Both the Insider Union and Reddit users are on strike for the same reason: Greedy executives
The only way to defeat big business is by standing together — online or on the picket line. Irene Kim/Business Outsider
This week, over 8,000 subreddits are shutting down indefinitely in protest of Reddit’s recent API pricing changes.
This strike includes some of Reddit’s most popular communities, such as r/funny, r/music, and r/gaming.
The protest shows that without the value its content creators make, Reddit crumbles — just like Insider.
It feels strange to say, but Insider and Reddit have a lot in common.
They’re both massive online brands with devoted fanbases. They’re both managed by executives who put profit above all else. And right now, the people who create that profit — whether they’re award-winning journalists or everyday Redditors — are on strike.
At first, it might seem like our reasons for protesting are pretty different. Insider Union members are employees on a ULP strike after management illegally changed our healthcare last year, and we’re demanding that management remedy our Unfair Labor Practice charge against them. Meanwhile, thousands of Reddit users who volunteer their time to maintain the site are fighting a disastrous API pricing change.
For the uninitiated, an API (or application programming interface) is essentially software that lets Reddit communicate with other apps. Third-party apps like Apollo use an API to let people use the site from their app and enable powerful moderation and accessibility tools. These apps have millions of users, many of whom feel that they’re superior to the official app and website.
But now Reddit management wants to exponentially raise the prices for apps using their API. If this change goes through, it’ll disable those popular apps, break the moderation and accessibility tools, and ruin the way that thousands of users access the site every day.
So it’s true that, when it comes to the specifics, we don’t have much in common. But the root cause of both our problems is the same: Misguided executives who don’t understand that without us — journalists or Redditors — their websites are worthless. And unless these executives are willing to listen to our demands, they risk ruining their websites forever.
Executives don’t create value — workers do
Let’s break this down company by company.
Who makes Insider Inc. all its money? It’s not Littler Mendelson lawyers or exploitative AI tools. It’s the talented reporters, editors, and producers that are on strike with the Insider Union right now — the storytellers that delight audiences and make Insider a journalism juggernaut. Without those workers, Insider has nothing but a blank website, an unused content-management system, and a few angry shareholders.
And it might sound weird to classify Reddit posters as “workers,” but what is Reddit without its users? Without the millions of Redditors that post new threads and moderate the countless subreddits? Without the posters, Reddit is an empty message board, filled with ads no one is looking at, worth less to the world than Myspace. Through posting, moderating, and viewing those ads, the average Reddit user adds more value to the website than any corporate consultant could ever hope to.
Insider readers come to our website for Insider content. Reddit users come to Reddit for posts their fellow users made. And on both websites, the profit we create gets funneled straight into the pockets of C-suite executives.
But members of the Insider Union can bring their talents anywhere — this strike publication is proof of that. And there are loads of other social-media sites for Redditors to post on. The conclusion is clear: These websites need us so much more than we need them.
Our problems have the same cause — and they have similar solutions.
Insider and Reddit executives need to open their wallets
As much as both companies’ executives want to deny it, all these problems come down to dollars and cents.
Insider executives don’t want to pay to settle the healthcare ULP or fairly raise wages. Reddit executives are raising API prices to gouge third-party developers out of their money. Both companies made the decisions purely with profit in mind — the actual website comes second.
If these executives want the protests to end, they need to reorganize those priorities. Insider management has to bring more money to the table. Reddit needs to keep API costs affordable. The value that Insider journalists and Redditors create is very different, yes. But it’s all value, and retaining it costs money.
When we fight, we win — online and offline
Us Insider employees have organized picket lines, phone drives, and hardship funds to support each other. Thousands of Reddit users have collectively agreed to shut down their subreddits until executives agree to keep the API free, and are encouraging other users to spend their time on other sites.
In a post on Sunday, Christian Selig, the developer of the third-party Reddit app Apollo — one of many apps at risk of shutdown following the proposed API changes — called the Reddit community’s solidarity “incredibly amazing.” He went on to say that “minor steps can make a potentially massive difference.”
As I march on the Insider Union picket line, I feel the same way. Every step is a sign to management that we’re worth more — and until executives recognize that, we’ll keep fighting.
Business Outsider is a strike publication of the Insider Union, which is a unit of The NewsGuild of New York.
Follow our Twitter for updates on the strike, and if you enjoyed this content and would like to throw in some cash for our members who are losing wages every day that we strike for a fair contract, feel free to visit our hardship fundraiser here. Want to help us tell the boss to reach a deal? Let Nich Carlson and Henry Blodget know you support us by sending a letter.