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api-bridges-work-in-algo-trading · 3 months ago

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API Bridges Work in Algo Trading

API Bridges are a crucial part of algorithmic trading, which allows trading platforms, brokers, and custom trading algorithms to work seamlessly together. They provide real-time data transfer and order execution, thus making the trading strategy more efficient, faster, and accurate. In this article, we will explain how API bridges work in algo trading and further explore their importance for traders and developers, especially in India.

What is algorithmic trading? Algorithmic trading is the use of computer algorithms to automatically execute trades based on pre-defined criteria such as market conditions, technical indicators, or price movements. Unlike manual trading, algorithmic trading allows traders to make faster decisions and execute multiple orders simultaneously, minimizing human error and maximizing potential profits.

Understanding API Bridges in Algo Trading API bridges are the connector layer between different software platforms through which they can communicate with each other. In algo trading, an API bridge is used to bridge your trading algorithm running from platforms like Amibroker, MetaTrader 4/5, or TradingView to the broker's trading system for automated execution of orders.

Important Functions of API Bridges in Algorithmic Trading Data Feed Integration: API bridges enable direct access to live market data by the algo trader, such as current stock prices, volumes, and order books, from the broker's system. This will serve as the basis of information that the algorithm should interpret for better decision-making. Once the algorithm determines a suitable trading opportunity, the API bridge sends the buy or sell order directly to the broker’s trading system. This process is automated, ensuring timely execution without manual intervention.

Backtesting: API bridges enable traders to backtest their algorithms using historical data to evaluate performance before executing real trades. This feature is particularly useful for optimizing strategies and reducing risks.

Risk Management: An effective API bridge helps implement the risk management protocol in trading algorithms, for example, stop-loss or take-profit orders. When specific conditions are met, such orders are automatically entered to eliminate emotional decision-making and loss. Trade Monitoring: The API bridge continuously monitors trade execution with real-time updates on orders, positions, and account balances. The traders stay informed and make adjustments in their algorithms.

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Why API Bridges are the Need of Algo Trading? Speed and Efficiency: API bridges allow high-frequency trading (HFT), which enables traders to execute thousands of trades per second with minimal delay. This speed is very important in fast-moving markets where timing is everything to profitability.

Customization: With custom-built algorithms interacting with a multitude of brokers through the API bridge, traders can personalize their strategies, thus being able to implement advanced trading strategies that otherwise would not be possible to manually implement.

Integration is smooth. API bridges enable traders to connect their favorite platforms, such as Amibroker or TradingView, with brokers like Angel One, Alice Blue, or Zerodha. In other words, traders can continue using the software they are familiar with while availing of the execution capabilities of the broker's platform.

Cost-Effective: In comparison to hiring a dedicated team of traders or using expensive proprietary systems, API bridges are more cost-effective for algo traders. They allow traders to use the power of automation without the high overhead costs. Improved Risk Management: By automating risk controls, such as setting limits for loss and profits, the algorithmic system ensures that the trades are executed with minimal risk, thus helping traders in India and worldwide to manage the risk exposure better.

API Bridges Working with Popular Trading Platforms Amibroker: Amibroker is a more popular software used by algo traders for technical analysis and backtesting. The integration of Amibroker with API bridge enables traders to execute a strategy in real-time against their preferred broker's interface, which enriches trading experience.

MetaTrader MT4/MT5: MetaTrader is also a widely used platform for algorithmic trading. Through an API bridge, traders can link their trading robots (Expert Advisors) to brokers supporting the MT4 or MT5 platforms to automatically execute trades based on their algorithms.

TradingView: The most renowned trading view is a charting platform famous for its user-friendly interface and powerful scripting language called Pine Script. With an API bridge, users can send real-time trading signals to their brokers for the broker to execute.

The Best API Bridges for Algo Trading in India are by Combiz Services Pvt. Ltd.: Combiz Services Pvt. Ltd. provides customized API solutions that ensure seamless integration between brokers and trading platforms. Their API bridges support a wide range of trading platforms such as Amibroker, MetaTrader, and TradingView, which makes it a good option for Indian traders seeking flexibility and speed in algorithmic trading.

