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Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

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Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#13
>users revolted

tbh right now it feels like mods, and especially power-mods (who are moding several high traffic subs), are revolting. I actually enjoy this blackout because a lot of small subs became active refuge for people who doesn't really care about the whole drama. Honestly I'm curious how this will play out but I can see subs just "naturally" replacing themselves with new ones.

fyi 92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people https://imgur.com/a/rjE8YuW as discussed here too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173018. And it's probably got worse in the last 2 years.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#14

What would a highly profitable Reddit look like? Why would it be bad for redditors?

user experience has always suffered on social media sites that go public and answer to profits they stop caring about the community. and only try selling us shit or sell the content we create. without us reddit wouldnt exist and they need a reminder of that.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#15

They buried the lede. The article suggests the shutdown was because of free API to paid API. Anyone uninformed who just click off at that point. Even when they ask about costs, it was just saying it’s “ But the issue is two fold. (1) all the devs support a paid API, but the rate is absurd according to basic math. It would charge devs over 20x what a user actually cost/were worth. Devs were willing to take on a higher…

Why does there need to be a paid API, when reddit provides all of the content over a free HTTP API to user agents already? Are these apps more than just a custom user agent?

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#16

I've gotta say, Christian comes across as really naive in this piece. > Well, it’s weird because prior to this, I almost always understood that Reddit as a company understood that they’re very community-focused, and they kind of didn’t do the bullshit corporate speak. And it was weird to kind of see this week, where they engaged in a lot more of that than I have historically ever seen them do. And it just went over……

It's really easy to call someone naive once you have all the information (like you do now). But it was much less obvious a couple months ago. Especially given that Christian has worked closely with Reddit for years and they've always treated him well, and seemingly like third party apps.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#17

I've gotta say, Christian comes across as really naive in this piece. > Well, it’s weird because prior to this, I almost always understood that Reddit as a company understood that they’re very community-focused, and they kind of didn’t do the bullshit corporate speak. And it was weird to kind of see this week, where they engaged in a lot more of that than I have historically ever seen them do. And it just went over……

people want to be optimistic, tho, and imagine that the people on the other side of the screen care just as much

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#18
post #8

I would like a breakdown of Reddit's actual costs vs their proposed fees. Why isn't Reddit profitable? Is there a way to make Reddit profitable without charging for API access?

They have 2,000 employees.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#19

I've gotta say, Christian comes across as really naive in this piece. > Well, it’s weird because prior to this, I almost always understood that Reddit as a company understood that they’re very community-focused, and they kind of didn’t do the bullshit corporate speak. And it was weird to kind of see this week, where they engaged in a lot more of that than I have historically ever seen them do. And it just went over……

I imagine that, when working with reddit for 8+ years, he got a pretty good sense of what their culture is like.

His latest experience seems to be pretty out of line given the longevity of their relationship.

"Naive"? Maybe, but I can cut him some slack.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#20
From what I can tell, it’s not the users that revolted. It’s their unpaid moderator workforce striking in solidarity with the workers that used Apollo to improve their experience. I’m very curious to see what the resolution will be from Reddit’s side, but heading toward IPO while you’ve got a huge chunk of unpaid labor that makes your site work striking can’t be good for the strike price. The workers have the company over a barrel from what I can see.
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