It's not about the money, though. If it was, they would have just said "third-party API access now requires Reddit Gold", and a bunch of us would still have stayed there, giving them more money (and content) than they are making now.

Instead, it's about fundamentally remaking the site to actively drive conversations toward things people pay to hype, and not have those conversations spring up organically. Steering traffic is much harder to do when it can be accessed through third parties.

They don't want users creating content around what interests them. They want to charge users to interact with content that advertisers pay to host.

I've paid for Relay Pro multiple times over the years, and was happy to do so. And if this subscription had been implemented as just a way to support Relay, I'd have subscribed in a heartbeat, because it's a fantastic app and worth every penny.

But due to all the Reddit API (and other) bullshit behind it, I just can't do it. After many, many years of happy usage, I uninstalled Relay Pro yesterday when I got the update.

As far as I'm concerned, Reddit is now only a "read-only" archive that I'll read if a search returns old information I need, and I'll read just the post/comment I need from an ad-blocking browser then move on elsewhere (ie. lemmy) when I want to participate in conversations.

I know it's highly unlikely, but if dbrady ever releases a Relay for Lemmy app, I'll pay for it.

Same with Narwhal. They released some days ago their 2.0 App and already mentioned that in a couple of weeks the payment will start. The crazy part (besides the astronomical price) is that you pay for each API request. So every time you upvote, you make an API request and have to pay for it. YOU, the user, gonna pay for GIVING Reddit your engagement. That is crazy. Every Social Media plattform is trying too squeeze out as much engagement as possible from their userbase and now the user has to pay for it too. At this point, the best thing would be to deactive your your up/downvote buttons and comment buttons, to ease on the API requests. The the exact contrary of what the plattforms wants you for. I deleted the App after a decade of usage the same day. Reddit got everything from me. Engagement, Comments and my whole leaning on political and cultural topics based on my votes and comments to build a profile. Now they get nothing out of me. Fuck you Spez.

Multiple years of Relay Pro and last night was upted with the monthly paid option which I am strongly not into. Uninstalled as soon as it showed up and downloaded Boost for Lemmy, so far so good. Few issues here and there but nothing major

In a few years it will be 9.99$, then 19.99$, 32.99$ ect. Congratulations to those who power capitalism

Former Relay user here.

Willing to bet the comments in that thread are positive because survivorship bias, at least in part. Folks like me who deleted the app probably wouldn't have commented, after all. I'm also sure I wasn't the only one to see the subscription prompt come up and just delete the app.

knew it was coming and decided ahead of time that when I was forced to pay, I'd just delete the app.

I vowed to be done with it when it became subscription based, and now here I am. Kind of glad actually, been looking for an excuse for years as the site became more and more stale, unoriginal, and politics began to overwhelm everything. Maybe this is just how it has to be every decade or so.

I got shouted down pretty intensely when relay announced they'd be doing this, and I mentioned it'd been a good run but I was jumping ship, especially vitriolic against the mention of lemmy lol

i'd used relay for a decade, was a bit sad

I signed up here a while ago but continued using reddit because Relay still worked. Now it's asking for money and there's no chance in hell I'll give even a cent to spez.

LMFAO, paying money to be shit on, incredible.

Based on my usage I'd have to get one of the higher tier of plans. I'm not entirely against paying in theory, but when reddit actively protected subreddits that spread hate speech and misinformation? No I'm not paying.

yep. I also came from reddit and I've been using relay since the beginning.

I have so much time for relay for reddit. it's a great application and I have plenty of time for the developer too

he's the only one who didn't abandon the ship when the spez made those idiotic changes and came up with a workaround.

But yes, it costs money.

My take is if you still like to use reddit on mobile, that's the way to go.

Having said that, there's another app called redreader which is still free and very decent, but stuck in the stone age compared to relay.

The 4.99 cost is one of the options the devs provides too. there are more.

it's either that or ads with crap functionality, especially on mobile.

I hope the developer will also develop something for lemmy at some point. he's awesome, for what I can tell.

I've used Relay for years, first tried it when it was still called Reddit News.

I'll admit that I've been browsing Reddit a bit with the official app and it's a garbage experience. Like, there's no /r/all? Wtf.

Anyway, it's just pushing me more onto Lemmy. It's slowly turning into a viable alternative as engagement grows.

I was a Relay user. Now I use Connect for Lemmy. 🤷‍♂️

This is what made me swap over to Lemmy! I loved the relay app but after already paying for the premium version I didn't want to pay again. I know it's reddits fault, but still

$5 a month to spend your time with the neck beards and power tripping mods? 🤢

At least on this side most people here aren't addicted to social media imo

I'm honestly impressed that Reddit has gone through with their decision despite the uproar. I'm surprised and disappointed they are weathering it so well though.

Imagine paying for mobile access to nazi digg.

Yeah, I kinda knew I was using g relay on borrowed time. Will be deleting it now,, and maybe asking for my two dollars back somehow idk. I think a lot of the people that would have negative reactions already have got it out of their system and have accepted that reddit on mobile is a no go three months ago.

I'm another user escaping from Reddit and I hope more users will come in Lemmy too. I understand that patching apps may allow to use Reddit for more, but it's just to extend life of dead man and mostly wasting time.

Well, I guess once relay forces the update, I'm out again.

There's a couple subreddits with troves of info I frequent which makes it a hella pain in the ass to access on mobile.

Man, I was using a patched version of Boost for $0.00/month lol