It is completely attainable that we’re witnessing the loss of life of one of many web’s favourite social media platforms in real-time. After charging for entry to its API and trying to squash subsequent protests through interviews with the hare-brained CEO, Reddit has now made its iOS app icon right into a cheesy, 8-bit monstrosity.
Yesterday, iOS developer Benjamin Mayo tweeted out a screenshot revealing to most people that Reddit had revamped its app icon. While design tweaks are commonplace apply for firms to maintain their model recent and/or sign a brand new starting, Reddit might have singlehandedly made the ugliest app icon of all time—sure, worse than Instagram changing the Polaroid digicam icon with the grotesque purple gradient. The new icon is a riff on Reddit’s brand—an alien creature recognized as a Snoo in opposition to an orange circle—however this time it’s retro video game-inspired. Reddit has not modified the app icon on the Google Play retailer (but).
The previous Reddit icon is now behind a paywall, indicating that the corporate is aware of the brand new icon sucks. Reddit customers on cellular can swap out the icon for a special one by way of the app’s inside settings, however the means to swap is simply out there to Reddit Premium members. Reddit Premium is the platform’s VIP part, which guarantees an ad-free expertise for $6.99 a month. While Reddit is clearly making an attempt to earn more money as it chases an IPO later this yr, it is a weird transfer for the veteran platform and may very well be an indication that the platform is in dire straits financially as it chases each final alternative, massive or small, to make some further money.
Reddit didn’t instantly return Gizmodo’s request for touch upon the choice to vary the app’s icon.
Related: Reddit’s Valuation Has Fallen Even Further, Fidelity Says
In April, Reddit introduced that it might be charging firms for entry to its utility programming interface (API). Reddit didn’t make the price of its API public after it was introduced, and Steve Huffman, founder and CEO of Reddit, instructed The New York Times that he thought it was time “to tighten things up” on the firm. It wasn’t till a back-and-forth between Reddit and third-party app Apollo that it was revealed the dialogue platform was planning on charging $12,000 per 50 million requests to entry its API—an unsustainable determine for many programmers.
The moderators of hundreds of subreddits subsequently protested the information by taking their communities non-public for not less than two days. Most have returned, whereas some haven’t—others have gotten extra artistic with their techniques. All the whereas, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman fanned the flames by antagonizing the platform’s consumer base. Reddit claims the choice to cost for its API is meant to stop AI firms from scraping its web site for information. While which may be true, it’s far more believable that the platform noticed it as a viable revenue stream, a lot the identical means Twitter did when CEO Elon Musk realized he wasn’t making sufficient cash.
…. to be continued
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