will allow you to run a business which is essentially losing money every year. Like I said it's more likely they're not as profitable as they think they should be, not that they're not profitable at all. Don't forget creative accounting and 'writing things off' etc can make accounts look a lot worse than they actually are. You only need to look at Amazon who are well known to be shifting profits around to minimise how much they need to pay.....

Twitter made 5 BILLION in revenues in 2021..... probably not going to do that with Elon though...
I can kind of understand if Spotify isn't making a profit, they're fighting against one of the greediest sectors in the world... music labels. Not to mention they're fighting against companies with essentially bottomless pits of money AND control of some of the devices they're being used on. Having said that last I checked they were due to start making a profit last year...
Twitch... that's owned by Amazon and last I checked it made around 2.8 billion in revenue in 2021... but with it's cross integration with Amazon Prime it might be seen more as a 'value add' by Amazon than a true profit maker.

Lets be realistic about the current situation with reddit and it's pretty clear from Spez's 'damage limitation' comments on websites (not going to assume 100% accurate, websites can have bias) of late that this is all about money, most likely via the IPO, which he'll get a considerable amount of cash from being a major shareholder. He can't make his mind up, first he says the apps are a huge burden, now he's saying they don't account for much usage, sometimes it's both.... first he was saying he wanted to work with app developers, now he's saying he didn't even know they existed until recently even though the official app was bought from an app developer.... it does keep constantly falling back to the fact that the app developers are making money which they're not getting any of (most app developers are ok with paying reddit, IF the price was fair, it's not)

I can understand reddit being annoyed about users not seeing adverts on non official apps, which does deprive them of profit (as does my adblocker on my browser...) but if the API doesn't support the ads they show on the site it's not the fault of the app devs...not 100% sure here but there seems to be a newer 'api' they don't have access to, which I believe the official app supports, is both lighter and shows ads.
I can understand reddit being annoyed about not getting a fair pay from AI scrapers etc, but to essentially shoot yourself in the foot with the community that essentially makes your business profitable is just sheer stupidity....

 

[ci_newman]

so Apollo will be one of the bot tools that will be have to pay under the new API regime (as stumble posted) ?

I don't use apollo just ublockO in windows to read reddit & kill adds - but, ublocko is a filter/direct interface to reddit so is not a bot - can't Apollo have similar interface

( don't read twitter much as content just frivolous, but it's slow & I'd like to see twitter have a more open interface so ublockO would work effectively )

Apollo isn't a moderator bot tool, it's a replacement app completely so yes they will have to pay.

 

[tenofspades]

Twitter is not profitable.
Spotify is not profitable.
Twitch is not profitable.
Reddit claim they also do not make a profit.

Yet somehow you know better and Reddit must be making a profit and are just 'doing something wrong'

Lol ok.

I think Twitter has turned around now. So maybe reddit is a case of helloo Elon Musk??

 

[Lightnix]

Yet somehow they're not applying for bankruptcy.... no bank/investor will allow you to run a business which is essentially losing money every year.

...

VCs will fund basically anything which is successfully building marketshare. The idea is then to increase revenues and profits later. Those which succeed are considered "unicorns" and VC backers will often back multiple startups which they expect to fail and lose money because they feel that a single "unicorn" will make up for all of this.

There's a reason all of these startups begin ad free, give away a lot of stuff or just way cheaper than existing competitors. It's nothing to do with smaller companies being more efficient or any rhetorical BS like that, they're just being subsidised by VC money. Don't believe it's possible? Uber at least has been open about it for years, they've basically been displacing regular taxis by undercutting them with investment money but it's not profitable.

Then a whole load of startups are not far off ponzi schemes. They basically raise investment on the basis that they can raise future rounds of investment (from somebody else!) rather than real profitability.

 

[jpaul]

Apollo isn't a moderator bot tool, it's a replacement app completely so yes they will have to pay.

yes it's a replacement app, but if, like Ublocko in a browser (just filtering / modifying rendered data) then it's surprising reddit servers can distinguish it(and block it in the future) and that its use wouldn't fall into the free low rate access AI use.
(if Apollo have cached reddit data in the cloud that's a different thing)