Why are big platforms shutting down third-party Apps? Should an average user be worried? - eviltoast

With the recent Reddit stuff and YouTube stuff, I realized I’ve been using numerous third party apps or services. The question I have is why the decision and how such decisions would really benefit the company. As an random user, should I be worried about it or even go back to the official Apps just in case the third-party apps would be shut down in the future?

  • TaldenNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Essentially it boils down to - ways in which they can turn users into money.

    • Control the content you see - Especially ads which provide income. Also injecting posts into your stream regardless of preferences to direct views towards sponsors preferences or to try to extend engagement.
    • More visibility over user activity - It gives them better tools to manipulate users habits (that pesky engagement), and better (for them), user telemetry can be sold (people who like X like Y is useful knowledge but it can go far deeper than this).
    • They want to discourage content that discourages advertisers - mostly this is NSFW content (since the advertisers don’t want their ads showing beside NSFW content) but I expect it’ll begin to span more than that over time.

    With the elimination of third party apps, you can bet that ‘old Reddit’ is on the chopping-block soon too (mostly to boost ad views)