Over six thousand subreddits go dark to protest Reddit’s API changes

Over 6,000 subreddits, including the most subscribed community on Reddit Like r/weird, r/oh, r/gaming, r/musicAnd r/science, has taken itself private to protest Reddit’s upcoming API price changes. This means that these communities are no longer publicly accessible, even to Reddit users who have previously subscribed to them. here is one twitch stream Which is tracking the exact number of subreddits that have gone dark.

Moderators began planning the action last week after developers of some of Reddit’s most beloved third-party apps said they weren’t able to afford the platform’s updated API pricing. On Thursday, developers of Apollo for Reddit and others announced they would be shutting down their apps on June 30 due to API changes.

“This is not something that any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love redditand we truly believe this change will make it impossible to continue doing what we love,” r/toptomcat wrote in the post. And some subreddits didn’t wait until Monday: r/TIHI (thanks, I hate it) And r/poll were among those who went dark shortly after CEO Steve Huffman’s poorly-received Friday AMA.

Apollo Apps developer Christian Selig, whose post about Reddit’s API pricing generated the initial outcry, said it was “incredibly surprising” that Reddit’s community came together to push back against the proposed changes. “I really hope Reddit listens,” he wrote in a Post on the Apollo subreddit, “I think this process was handled poorly, and showing humanity through apologizing and acknowledging the concrete promise to give developers more time goes a long way toward listening to people and building community trust.” will decide.”

While many subreddits are going private, others (such as r/nintendoswitch, r/thriftyAnd r/star wars) are choosing to restrict new posts instead. Historical posts are still visible, but moderators will not allow new content on these communities during the protest. a subdivision, r/dunkmemesStill public but only allows users to post memes about API changes.

In r/modcord, Four Separate threads Description An “incomplete and growing list of participating subreddits” includes many well-known communities with millions of subscribers.