Third-party iOS Reddit app Narwhal launched a $4-per-month subscription plan that may take impact within the subsequent week or two. The developer announced the plans Tuesday on Reddit (via The Verge). The pricing is designed to permit the developer to cowl Reddit’s broadly disparaged API fee hikes, which led to mass on-line protests earlier this yr and the shutdown of the beloved shopper Apollo.
The app’s developer, who makes use of the deal with u/det0ur on Reddit, wrote that the pricing was “undoubtedly an experiment” as they attempt to hold their app afloat. “If I completely should, I’ll transition to another plans,” Narwhal’s creator wrote. “However I need to do that first.”
The developer had beforehand introduced tiered pricing primarily based on customers’ API calls, however u/det0ur scrapped that after realizing how cumbersome that may be for customers. “[Let’s] be actual, the 2003-esque cellular phone plan with monitored utilization simply isn’t nice,” the developer wrote in a separate submit from final week. “Who needs to even fear about what an API Name is? Not to mention how a lot it’ll price.”
Nonetheless, API calls are an inescapable monetary actuality for third-party builders hoping to supply customers a substitute for the official Reddit shopper. Reddit revealed its maligned API changes this spring, which led Apollo developer Christian Selig to say the up to date pricing would cost him $20 million to maintain the app going “as-is.” Greater than 6,000 subreddits went dark to protest the modifications, however (not like Unity’s current walkback) Reddit dug in its heels and weathered the storm, resulting in Apollo’s closure and the forced reopening of communities that continued to protest.
Customers switching to Narwhal sound happy with the pricing and the app. “The customization choices are nice; I’ve been in a position to ‘rebuild’ Apollo as intently as doable,” wrote u/Neryuslu. “You’re the primary developer ever to get a month-to-month sub from me. I’ve refused this mannequin to date, however on this case it’s clearly completely different. Nonetheless sucks to not directly pay Reddit like this. Fuck you, u/spez,” they wrote, referring to the deal with of Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.
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