I wrote this as a Twitter thread on the 1st of June 2023:
Reddit, like Twitter, is poised to become a one-app service. Great apps like Apollo will shut down at the end of the month. Here’s the tragedy of our online experiences, with Reddit as the current, ongoing example:
In 2023 ads remain the only way to mass-monetise online content. This means Reddit needs to own the entire customer experience even if apps are not core to its business.
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Because of this we’re seeing excellent apps like @tweetbot and, soon, @apolloreddit die because Twitter and Reddit can’t find a way to monetise users through these apps.
A vital part of the Internet is lost, and in small ways we go collectively backwards.
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This is not just a failure to find other ways to make money off people on the Internet. This is also an example of great being the enemy of good:
Reddit is rumoured to be going public, and needs to show they have maximised the monetisation potential of their user base
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It’s almost certain that the most engaged users of a service like Reddit will use third party apps that optimise for them.
Someone at Twitter recently claimed that 3rd party apps made up 17% of engagement.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-tweetbot-developers-fighting-twitter/
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It’s vital for Reddit to demonstrate that this user segment can be monetised. They must be forced to use the “main” app.
Twitter did this by simply turning off access to apps like Tweetbot. Reddit seems to be pricing this access prohibitively high. The result is the same.
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As the post by the Apollo creator says, Reddit could keep access open without denting revenue much.
One could argue it’s a net +ve because these users publish so much.
But it’s hard to directly link this content to added revenue from “regular” users & chart it in a deck.
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If ads are the only way to monetise & investors need to see every single user directly monetised, all social media will follow this path:
encourage 3rd party apps, attract power users to supercharge engagement, shut off access, corall all eyeballs into the standard app
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By shutting off differentiated experiences Reddit will now optimise for the mainstream.
Understandable for a social media co that’s going public because it’s, well, mainstream.
But like with Twitter, the most creative stuff came from those on the fringes. That’ll be lost.
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So there’s a good chance not only will we lose these delightful apps themselves, we’ll lose the essence of that social media itself.
Twitter doesn’t have interested automations, has limited parody accounts, no auto publishing from WordPress, no @IFTTT recipes – all gone.
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How do we prevent this from repeating?
I don’t think we can, not with today’s “centralised” social media model.
Facebook, Google+ RIP, Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok.
They all either never had third party apps & automations or they did & severely limited/shut them.
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But consider RSS feeds. No one company controls it; it’s a format not a site.
In fact after becoming the most popular RSS app, Google Reader was shut down 10 years ago.
This is notable: Google didn’t shut down 3rd party apps, it shut down its own app and got out of RSS
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Many thought Reader shutting down would kill RSS, but instead there are several great RSS reader apps – it’s a fabulous ecosystem.
Reader shutting down is what allowed these apps to bloom.
The Best RSS Feed Readers (Because the Internet Is a Mess)
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Newsletters are similar. You can use any email app you like to read your newsletters.
You can change the email address at which you receive them.
You can use whatever service you like to publish a newsletter.
There’s no Newsletter, Inc like there is a Reddit/Twitter.
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But, you say, these aren’t a set of groups/forums. Where is the decentralised Reddit?
Well, IRC still exists!
No one owns it. There’s no official IRC app – in fact there are many great ones today.
We can use IRC again. Or enhance it. It’s up to us.
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Our online experiences today are fragile.
They can be diminished, shut down because of a company’s priorities.
This thread is to remind us that it doesn’t have to be this way.
Different, welcoming, resilient experiences exist even today. We should use them more often.
N/ ★