Earlier this month, Reddit moderators took a stand against Reddit's decision to increase API costs and effectively kill third-party Reddit applications by turning their Subreddits private in protest.
Now TechCrunch is reporting that the "blackout" caused a drop in daily traffic by "about 7% and the amount of time people spent on the Reddit website by close to 16% between June 12 and 13, according to the data shared by web traffic analysis firm Similarweb."
The report also highlights that between June 13 and 23, "the average daily visits on Reddit’s ad portal decreased by about 20%, from 16,009 visits to 12,874 visits"
So it looks like the social media protest did, in fact, play quite the role in impacting Reddit's ad revenue for the month. That said, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn't backing down, and third-party apps, like Apollo, will be going offline as of July 1.
Users turn to review bombing
If the blackout wasn't enough to change Reddit's mind, users turned to one-star reviews to get their opinions heard. TechCrunch was told by data company Sensor Tower that "nearly 91% of Reddit’s U.S. iOS reviews carried a one-star rating during the initial phase of the protest between June 12 and 14, compared to about 53% in the previous two months until May."
"The data shared by Sensor Tower also indicates the top three most mentioned terms in all of the Reddit U.S. iOS reviews included keywords “Apollo,” “third party,” and “3rd party,” suggesting users were bombing review ratings in light of the new API move."
With apps like Apollo shutting down indefinitely after June comes to a close, it looks like these protests have been in vain. It'll be interesting to see if, once alternative options disappear, users opt to use Reddit again or change their habits and use alternative means to find information on the internet.
If you want to support Apollo developer Christian Selig, you can opt to refuse a refund for unused subscriptions by following the instructions on the app.
