Stakeholder Management in Change Initiatives: Reddit Changes Its API Pricing
Case
Teaching Notes
Abstract
Shortly after completing initial filings for an initial public offering (IPO), in April of 2023, news aggregator and discussion forum platform Reddit announced changes to their application programming interface (API) pricing that effectively shut down third-party mobile applications. Users, community moderators, and app developers denounced the move and organized a protest that shut down many of the most popular communities on the platform. The ensuing response from Reddit leaders and CEO Steve Huffman through official statements, an Ask Me Anything session, and multiple interviews with media outlets made matters worse, as users, moderators, and developers took Reddit’s response (and Huffman’s personally) as unsympathetic and occasionally antagonistic toward them. Investors and advertisers watched closely and maintained a healthy distance from the platform, which has had a notoriously vocal user base that is very protective of the community they maintain, which is also Reddit’s main product.
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