Popular Windsor online forum joins protest by blocking access

If you have not been able to access a Reddit forum popular in Windsor, you're not alone.

The subreddit known as r/windsorontario has been temporarily made private in protest of recent changes to the site.

As part of the changes, Reddit is trying to force developers of third-party apps that access content on Reddit to pay increased fees.

One of the moderators of r/windsorontario says the fee increase is too high.

"The rates they've set are not reasonable," said Julia Paddon.

She says people use the site to share news, tips and have conversations.

One third-party developer is Christian Selig of Halifax.

He's behind the iOS app Apollo, which offers users a different experience to Reddit's official app.

Selig announced on Apollo's subreddit on Thursday that the app would shut down in response to the fee increase.

He claimed that the fee increase would require him to pay more than $26 million per year to keep the app operational.

Paddon is not surprised.

"Obviously there isn't a third party app in existence that can absorb a $20 million hit when for something that they provide for free," she said.

In response to the pushback, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman hosted an ask me anything session on Friday addressing the concerns.

"Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use," he said in his opening post.