Thousands of Subreddits Remain Dark as Reddit Protests Approach Third Week

"User protests against Reddit's plan to charge new fees to access its content are about to enter their third week," writes Axios. 2,503 subreddits remain dark, including at least three with more than 20 million subscribers apiece, the Guardian points out, arguing that CEO Steve Huffman "may win, but the short history of the web is littered with the corpses of predecessors who alienated their fanbases." The New York Times adds that in an interview Wednesday, "Mr. Huffman said his goal had been to make Reddit better for newcomers and veteran users and to build a lasting business. "He said he regretted that developers were surprised by the company's pricing changes and wished he had been more upfront about how the changes would affect them..."Reddit is now further away from a public offering than it was last year, Mr. Huffman said, but will continue building its business. He added that the community revolt was a part of what made Reddit Reddit and said he and his team planned to continue engaging with top moderators who were upset with the changes. "For better or for worse, this is a very uniquely Reddit moment," he said. "This could only happen on Reddit." The Times also spoke to a man who moderates 80 different forums on Reddit - and has been volunteering to moderate Reddit forums for 11 years. He calls Huffman's API move "really demoralizing... I take all this abuse for you, and keep your website clean, and this is how you repay us?'" He's now active in Reddit's "Save3rdPartyApps" subreddit, "which was formed to organize protests on the site that are allowed under Reddit's rules."

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