AlgoTrader: AlgoTrader provides an advanced algorithmic trading platform that supports integration with various brokers through API bridges. It is known for its scalability and high-speed trading capabilities, making it a favorite among professional traders.

Interactive Brokers API: Interactive Brokers offers a robust API that allows traders to link their algorithms directly to their trading platform. With a rich set of features such as market data feeds and execution capabilities, the Interactive Brokers' API bridge is highly regarded by the algo traders.

How to Set Up an API Bridge for Algo Trading

Select a Trading Platform and Broker: You may select Amibroker or MetaTrader as the trading platform. Then, go for a broker who gives access to APIs, such as Zerodha or Alice Blue. Connect API: Once you have made a selection of the above-mentioned platforms and broker, you must connect the API bridge with your algorithm in relation to the broker's system. In this step, generally, it involves configuration settings and keys of the APIs. Create or Select Algorithm: If you are a new algo trader, you can make use of pre-built strategies or create your own using programming languages like Python or AFL (AmiBroker Formula Language).

Backtest and test the algorithm: Before you deploy the algorithm, backtest it with historical data to ensure it performs as expected.

Monitor and Adjust: After you have deployed the algorithm, monitor its performance and make adjustments according to the changing market conditions.

Conclusion API bridges are a must-have tool in the world of algorithmic trading, providing smooth integration, faster execution, and improved risk management. Using Amibroker, MetaTrader, or TradingView platforms, API bridges make sure that your trading strategy is executed efficiently and effectively. The power of API bridges enables traders to stay ahead in the competitive world of algo trading and maximize opportunities in the Indian stock market.

For someone seeking a robust and highly customizable solution for algo trading needs, Combiz Services Pvt. Ltd. has the best API bridge services that guarantee seamless integration and faster trade execution.

#API bridges #algo trading #algorithm #algorithmic trading #Combiz Services Pvt Ltd

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priyashareindia9 · 4 months ago

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In the fast-paced world of trading, the integration of REST APIs with trading algorithms has become an essential tool for traders looking to enhance their strategies. REST APIs, or Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interfaces, allow seamless communication between different software applications. When integrated with trading algorithms, REST APIs enable traders to automate processes, access real-time data, and execute trades more efficiently.

#integrated with trading algorithms #API trading #trading algorithms #backtest your trading algorithm #trading platform

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kyc-uk · 10 months ago

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#Top KYC Solution Providers #kyc provider #KYC API #KYC UK #kyc solution #crypto #cryptocurrency #cryptocurreny trading #KYC solutions in the UK

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rubixstudios · 1 year ago

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copytradingsoftwareforindian · 1 month ago

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Is Copy Trading Legal in India? Understanding the Regulations and Risks

Copy trading, also known as social trading or mirror trading, has gained immense popularity in recent years. It allows investors to copy the trades of experienced and successful traders automatically. Though this type of trading has been embraced globally, one of the most common questions among traders is: Is copy trading legal in India?

In this article, we’ll explore the legality of copy trading in India, the regulations surrounding it, and how it’s becoming a common practice among retail investors.

What is Copy Trading? Copy trading is a type of trading that allows investors to automatically copy the trades of professional traders. When the trader you’re copying executes a trade, the same trade is automatically mirrored in your account. This allows beginners or those without much trading knowledge to participate in the markets by relying on the expertise of more experienced traders.

This process occurs in real-time, and the copied trades are similar to the original trades in terms of size, timing, and pricing. Copy trading is most often used in forex, stocks, and cryptocurrencies.

Is Copy Trading Legal in India? The short answer is yes. Copy trading is legal in India, but it is subject to regulatory oversight from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). SEBI is the primary regulatory authority for the securities market in India, and any financial activity, including trading, must comply with its guidelines.

