Reddit CEO Steve Huffman defends API changes in AMA

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman finally explained the company’s deeply unpopular API changes, which resulted in some of Reddit’s most-used third-party apps being forced to shut down. In an AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussion, Huffman promised improvements to Reddit’s own app, but seemed reluctant to make concessions on pricing and other issues that rankle the community.

“Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and in order to do so, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require massive data usage,” he wrote in his AMA post. “Some apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync have decided this pricing doesn’t work for their businesses and will be shutting down before the pricing goes into effect.”

In mostly 1-2 sentence responses to detailed, multi-part questions, Huffman acknowledged some missteps in the company’s API rollout, but dodged thorny questions about the company’s handling of its relationships with third-party developers. Largely refused to deal with. In , he acknowledged that the 30-day window given to developers for the new API was a “tight timeline” and said that the company would “continue to chat with the many developers who still want to work with us.”

But other developers soon weighed in, noting that they never heard back from the company despite reaching out through channels promoted by Reddit. One developer said, “I’ve been trying to contact Reddit for the past 3 months and have been completely ignored.” “I feel completely powerless to do anything right now and I want to try and save the app I’ve been working on for the last 10 years.” Huffman apologized and said the company would respond.

When asked about why the company accused Apollo developer Christian Selig of threatening the company — a claim Selig denied and a Reddit representative on the criticism — he was immediately accompanied by an audio clip of a phone call with Huffman. Rejected. “Their ‘joke’ is the least of our issues,” he said. “Their behavior and communication with us has been all over the place—telling us one thing while saying something completely different. I don’t know how we can do business with him. (Huffman did not respond to Selig’s follow-up question seeking examples of such behavior.)

Huffman, who goes by Spaz on the platform, also promised that Reddit was working on its own app, including more tools and features. Both areas are often cited by Redditors who prefer third-party apps to the company’s native apps. He also said that third-party apps would no longer be able to show sexually explicit content due to the changing “regulatory environment” and legal concerns. “It’s a constant battle to keep up with this content,” he said. “We have to be strict/conservative about where it shows up.”

One of his most telling answers was a question about the notion that “Reddit has become increasingly profit-driven and less focused on community engagement” than in the past. Huffman replied, “We will remain profit-driven until the profits come in.” “Unlike some 3P (third-party) apps, we are not profitable.”

Notably, there were several topics that Huffman didn’t address, including why the company priced its API at a rate that developers say is prohibitively expensive. Huffman also didn’t address the ensuing blackout of thousands of subreddits protesting the API changes. More people have taken a pledge over two days, starting on June 12, to protest the changes.

By the end of the AMA, Huffman had answered 14 questions, while a handful of other executives answered a handful of their own. In perhaps the clearest sign that his answers weren’t well received, each answer was downvoted by the Reddit team so heavily that it was nearly impossible to view them within the AMA thread itself. A moderator later linked all of his answers to the top of the thread. “We know it’s hard to find answers,” he said.