Reddit Blackout: Thousands of subreddits offline following API monetization revolt

The Reddit Blackout is a user revolt against the company’s new proposed API changes. As a result, over 60% of top subreddits have gone offline.

Wondering what the Reddit Blackout is all about? We explain everything you need to know about your favorite subreddit going dark.

Reddit is among the most popular social media platforms. Not only is it an efficient means of catching up on news, but its features allow your feed to be highly customized to your liking.

However, following the ongoing increased costs of business in the tech sector, Reddit announced it would begin increasing the fees for usage of its API to run third-party apps or bots on the site. It’s unclear if this decision was influenced by Reddit being used for training data for artificial intelligence apps like ChatGPT.

Reddit has revealed its plans to start charging third-party app developers and it could be catastrophic for most leading the way. As a result, a major protest is in action from June 12, with the original 48 hours now being extended by some communities to an indefinite one.

Over 60% of top subreddits are now offline

Following the ongoing blackout protest on Reddit using the “Reddit Blackout Tracker“, we can see that a vast majority of the site’s top subreddits are now offline. The blackout includes subreddits dedicated to gaming (37 million subscribers) and even niche comedy subreddits like r/NatureisMetal going dark in protest with its 2.42 million subscribers.

As of right now, the website also reports that over 2 billion users subscribed to their favorite subreddits cannot access forums and won’t be able to until the moderation and admin teams behind the communities decide to unlock them again. It should be noted that this 2 billion number is not unique users, and repeats between communities with shared subscribers.

Reddit wants to charge some apps millions for API access

Reddit announced on May 31 that the platform is set to start charging for engagement with its Application Programming Interface (API). Where before this was free, enabling third-party developers to create their own applications with unique features, Reddit is now set to charge what many are labeling as extremely high fees for access to the API.

The popular third-party app, Apollo, has now claimed that it could cost them “$20 million a year” just to keep their programs running. This kind of treatment would also begin to affect things like Google Chrome extensions, and bots would all die out due to inflated costs.

Currently, there’s no telling exactly when this API price increase may be implemented. Though from a recent call with an Apollo developer, it appears Reddit is eager to push the change sooner than later.

What is the Reddit blackout?

The Reddit blackout is a protest against the ongoing changes being made to the API and software that currently powers a lot of Reddit third-party apps. Due to the introduction of high costs, communities are now trying to send a message to the higher-ups.

As Reddit begins to charge for API and make sweeping changes to it, a large portion of Reddit’s audience will be going on a “blackout” until things have resolved. This means locking forums and essentially withholding vital interaction and engagement that sustain Reddit on a daily basis.

Originally, this was proposed as a 48-hour blackout, but some communities have escalated this to an indefinite one. Subreddits like SquaredCircle (a community for discussing wrestling) have decided to completely cull the community until things are resolved in a satisfactory way.

Others have begun to move to alternatives like Discord or Lemmy.

This indefinite blackout began to take hold after the CEO of Reddit confirmed that the company would not be backing down from its changes, despite the possibility of usability becoming much worse after the fact.

Some subreddits have a heavy reliance on bots to help filter spam and the like, which will now be much harder as it costs an extraordinary amount of money to run these bots at the scale they originally were.

What is an API?

An API, or Application Programming Interface, is a method of pulling data from a source online and utilizing it for your own needs. Developers and large tech companies provide APIs for things like tracking, integrating data into apps and so much more.

For the longest time, APIs have mostly remained free. However, companies like Reddit and Twitter are now starting to charge for access, despite a lot of apps or bots heavily relying on them.

One example would be the Magic: The Gathering card fetcher. This bot can be summoned at any time during a conversation on Reddit. It will provide additional context by posting to Reddit cards mentioned in brackets. It combines Scryfall‘s (a popular third-party card-searching website) and Reddit’s API to provide accurate results.