Regulatory Landscape for Copy Trading in India Though SEBI has not made explicit rules for copy trading, it provides guidelines on what is required for online trading platforms and investment services. A few of these points are below:

Broker Licensing: Brokers who provide copy trading services are registered with SEBI in India. If a platform offers copy trading, then it must be regulated and authorized to provide trading services. Regulated brokers such as Zerodha, Upstox, and Angel One are examples of such regulated platforms that might offer copy trading options.

Compliance with SEBI’s Guidelines: Copy trading platforms in India must adhere to SEBI’s norms for transparency, investor protection, and fair practices. They must ensure that the services offered are in line with Indian financial laws and provide clear disclosures about the risks involved in trading.

No Specific Regulations Needed: Till date, SEBI does not have any specific regulations for copy trading. However, copy trading in India is legal as long as the platform providing the service is regulated, and the activity complies with existing financial laws governing trading and investing.

Risk Involved in Copy Trading While copy trading allows beginners to benefit from professional traders' expertise, it's important to understand that there are risks involved. Just because a trader has a good track record does not mean he will be successful in the future. Market conditions change, and no strategy is foolproof.

Risk Disclosure: In India, copy trading platforms have to provide adequate risk warnings and disclosures to investors. Users should know that they are as exposed to the market risks of professional traders as the latter, and thus might lose.

Popular Copy Trading Platforms in India Many trading platforms in India have introduced copy trading. Although not all of them are explicitly regulated for copy trading, many have introduced social trading features that allow investors to mimic the strategies of successful traders. Some platforms that allow copy trading in India include:

Zerodha (via Kite Connect API) Upstox Angel One ICICI Direct Groww (to an extent, via auto-trading tools) These platforms are regulated by SEBI and provide a safe environment for traders to engage in copy trading.

How to Begin Copy Trading in India Getting started with copy trading in India is pretty easy. Here's how you can do it:

Select a SEBI-registered Broker: Make sure that the platform you select is registered with SEBI. Some of the popular brokers include Zerodha, Angel One, and Groww.

Create an Account: Sign up on the platform and complete your KYC (Know Your Customer) process.

Select a Trader to Copy: After creating an account, you can browse through the list of available traders to copy. Look for traders with a track record that matches your risk tolerance.

Fund Your Account: Deposit funds into your trading account. This is the amount you will use for copy trading.

Start Copying: Once you have selected a trader, you can begin to copy their trades in real-time. Your account will automatically mirror those trades.

Is Copy Trading Right for You? Copy trading is very good if you are a newcomer to trading or do not have the time and expertise to analyze the markets. It is, however, very important to choose traders carefully whom you are going to copy. You should also remember that no trader is above losses, and past performance is not a guarantee of future success.

Conclusion Copy trading is legitimate in India, provided it's offered on a platform SEBI regulates. Of course, understand that copy trading, like all kinds of trading, comes with risk. If you ensure that you're using a regulated platform and that you take the time to learn about the risks, you can join the ranks of copy trading participants with confidence.

If you are considering copy trading in India, make sure to choose a trusted platform like Zerodha or Upstox and read the risk disclosures before engaging in any trades. You can then benefit from this new way of trading in a compliant manner with India's financial regulations.

#combiz #combiz services pvt ltd #Is Copy Trading Right for You?#copy trading software #zerodha apis

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farsightgroup · 1 year ago

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codezeros · 1 year ago

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techandtravel · 2 years ago

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Can govt employee invest in share market 2023

Can govt employee invest in share market? Can govt employee invest in share market?Investing in the Share Market: A Comprehensive Guide for Government EmployeesIntroductionUnderstanding the Share MarketAssessing Your Financial GoalsInvestment Options for Government EmployeesAdvantages of Investing in the Share MarketMitigating Risks in the Share MarketTax Implications for Government…

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exeggcute · 2 years ago

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the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators; reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

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whencyclopedia · 2 months ago

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Serapis

Serapis is a Graeco-Egyptian god of the Ptolemaic Period (323-30 BCE) of Egypt developed by the monarch Ptolemy I Soter (r. 305-282 BCE) as part of his vision to unite his Egyptian and Greek subjects. Serapis’ cult later spread throughout the Roman Empire until it was banned by the decree of Theodosius I (r. 379-395 CE).

