Holy shit y’all. Developers need to eat too. It’s totally fine to charge for an app or serve ads.
You might be forgetting that these same developers refused to simply put in a subscription to their reddit apps to continue them, instead closing their apps and telling everyone to move to lemmy because that’s where their app will be…and now adding huge subscription fees and one-off fees on a platform that doesn’t charge them to use their API lol.
Maybe I’m just cynical but this really seems like the dollar signs lit up in the reddit app devs eyes the second reddits API changes got announced.
Okay let’s do the math. According to here there is expected to be about 55.79 million folks using reddit daily. Let’s say a good 5 million folks use Sync. Now, reddit said it would charge $0.24 per 1000 API calls. You can find that here. Now 1000 calls isn’t much at all really. Let’s say those 5 million folks just 1000 API calls a day ( they wont’ actually use ONLY 1000 ). So we have 1000 * 5,000,000 * 0.24 = $1,200,000,000. That’s per day. Does that seem sustainable to you? Like if folks were using MUCH MUCH less I could see your point. But the fact is…they weren’t and reddit were being assholes about it. Now compare that to what he’s charging. $17 bucks for a year. Let’s break that down and compare it to what he’d be paying per day. Say all 5 million users were paying for Ultra. That’s 5,000,000 * 17 = $85,000,000. Divide that by 12 to get per month. 85,000,000/12 = $7,083,333 per month. Divide by 30 for average revenue per day. $7,083,333/30 = $236,111. Now tell me that even comes close to $1,200,000,000. Your logic is flawed. This doesn’t even account for fees and possible server costs.
Let’s say those 5 million folks just 1000 API calls a day ( they wont’ actually use ONLY 1000 ).
Correct - 99% of those people will use nowhere near 1000 API calls a day. Each persons subscription only has to cover the costs of their API usage.
A $5/month subscription, at $0.24/1000 api calls, gives each user just under 21,000 API calls per month. Most people aren’t going to be doing anywhere close to that.
This doesn’t even account for fees and possible server costs.
Sync doesn’t need any server costs. It’s not hosting an instance of Lemmy.
Also your maths is off by 1000x lol. The cost would be 1.2mil a day, not 1.2bil a day. You’re multiplying by 1000 for some reason, when the $0.24 already gets you 1000 api calls. So if all 5 million used 1000 calls per day, that’s 5 million x $0.24, which is $1.2mil.
They would actually use much more. See [here] ( https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/141mjij/lets_talk_about_those_api_calls/). Basically almost everything is an API request. Just loading a post and doing very little you have close to 33 requests. Even if my math was wrong it’s still way too much to pay for per day. Especially if folks are using much more that 1000 API calls per day.
Just loading a post and doing very little you have close to 33 requests.
No you don’t. You can open Reddit and open a post with ~3:
1 for getting the posts on your front page
1 for checking your messages.
1 for getting the comments on a post.
Where are you getting “close to 33 requests from”? That post that says they’ve done “very little” and used 33 calls? Ah yes, because everyone “checks who the mods are +1” every time they log in to reddit. Every single user is a mod who checks their modmail (+1).
BTW I know how API’s work, I’m a web developer. Most people will not go anywhere close to using 1000 API calls a day.
Okay so say I believe you. Why do you think a large majority of third party devs shuttered their projects they worked on for so long if it was just as easy as adding a subscription fee? Why didn’t more of them do it? I know of one that actually implemented a subscription. If folks were actually doing much less than 1000 API calls daily then you’d think most devs would have gone that way right?
They want people to move here instead where they can continue having zero costs and making millions of dollars.
It literally is as easy as adding a subscription. They know how many api calls the average person makes. Even if they put the subscription at $10 a month, they should have given people the option. It’s not like the users would run up absurd bills for them - the user would just get cut off in the extremely unlikely event that they use all their api calls. Hell why not make a tiered subscription for ranges from casual users to power users?
It’s hilarious that people jump all over the “the developers deserve to be paid” line, while saying Reddit don’t deserve to be paid for making these developers millionaires for free.
Can I ask why you think it isn’t as easy as adding a subscription fee?
You replied to the very answer to your question. Apps can still be businesses, not everything has to be free. There’s a bunch of free alternatives, this is just one of the paid ones.
They moved to lemmy because the fees on Reddit where exorbitant, and he’d have to raise the prices too much to keep same wage (Haven’t looked at the numbers). Afterall, it’s he’s app, and he’s to decide what wage he wants to keep working on it.
No that’s not correct. sync for Reddit already had the ultra subscription. The problem was he would have had to up the price on the sub substantially to cover the Reddit API fees.
