I've found myself resisting posting comments on Reddit recently - things like answers to simple questions people have about SQLite - partly because I don't want to cross the picket line but also because I realize that I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there: I would share my knowledge for free, in exchange for which I knew that I was contributing to a larger dataset that myself and others could get back out again.
If Reddit are cutting off free API access, that social contract no longer holds. Why should I work to benefit their service if they're hoarding the resulting data and not making it available to me or people like me in the future?
I thought I was vanishingly rare in caring about this kind of thing, but given the mass Reddit blackout over the changes to the API apparently I'm not!
If Reddit are cutting off free API access, that social contract no longer holds. Why should I work to benefit their service if they're hoarding the resulting data and not making it available to me or people like me in the future?
I thought I was vanishingly rare in caring about this kind of thing, but given the mass Reddit blackout over the changes to the API apparently I'm not!