A recent protest against Reddit’s new application programming interface (API) pricing changes has led to a decline in the platform’s average daily traffic and user engagement. The Reddit protest, organized by thousands of subredditors’ aimed to voice their concerns and opposition to the API changes, which have prompted several third-party developers to shut down their apps.
Reddit Protest: Decrease in Daily Traffic
The Reddit protest had a noticeable effect on the platform’s average daily traffic. On 11th June, the day before the blackout began, more than 57 million daily visits were recorded across desktop and mobile web clients. However, as the protest gained momentum, the number of daily visitors dropped below 55 million by the end of the first day. By 13th June, the platform experienced less than 53 million daily visitors, reflecting a 6.6 percent drop compared to the previous month. These figures demonstrate that the protest had a relatively small impact on Reddit’s daily traffic.
The company’s CEO, Steve Huffman, said, “These people who are mad, they’re mad because they used to get something for free, and now it’s going to be not free.” He further added; “We’ve had blackouts in previous times where there’s a little more room for movement. But the core of this one is the API pricing change. That’s our business decision. And we’re not undoing that business decision.”
Decline in User Engagement
Alongside the decrease in daily traffic, the Reddit protest also affected user engagement on the platform. Before the protest, an average session on Reddit lasted approximately eight minutes and 31 seconds. However, the following day, the duration of an average session dropped to seven minutes and 17 seconds, marking the shortest duration in the last three years. This decline in user engagement suggests that the protest influenced how users interacted with the platform, potentially reflecting their dissatisfaction with the API changes and their support for the protest.
Also read: Reddit Protests Erupt as Communities Go Dark in API Pricing Uproar
