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Reddit will be just a fraction of its usual self for the next couple of days. Nearly 7,200 of the site’s subreddits have gone dark as of 10:15 a.m. ET Monday, as moderators of those forums protest the company’s decision to start charging some third-party apps for access to the company’s application programming interface (API), a tool that powers popular tools which give users an alternate way to browse Reddit’s forums.
The blackout is a black eye in many ways for the site. Besides alienating both users and the volunteers that oversee the subreddits, the site and the fallout of the protest are being closely watched by Wall Street, as Reddit quietly filed for an IPO at the end of 2021. The company has stayed in a holding pattern since then, but many investors expect it to begin trading later this year. At the time of its filing, Reddit said it expected to exceed $1 billion in annual ad revenue by 2023.
With its most popular subreddits offline, though, that could be difficult to achieve. Included among the list of dark subreddits are r/gaming, r/pics and r/todayilearned, which all have more than 30 million subscribers each.
A running list of subreddits that are joining the protest can be found on Twitch. Of the 88 most popular subreddits, which have between 5 million and 40 million subscribers, just 15 are still visible to users.
“This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love due to the poor moderation tools available through the official app,” a moderator spokesperson explained in a thread explaining the blackout.
A week ago, Reddit also cut 5% of its staff.
The protest is scheduled to last through June 14, but it could be extended or take other forms, moderators say, if Reddit does not adjust its plans regarding API fees.
Several popular subreddits, including r/music, with over 30 million subscribers, say they will stop operating “indefinitely,” since they say moderators are unable to do their work with the tools on Reddit’s official app.
A Reddit spokesperson told Fortune Monday morning the site did not plan to make any changes to its API updates and pointed to comments from CEO Steve Huffman during an Ask Me Anything session last Friday, when he said, “We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private. We are all responsible for ensuring Reddit provides an open accessible place for people to find community and belonging.”
That AMA by Huffman, though, seemingly only made the backlash worse, with Reddit users downvoting his comments and criticizing him.
Several third-party apps, including Apollo, have said the pricing on the API will force them to shut down their services.
Absolutely horrible news. Not only is Apollo a great app, Reddit’s management is lying about, slandering and vilifying one of the nicest guys in our indie app world while unceremoniously killing off an app he worked on for many years. https://t.co/uDDnUX5hIW
— Sebastiaan de With (@sdw) June 8, 2023
