I wonder how advertisers would feel about their ad showing up in arbitrary unofficial applications. I'd guess ads sent via API to be shown on unofficial apps would be less desirable than ads on the official app (which has known behaviors that reddit can document). Maybe the price would be lower or they'd only pay per click?
Do any other APIs include ads to be shown to the end user? It's an interesting idea!
You can control for that... "[ ] show ads on reddit third-party apps" and you can also allow advertisers to blacklist or whitelist third-party apps. You can even push a link through to a 5 second ad first if it's a video for example. There's plenty of ways to monetize.
At some point advertisers will need to accept they cannot have their cake and eat it too as we fly forward in technology progression.
Plus, most of these objections are based on moralism which is bogus and misused in the first place.
I could see companies putting ad data in an API and saying, "If this block shows up, you must show it in order to continue using this API for free; or pay." Seems fair to me.
I can't understand this view. Particularly when advertiser objects having their ad shown next to a questionable content. I can print something ugly and tape it next to my laptop screen and now all ads are showing next to something ugly. What's the difference if it is in an app?
Do any other APIs include ads to be shown to the end user? It's an interesting idea!