Some form of the god existed prior to the Ptolemaic Period and may have been the patron deity of the small fishing and trade port of Rhakotis, later the site of the city of Alexandria, Egypt. Serapis is referenced as the god Alexander the Great invoked at his death in 323 BCE, but whether that god – Sarapis – is the same as Serapis has been challenged as it is thought more likely Sarapis was a Babylonian deity.

Serapis was a blend of the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis with the Greek god Zeus (and others) to create a composite deity who would resonate with the multicultural society Ptolemy I envisioned for Egypt. Serapis embodied the transformative powers of Osiris and Apis – already established through the cult of Osirapis, which had joined the two – and the heavenly authority of Zeus. He was therefore understood as Lord of All from the underworld to the ethereal realm of the gods in the sky.

The cult of Serapis spread from Egypt to Greece and was among the most popular in Rome by the 1st century CE. The cult remained a powerful religious force until the 4th century CE when Christianity gained the upper hand. The Roman emperor Theodosius I proscribed the cult in his decrees of 389-391 CE, and the Serapeum, Serapis’ cult center in Alexandria, was destroyed by Christians in 391/392 CE, effectively ending the worship of the god.

Ptolemy I & Serapis

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, his generals divided and fought over his empire during the Wars of the Diadochi. Ptolemy I took Egypt and established the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which he envisioned as continuing Alexander’s work of uniting different cultures harmoniously. Egypt had been controlled by the Persians, except for brief periods, from 525 BCE until Alexander took it in 332 BCE, and they welcomed him as a liberator. Alexander had hoped to blend the cultures of the regions he conquered with his own Hellenism, but the Greeks and Egyptians were still observing the traditions of their own cultures at the time of his death. Ptolemy I made a fusion of these cultures among his top priorities and focused on religion as the means to that end.

The Egyptians still worshipped the same gods they had for thousands of years, and Ptolemy I recognized they were unlikely to accept a new deity, so he took aspects from two of the most popular gods – Osiris and Apis – and blended them with the Greek king of the gods, Zeus, drawing on the already established Egyptian cult of Osirapis, to create Serapis. The historian Plutarch (l. c. 45/46-120/125 CE) describes Serapis’ creation and the establishment of his cult center at Alexandria:

Ptolemy Soter saw in a dream the colossal statue of Pluto in Sinope, not knowing nor having ever seen how it looked, and in his dream the statue bade him convey it with all speed to Alexandria. He had no information and no means of knowing where the statue was situated but, as he related the vision to his friends, there was discovered for him a much-traveled man by the name of Sosibius who said that he had seen in Sinope just such a great statue as the king thought he saw. Ptolemy, therefore, sent Soteles and Dionysius, who, after a considerable time and with great difficulty, and not without the help of providence, succeeded in stealing the statue and bringing it away. When it had been conveyed to Egypt and exposed to view, Timotheus, the expositor of sacred law, and Manetho of Sebennytus, and their associates conjectured that it was the statue of Pluto, basing their conjecture on the Cerberus and the serpent with it, and they then convinced Ptolemy that it was the statue of none other of the gods but Serapis. It certainly did not bear this name when it came from Sinope but, after it had been conveyed to Alexandria, it took to itself the name which Pluto bears among the Egyptians, that of Serapis. (Moralia; Isis and Osiris, 28)

Serapis was intended to be, in Plutarch’s words, "god of all peoples in common, even as Osiris is" and the fact that a Greek (Timotheus) and an Egyptian (Manetho) agreed on the statue’s identity was taken as a sign from the god that he would assume this role. Ptolemy I built a grand temple for his worship, the Serapeum, which came to house the statue from Sinope. With Serapis at the center of religious devotion, Ptolemy I began a rigorous building program which was continued by his son and successor Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285-246 BCE) who had co-ruled with him since 285 BCE. The great Library at Alexandria, begun under Ptolemy I, was completed by Ptolemy II, who also added to the Serapeum and finished building the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

#History #Alexandria #Apis #Egypt #WHE #[#]

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