Popular social media forum Reddit, the self-described "front page of the internet," is going through an unprecedented turmoil after its CEO announced that third party app developers will have to pay for access to Reddit's API (Application Programming Interface) and data — forking out money for what has so far been free. For instance, Apollo will have to pay Reddit a whopping $20 million annually to continue offering services to its users.

This drew sharp criticism from Reddit's community of users, developers and moderators, with more than 8,000 subreddits going "dark" since Monday (June 12). While some of them are expected to open up on Wednesday, the moderators of most have said they will continue to remain private indefinitely.

All third party applications, such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, have said they will down their shutters on June 30 — Reddit's new policy comes into effect on July 1, 2023, and so far, the platform has given no indication that it will reconsider its stance. In fact, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, in an internal memo accessed by The Verge, advised his employees to refrain from wearing Reddit gear in public — such is the level of ire the decision has drawn. Huffman called the protests just noise and sounded confident that "this one will pass as well."

To understand how the developer community is dealing with this, CNBC-TV18 caught up with Christian Selig, the developer of Apollo — one of the most popular third party Reddit apps around.

Also read: Explained | Why the biggest communities on Reddit have gone dark

Selig, in this exclusive interview, said he is sad about the recent developments, but coming to terms with it. He was appreciative of the support his friends and girlfriend showed him through what he said was a difficult phase.

"It’s emotionally a lot to deal with when you very quickly lose something that was a big part of your life for so many years and you enjoyed working on so much," Selig said in an interview over email.

"I think at this stage, I’ve gotten through the worst part of dealing with Apollo going away, and I’m just appreciative of the amazing journey I’ve been able to go on with it over the years. But it does feel like a big part of my identity has fallen away," Selig added.

Before he became a Reddit app developer, Selig was first a user on the platform. Now, he's battling conflicting emotions over how things panned out at Reddit and his love for the platform. He even indicated that, after Apollo goes away, he might take some time off Reddit.

"I love Reddit the community, I think it’s the best online community out there, and while I disagree with how its management has handled things over the last few weeks, I do still love the community. So I honestly don’t know how I’ll navigate those two feelings. At the very least, I think I’ll be spending a period away from Reddit while I digest things," Selig added.

Also read: Reddit plans to get paid by OpenAI, Google for using its data for AI training

For third party app developers, paying Reddit millions of dollars a year just to continue what they've been doing is untenable. Many survive on subscriptions and, according to Selig, what they make is not nearly enough to even come close to paying Reddit the licensing fee — for the lack of a better tern.

"I’ll just say that if you took my absolute best year, and then say I managed to do 10x better than that, I still would not have been close to able to pay the $20 million bill it would cost to continue to operate Apollo in its current state," Selig explained.

Over the past few, tumultuous, weeks, Selig has been in touch with other third party developers, who are grappling with the fact that this is the end of the road, at least where Reddit is concerned unless there is a change in policy. While Selig has been working on Apollo since October 2017, others have put more than 10 years into their apps.

"I think it’s been really hard for all of us to face this on such short notice ... for many of us, myself included, this is the end of the road unless Reddit steps up and shows a desire to work with developers, going forward," he added.

Given Reddit's current pricing, Selig said it is simply untenable to continue working on a third party app. Selig says Apollo has tens of thousands of yearly subscribers who have already paid for a year of service based on previous operating costs (with the understanding of Reddit saying in January there would be no changes to the API in 2023).

Also read: One of Reddit's largest investors says its stake value dropped 41% in less than 2 years

"I would have to provide them service until the end of their yearly subscription to the tune of between $1-10 per user per month ... which is hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of the year. At that price, it makes more economical sense for me to refund those customers and close up shop," Selig said, adding that he hopes there is a path to salvage the situation, but that he doesn't expect things to change.

Should things change, however, what would that entail? Selig said enough time for developers to figure out a way forward, and an apology from Reddit, will be in order.

"...realistically, it would mean Reddit committing to giving developers a proper amount of time to transition toward any changes they announce — the current 30-day period from when pricing was announced to when we’d start incurring charges is nowhere near long enough to completely reconfigure an app as large as Apollo — and as a gesture of good faith, also apologise to developers for how this process was handled," Selig said.

For now, Selig said he will focus on other endeavours — he has a second app called Pixel Pals, which he will now give more time to.

"Pixel Pals ( is a) a fun little app that started as an idea in Apollo for virtual pets, and it’s been doing well on its own independently, and I might see if I can now give more time to it and as a result see where that app takes me for the next little bit," Selig added.

Also read: Layoffs 2023: Reddit to layoff 5% of its workforce, trims hiring plans

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)

First Published:Jun 14, 2023 5:31 PM IST