SNOOcalypse - document, discuss, and promote the downfall of Reddit.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with charging for API access but the amount they're charging is ridiculous. Most reddit/lemmy apps pay for the imgur api, for example. Only difference is that imgur wants significantly less money than reddit so it's sustainable for app developers.

I do think there's a bit of merit to that, but I think the way it was approached and leveled at the community was really what created the true problem.

There wasn't much tact or frank honesty about the situation, Reddit and Huffman bred a sort of hostile environment by setting the tone. I could sympathize with the logical reason, but not with the execution and true personality that it belied.

The fact is that these free big services were never supposed to exist, and everyone massively benefitted from them, as they adopted the services. These services were always supposed to have some form of monetary funding, but everyone does not pay, so companies rely on mass adoption to try and end up with a small subset of payers that will offset the costs in few years.

Lemmy only exists after so many years because everyone has that spare computing power, or a spare old laptop, none of which would have existed if Reddit was not free for the past 10+ years. And the scale of Lemmy is not going to be bazillion users for a long time.

But this is a very less spoken and rational take on tech platforms, as F(L)OSS zealots are usually just a little less unhinged (as defensive mechanism) than corporate Big Tech clowns. F(L)OSS zealots behave like liberals/libertarians, even though the philosophy and spirit of F(L)OSS is communist.