If you tried to open any subreddit, the chances are they’re probably marked as private. The number, quoted as 5,000 last time, has now risen to ~7,800 subreddits. This entire kerfuffle started when Christian Selig posted that running Apollo, a third-part Reddit app, would cost him $1.7 million monthly after Reddit brought changes in its API policy and decided to make it paid. Other third-party apps face similar challenges and most of them have announced the shutting down of their apps. 

Steve Huffman, the co-founder and CEO of the platform, is unfazed and has since doubled down on his stance, and announced there will be no changes in the pricing in spite of the blackout. 

For users, there are alternatives, but none bring in the sense of community, niche subs, repository of information that Reddit does. Also, the sheer number of people using the app is hard to recreate. But independent developers are taking this opportunity to build their own versions of Reddit. Some of which aren’t even released yet. 

Non.io

This new platform was only launched yesterday. The developer says he’s been working on the platform for the past few years. The app is free to browse and paid to interact. The minimum charge is $2 out of which $1 (though you can choose more) would go to run the servers and everything left behind gets split evenly between everything the user has upvoted that month. In the first days of the platform, users are already providing constructive feedback on how to improve the features. 

Spezless

Anticipating no change after the 48 hour blackout, this cheeky developer has named his alternative Spezless (the user name of Steve Huffman on Reddit being spez.) It would be a non-profit organisation because the developer says, “I’ve created and sold two companies, I have enough money. But I do enjoy having fun, and I think it would be fun to say F-you to the corporate overlords.”

This platform isn’t even built yet, but you can sign up if you want to petition for the app to be built.

Flingup

The developer plans to run it just like Wikipedia, a non-profit organisation. They wish to be against “dark software design patterns such as endless scrolling, which are typically designed to keep users glued to their screens longer than they normally would”. Instead of being hooked on an app, they are a read-only mode without even having to login. 

Zsync

Another independent  app for ‘high quality content’ as the developer puts it, the app was built last year and with Reddit down, it was posted recently. Instead of using subreddits, the platform is experimenting with tags. You can tag your post and instead of viewing your subreddit, you can just checkout the tag. An entirely experimental project, the core challenges, the developer said,“is incentivizing/rewarding high quality content”.

Anyone who connects an ethereum wallet to their account will also have a (non-invasive) “Tip” option at the bottom of their comment, allowing anyone to directly tip commenters cryptocurrency (no middleman taking a cut here), offering a financial incentive.

Raddle

An older platform, Raddle focuses on free and open platforms. It has no ads, user profiling or sharing user data with anyone else. It claims to follow ‘anarchist principles’ and the moderators though may implement forum-specific rules, isn’t above the community they help create. It runs on completely free and open source code and depends on volunteer labour. 

Steemit

Steemit is just like Reddit but with cryptocurrency. The platform provides tangible financial rewards instead of Reddit Karma. Steem blockchain mints new STEEM tokens everyday and adds them to a community’s ‘reward pool’. These tokens are then awarded to users for their contributions, based on the votes that their content receives. This encourages original content rather than posting a copied link of something that the user found, just for upvotes.