Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, June 12 / PRNewswire-FirstCall-Asianet /-- CEO Hoffman (Steve Huffman) of social platform Reddit said that despite user protests, he will not give up his plan to charge for the platform's API interface, because this is a necessary condition for Reddit to be self-sufficient. Reddit is not yet profitable and cannot continue to provide free API interfaces for businesses that need a lot of data, he said.

Reddit's API interface is a way for third-party applications to connect and use Reddit data and functions, and Reddit plans to charge $0.24 per 1000 API calls from July 1. This change caused some third-party Reddit client applications, such as Apollo, to announce shutdown. Selig, the developer of Apollo, said that under the new fee, he would have to pay $20 million a year to keep the app running.

To explain and defend the decision, Hoffman held a "ask me anything" (Ask Me Anything) event on Friday. He stressed that 90 per cent of third-party applications can still use Reddit's API interface for free, as long as they do not exceed the limit of 100 API calls per minute or 10 API queries. In addition, non-commercial, accessible applications and tools can continue to be used free of charge. But for apps that require higher API calls, Hoffman admits they have to pay. "some apps, such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun and Sync, have decided that this price is not feasible for their business, so they will be shut down before the charge takes effect." He wrote.

Asked if Reddit was too focused on profitability, Hoffman said bluntly: "We will continue to be profit-driven until we are profitable. Unlike some third-party applications, we are not profitable yet." He said.

In another move that could annoy users, Hoffman said Reddit would also restrict third-party applications from accessing adult content through the platform's data API interface. "keeping that content is a protracted war in itself." "We will continue to keep them," Hoffman said. but the regulatory environment has become stricter for adult content, so we must also strictly / conservatively control where they appear. "

During the event, Hoffman also made some attacks on Apollo developer Selig. Yesterday, Selig claimed that Reddit had spread rumors to other developers that he was trying to blackmail the social platform. The truth, Selig says, is that Reddit misunderstood a sentence he said and saw it as a threat of blackmail. When asked about the blackmail charges, Hoffman said: "Selig's communication and behavior with us are very capricious-telling us one thing, saying another outside; recording and leaking private phone calls-so I don't know how we can do business with him." Selig retorted: "do you really think it's difficult for you to make up stories about blackmail and threats? instead of me defending myself?"

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