What makes an app 3rd party and why is them potentially getting disabled a big deal?
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A third party app is one that isn’t developed by the same company as the service. For example, Reddit has an official (first party) mobile app, but there are other apps developed and maintained by other companies or individual developers. These are third party, because they aren’t part of Reddit. They use the publicly available APIs to access the content on Reddit but decide how the UI looks and behaves
The problem with shutting out third party apps, is that it limits choice. In the example above, only Reddit can decide how you get to use the service. If they want to get rid of features like “sort by new” or make the homepage always include posts from /r/bronycringe they can do that and the users have no choice but to put up with it or leave
Usually when something is said to be “third party”, the first and the second party are the company and the customer. In case of say, Reddit, you are the customer (or user) and Reddit is the company. Now, a third party would be someone else doing something with the relationship of the first two parties. A third party app would then be a reader app for Reddit that the user can use.
When you have a contract in business, it’s always an agreement between two parties: “First party” and “Second party”. (The parties may be companies or individuals.) So “third party” basically means “someone you don’t have a close business relationship with.”
Now let’s think in terms of platforms, and the programs that run on them, for example:
– Console gaming: Platform=Nintendo Switch, Programs=Games
– Phones: Platform=Apple iPhone / Google Android, Programs=Apps
– Websites: Platform=Reddit, Programs=Phone apps or other programs for reading / posting on Reddit
“First party” is where the platform developer makes a program that runs on their own platform. For example, the Safari iPhone app (made by Apple, the developer of the iPhone), or old.reddit.com (made by Reddit the company, the developer of Reddit).
“Second party” is not commonly used so I’ll put it in a footnote [1].
“Third party” is when there’s no relationship between the platform developer and the program developer. If you have no business relationship with Apple and you just wake up and say “I want to write an iPhone app today” then you’re a third party developer.
(It gets confusing because for some platforms, like the PC, traditionally you can just make your program and run it with nobody’s permission. On other platforms, like Apple devices, you have to go through the Apple store and get permission from Apple, which includes agreeing to a contract.)
Now your question is probably about Reddit specifically, so here goes:
– Reddit provides an “API” for free, which is a convenient way for programs running on computers outside of Reddit to read/post on Reddit
– Over the years, many people wrote programs to access Reddit.
– Over the years, lots of people started using those programs to interact with Reddit.
– Recently, AI companies wrote programs to download “all of Reddit” to use our words to train ChatGPT and similar AI’s
– Reddit (the company) saw how much “buzz” / money there is in AI, and decided to start charging for its API on July 1.
– The apps that people are using to read/post on Reddit will stop working unless their developers or users pay Reddit money. Many apps are just hobby projects not designed to make money, and many users don’t want to pay money to use Reddit.
– Some important categories of users might be more affected. For example, mods and very active users are more likely to use apps to help them.
– The developer of Apollo, a popular iOS app for Reddit, [recently estimated](https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/31/23743993/reddit-apollo-client-api-cost) the app’s current usage levels will cost $20 million a year.
[1] “Second party” refers to situations where the platform developer hires another company to write a program. In other words, the platform developer and the app developer are closely related. The Kirby games are often considered “second party” games because of HAL Laboratory’s close relationship with Nintendo. In the context of platforms, “second party” is not commonly used. Most people use “first party” to mean “the platform company”, and “third party” to mean “everyone else” — even if technically some of those “third party” *actually are* business partners with the platform company.
It’s when an outside company builds a platform for viewing a site’s content… examples were Twitter 3rd party apps like Twitterific, Tweetbot that weren’t owned by Twitter but accessed Twitter’s data to present it in their own unique ways. Lately, the focus has been on 3rd party apps for using Reddit vs. using Reddit’s own app.
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