Today, over 5000 of the 6500 top subreddits in the world went private to register their protest over the proposed API changes and lack of clarity from the CEO. This protest began with Reddit’s decision to make API calls chargeable, and has grown into one of the biggest movements on the platform.

Last month, Reddit management proposed a change to Reddit’s API that would kill third-party apps due to its high cost. Apps like Apollo, Sync, Reddit is Fun, and others have announced that they will be shutting down by June 30, as they cannot take on the added costs. 

Developers have also argued that this move is extremely antithetical to developers as it does not give them enough time to shift to a better system. This isn’t just restricted to third-party apps though, as moderators of subreddits also rely on tools, which need the API to function. What’s more, Reddit management is also stonewalling developers who are attempting to communicate, a culture that seems to stem from the company’s CEO. 

Recently appearing on an AMA (ask me anything) thread, CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman defended the proposed API changes. However, over the course of doing so, he only answered 13 questions, and many have even speculated that the responses were canned. Huffman, going by the username ‘spez’, has even stated that Christian Selig, the creator of Apollo, threatened Reddit employees. Many saw this as an attempt to discredit the developer, who has long been in good standing with the community. 

Reddit’s proposed changes come at a time when the company is planning to go for an initial public offering. By capitalising on Reddit’s vast array of human-generated content, the company wants to create APIs to monetise the data for training datasets. Huffman stated, “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable. But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”

This is the root cause of the controversy, and is seen by many as a cash grab in the midst of the AI wave. Even if the blackout lasts or fizzles out, those interested can stay in the loop by checking out the livestream of subreddits going private in protest.