If you've logged into Reddit in the last 24 hours there's a high chance one or more of your favourite communities has gone private and you're unable to view any posts. Over 7,000 subreddits, including some big mainstream ones like r/funny, r/gaming and r/music are participating in a protest against Reddit's management jacking up the price of API access, making 3rd party tools for moderation economically unfeasible. The site actually crashed due to so many communities going private at once. Reddit's CEO gave an enlightening AMA on the weekend, saying that "unlike some of the (third-party) apps, we're not profitable", the API costs them "tens of millions of dollars" per year and when asked how he feels about Reddit forgetting about the community, "we'll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive".
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