Millions of Reddit users are hit by a two-hour outage during “Blackout Day” as more than 7,000 sub-Reddits are set to private in protest of new changes to the platform
- Reddit was hit by a worldwide outage on Monday that affected the site and app
- This is because users are protesting new developer fees and privatizing forums
Reddit has been hit by a global outage, impacting millions of users, as forums were “shut down” in protest at the site’s increased developer fees.
DownDetector, a website that monitors online outages, began experiencing issues with the website and app at 10:25 a.m. ET — but the reports cleared up about two hours later.
It’s unclear why Reddit wasn’t available Monday, but it did as more than 7,000 sub-Reddits were switched to “private” in the largest user-led protest online.
The movement is frustrated by developer fee pricing changes that could run into millions of dollars for some users.
The protest is expected to last 48 hours, but some users have warned they won’t be making the pages public again unless Reddit reconsiders increased pricing plans for apps that provide access to the site.
Users flocked to Twitter to inquire about a potential Reddit outage, and one tweeted, “Nice to see that even Reddit itself is participating in the Reddit blackout today.”
Reddit has been hit by a global outage, impacting millions of users, as forums were “shut down” in protest at the site’s increased developer fees
The massive protest comes in response to Reddit’s announcement that it would require third-party access to its application programming interface (API) with “additional features, higher usage limits, and broader usage rights.”
And the increased prices are set to take effect on July 1st.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman addressed user “frustrations” and how the changes will work in a Friday post on the site.
“As of July 1, 2023, the price for apps that require higher usage limits is $0.24 per 1,000 API calls (less than $1.00 per user/month for a typical Reddit third-party app ),” Hoffman wrote.
He continued, “Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and in order to achieve that, we can no longer subsidize commercial businesses that require large-scale data usage.”
While Hoffman remains on the lookout for Reddit’s future, the move could mean some app developers have to shut down.
Christian Selig, the developer of the Reddit client app Apollo, said the new prices would cost him as much as $20 million a year, Variety reports.
Apollo allows users to view content from numerous sources such as Imgur, Reddit, and YouTube in one place.
Selig further explained that this means that Apollo plans to end operations on June 30.
He tweeted about blackout Sunday and thanked “the Reddit community and everyone who stood up.”
Twitter user Rebecca Sl
The social news site went offline while more than 6,500 subreddits were shut down in one of the largest user-driven protests over new developer fees
Other popular apps that connect to Reddit include Reddit is Fun, Sync, and ReddPlanet.
However, Monday’s outage is weighing on users worldwide.
DownDetector, a website that monitors online outages, showed more than 40,000 problem reports across the US as of 10:41 am ET.
Other parts of the world like the UK, Europe and Asia are also experiencing issues with the platform.
However, there have been outages on Reddit almost every day in recent weeks – most recently on Sunday and before that on June 7th.