The internet won’t be the same

Narwhal’s switch to subscriptions: An update from det0ur over Reddit DM and the case against a subscription model

The June 30th shut down of third-party apps such as Apollo for Reddit isn’t mourned by many users of the forum, but Narwhal is one popular App that is still around.

Narwhal will be changing a bit down the line. For the next few months, det0ur will be adding subscriptions to cover the costs of using the subreddit. The cost will likely be between $4 and $7 per month.

For fans of Narwhal, the update should come as a relief — especially given that det0ur was not as optimistic about the app’s future at the beginning of this month. I’ve reached out to det0ur over Reddit DM to ask for more details about what changed, but I haven’t heard back yet.

Even though there will be a handful of third-party options, the loss of mainstays like Apollo and RIF will be a blow to longtime users of those apps. You may have a bit more time to use them, depending on when you read this. RIF’s Andrew Shu plans to turn off the app before the end of June, and Christian Selig plans to stop the app a bit before July 1st.

The developers did not reply to the requests for comment. Like with my Thursday story about Narwhal’s switch to subscriptions, Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt said that the company doesn’t disclose private business discussions or agreements.

The developer of Now for Reddit, Miloco, issued a similar post. After July 1st, it will still be free until they change to a subscription model. Miloco will let you know when the update which removes free use of the app is ready, it isn’t confirmed yet. Miloco didn’t give any information on potential pricing. I guess they are going to make Nara a subscription service, since Miloco didn’t say if it would move over to a subscription.

However, Relay users won’t be charged a monthly subscription right away. For now, the app will be free “while I continue optimizing API calls and finalizing subscription prices,” DBrady said. I see that the app is priced at $3.99 on the Play store, but DBrady thinks it should be free to use, so maybe that will change soon. DBrady is aiming to hit a low price point for a base subscription tier that only covers 85% to 90 percent of users. DBrady says that power users could have a few different price points. Sometime in the “coming weeks,” the app will switch to the subscription model.

And, like with Twitter, it’s the kind of shake-up that makes users realize the value they give to tech companies—for free—even if they just mean to give it to the community. A poster on one subreddit dedicated to saving the third-party apps broke it down succinctly: “Never forget how Reddit began as an empty website, which its founders populated with hundreds of fake accounts to give the illusion of activity and popularity—Remember that without us, the users, Reddit would be nothing but [Hoffman’s] digital dollhouse.” WIRED is published by Condé Nast. Condé Nast’s parent company, Advance Publications, has an ownership stake in the website.

In protest of subreddits being private, the mod changed the groups to private so that they couldn’t converse on the site. Hoffman said in a leaked memo to employees that the dustup would “pass,” but as Rory Mir, associate director of community organizing at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told my colleague Boone Ashworth, it’s the kind of thing that can wreck a platform. “Like with Twitter, it’s not a big collapse when a social media website starts to die, but it is a slow attrition unless they change their course,” Mir said.

But charging for the API doesn’t affect just companies like OpenAI, Google, and others that are using Reddit discussions to train artificial intelligence systems. Apollo developer Christian Selig estimated it would cost $20 million annually for the app to shutter rather than paying the fees after the company announced the change.

It wasn’t an active fear, not a doomsday everyone knew was coming, but still one that nearly seemed inevitable: The magic of Reddit is gone. As of June 30, 2023, several mobile apps for browsing the platform will be closing up shop as of that date, in order to make room for the new fee for access to the site’s APIs from redd. It’s the culmination of weeks of revolt from users and mods upset that the move will price out the third-party developers responsible for the apps that help make the community what it is. Even if the decision is ultimately rolled back, it’s a moment that has shifted the culture of Reddit forever. And shifted the internet with it.

If it sounds like a lot of fretting over a change, it isn’t. It’s indicative of a growing new awareness of what constitutes labor on the internet, and how communities can have their work mined for money-making ventures. Specifically, ones powered by artificial intelligence.