Greater than six thousand subreddits have gone darkish to protest Reddit’s API adjustments

Over six thousand subreddits, together with most of the most-subscribed communities on Reddit like r/humorous, r/aww, r/gaming, r/music, and r/science, have set themselves personal to protest Reddit’s upcoming API pricing adjustments. It means these communities are now not publicly accessible, even to Reddit customers beforehand subscribed to them. Right here’s a Twitch stream which is monitoring the precise variety of subreddits which have gone darkish.

Moderators started planning the actions final week after the builders of a few of Reddit’s most-beloved third-party apps mentioned they wouldn’t be capable of afford the platform’s up to date API pricing. On Thursday, the builders for Apollo for Reddit and others introduced they’d be shutting down their apps on June thirtieth as a result of API adjustments.

Trying to entry r/aww, one in every of Reddit’s largest subreddits, exhibits this discover. Screenshot by Jon Porter / The Verge

“This isn’t one thing any of us do evenly: we do what we do as a result of we love Reddit, and we really consider this transformation will make it unattainable to maintain doing what we love,” r/Toptomcat wrote within the publish. And a few subreddits didn’t wait till Monday: r/TIHI (Thanks, I Hate It) and r/polls have been amongst those who went darkish shortly after CEO Steve Huffman’s poorly-received Friday AMA.

Apollo app developer Christian Selig, whose publish about Reddit’s API pricing generated a lot of the preliminary outrage, mentioned it was “extremely superb” seeing Reddit’s group come collectively to push again towards the proposed adjustments. “I actually hope Reddit listens,” he wrote in a publish on the Apollo subreddit. “I feel displaying humanity by means of apologizing for and recognizing that this course of was dealt with poorly, and concrete guarantees to provide builders extra time, would go an extended solution to making individuals really feel heard and instilling group confidence.”

Whereas many subreddits are going personal, others (corresponding to r/NintendoSwitch, r/Frugal, and r/StarWars) are as an alternative selecting to limit new posts. Historic posts are nonetheless seen, however moderators gained’t be permitting new content material on these communities whereas the protest is happening. One subreddit, r/DankMemes, remains to be public however solely permits customers to publish memes in regards to the API adjustments.

In r/ModCoord, 4 separate threads element an “incomplete and rising listing of taking part subreddits” that features quite a few well-known communities with tens of tens of millions of subscribers.