Reddit CEO Steve Huffman tells staff it ‘will pass’ as platform plunges into blackout

Huffman also said that the blackout hasn’t had a significant impact on the revenue.

As part of the changes, third-party Reddit clients may have to pay millions of dollars every year to stay up and running. (Express image)

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In an internal memo, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman urged employees to ignore, saying that the criticism over the company’s decision to charge for access to its data would simply “pass.”

“There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well,” the memo, which was obtained by The Verge, reads. “We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long-term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.”

As Reddit descends into a state of pandemonium, thousands of its popular subreddits (or communities) – such as Apple, Gaming, and Music – have locked out their users in protest of the monetisation of API calls. API calls constitute the software framework that allows a data provider and an end-user to communicate with each other. The monetisation of API calls could affect a range of entities, from small developers who run unofficial client apps to major companies like OpenAI.

For instance, client app developers have expressed that the bill for keeping their apps up and running will exceed millions of dollars a year, leaving them no choice but to shut down these offerings once the change goes through. More than 8,000 subreddits have gone dark in protest, with some of them even announcing they’ll stay private indefinitely until Reddit takes back its decision.

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Huffman says that the blackout hasn’t had a significant impact on the revenue, though, and that many of the subreddits will be back online by Wednesday. He also wrote that while third-party Reddit clients like Apollo and RIF plan to shut down by the end of the month, the company is “in conversation” with some of the others. “We will exempt accessibility-focused apps and so far have agreements with RedReader and Dystopia,” the memo adds.

Huffman also warned employees about wearing Reddit merch in public saying that the anger directed at the decision to charge for API calls could make them the object of users’ frustrations.

Reddit first announced that it would be changing the pricing of API calls in April in an attempt to capitalise on the recent explosion in generative AI. The site seeks to charge companies looking to use Reddit data to train artificial intelligence tools.

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