What’s with social media companies trying to destroy themselves recently? ( kbin.social )

Aesculapius , 11 months ago

As users of these platforms, you are not the customer, you are the product. Your attention, your eyeballs, your information. That product is sold to the real customers - advertising agencies, marketing groups, retail companies, service companies, etc. Now that production of that product has gone through the design phase and scale up, it's time to monetize.

The real issue with Reddit didn't have anything to do wtih API rates. It had to do with product value. Third party apps don't carry through their ads, thus reducing their value to their customers (again, not you). Moving NSFW subs, which significantly increases their product (you), increases the value to their customers. If they were going to allow third party apps to exist, they desire recompense for the dilution in value, hence the high API costs.

This is the future of centralized web services.