I suppose if it’s truly that low then his claims of third-party apps allowing “free” browsing hurting their bottom line isn’t true. Honestly, they could have worked with third-party developers and forced them to implement ads in a non-subscription tier while allowing the API to operate with minimal cost to the developer. But they went into this “negotiation” in bad faith because they never wanted to continue allowing third-party apps anyway. They wanted to kill them entirely. The problem is Reddit is scarce on offering mod tools and incorporating a lot of features people could get in other apps. Hell, the few things they have added over the years are garbage. The video player is pure trash. They implemented photo hosting because they wanted to undercut imgur which just adds to their own server and bandwidth cost. And in the end they rely entirely on users to deliver content.
Also, his claims are probably off where he says 97% do not use a third-party app to browse the site. I’d say that’s because the vast majority are browsing on a PC. Anything he says can’t be trusted anyway because he’s been caught lying. The truth is you are the product, and the real money is in selling your data to third parties.
I suppose if it’s truly that low then his claims of third-party apps allowing “free” browsing hurting their bottom line isn’t true. Honestly, they could have worked with third-party developers and forced them to implement ads in a non-subscription tier while allowing the API to operate with minimal cost to the developer. But they went into this “negotiation” in bad faith because they never wanted to continue allowing third-party apps anyway. They wanted to kill them entirely. The problem is Reddit is scarce on offering mod tools and incorporating a lot of features people could get in other apps. Hell, the few things they have added over the years are garbage. The video player is pure trash. They implemented photo hosting because they wanted to undercut imgur which just adds to their own server and bandwidth cost. And in the end they rely entirely on users to deliver content.
Also, his claims are probably off where he says 97% do not use a third-party app to browse the site. I’d say that’s because the vast majority are browsing on a PC. Anything he says can’t be trusted anyway because he’s been caught lying. The truth is you are the product, and the real money is in selling your data to third parties.