You might be forgetting that these same developers refused to simply put in a subscription to their reddit apps to continue them, instead closing their apps and telling everyone to move to lemmy because that’s where their app will be…and now adding huge subscription fees and one-off fees on a platform that doesn’t charge them to use their API lol.
Maybe I’m just cynical but this really seems like the dollar signs lit up in the reddit app devs eyes the second reddits API changes got announced.
Okay let’s do the math. According to here there is expected to be about 55.79 million folks using reddit daily. Let’s say a good 5 million folks use Sync. Now, reddit said it would charge $0.24 per 1000 API calls. You can find that here. Now 1000 calls isn’t much at all really. Let’s say those 5 million folks just 1000 API calls a day ( they wont’ actually use ONLY 1000 ). So we have 1000 * 5,000,000 * 0.24 = $1,200,000,000. That’s per day. Does that seem sustainable to you? Like if folks were using MUCH MUCH less I could see your point. But the fact is…they weren’t and reddit were being assholes about it. Now compare that to what he’s charging. $17 bucks for a year. Let’s break that down and compare it to what he’d be paying per day. Say all 5 million users were paying for Ultra. That’s 5,000,000 * 17 = $85,000,000. Divide that by 12 to get per month. 85,000,000/12 = $7,083,333 per month. Divide by 30 for average revenue per day. $7,083,333/30 = $236,111. Now tell me that even comes close to $1,200,000,000. Your logic is flawed. This doesn’t even account for fees and possible server costs.
Correct - 99% of those people will use nowhere near 1000 API calls a day. Each persons subscription only has to cover the costs of their API usage.
A $5/month subscription, at $0.24/1000 api calls, gives each user just under 21,000 API calls per month. Most people aren’t going to be doing anywhere close to that.
Sync doesn’t need any server costs. It’s not hosting an instance of Lemmy.
Also your maths is off by 1000x lol. The cost would be 1.2mil a day, not 1.2bil a day. You’re multiplying by 1000 for some reason, when the $0.24 already gets you 1000 api calls. So if all 5 million used 1000 calls per day, that’s 5 million x $0.24, which is $1.2mil.
They would actually use much more. See [here] ( https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/141mjij/lets_talk_about_those_api_calls/). Basically almost everything is an API request. Just loading a post and doing very little you have close to 33 requests. Even if my math was wrong it’s still way too much to pay for per day. Especially if folks are using much more that 1000 API calls per day.
No you don’t. You can open Reddit and open a post with ~3:
1 for getting the posts on your front page
1 for checking your messages.
1 for getting the comments on a post.
Where are you getting “close to 33 requests from”? That post that says they’ve done “very little” and used 33 calls? Ah yes, because everyone “checks who the mods are +1” every time they log in to reddit. Every single user is a mod who checks their modmail (+1).
BTW I know how API’s work, I’m a web developer. Most people will not go anywhere close to using 1000 API calls a day.
Okay so say I believe you. Why do you think a large majority of third party devs shuttered their projects they worked on for so long if it was just as easy as adding a subscription fee? Why didn’t more of them do it? I know of one that actually implemented a subscription. If folks were actually doing much less than 1000 API calls daily then you’d think most devs would have gone that way right?
They want people to move here instead where they can continue having zero costs and making millions of dollars.
It literally is as easy as adding a subscription. They know how many api calls the average person makes. Even if they put the subscription at $10 a month, they should have given people the option. It’s not like the users would run up absurd bills for them - the user would just get cut off in the extremely unlikely event that they use all their api calls. Hell why not make a tiered subscription for ranges from casual users to power users?
It’s hilarious that people jump all over the “the developers deserve to be paid” line, while saying Reddit don’t deserve to be paid for making these developers millionaires for free.
Can I ask why you think it isn’t as easy as adding a subscription fee?
You replied to the very answer to your question. Apps can still be businesses, not everything has to be free. There’s a bunch of free alternatives, this is just one of the paid ones.
They moved to lemmy because the fees on Reddit where exorbitant, and he’d have to raise the prices too much to keep same wage (Haven’t looked at the numbers). Afterall, it’s he’s app, and he’s to decide what wage he wants to keep working on it.
The boost developer that was at the heart of most of the uproar said that a subscription of $5/month would more than cover the API costs.
He made millions of dollars from Reddit, but drew the line at a $5/month subscription to compensate Reddit for making him a millionaire.
Oh alright, don’t know that much about it 🤷
No that’s not correct. sync for Reddit already had the ultra subscription. The problem was he would have had to up the price on the sub substantially to cover the Reddit API fees.
Less than $5 a month would cover it plus net him a few dollars profit off most people though.