Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by KptMarchewa » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

raydev wrote: post #168

redmerchant2 wrote: post #7

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…

> it would charge devs over 20x what a user actually cost/were worth This is Selig's estimate based on not much info. Numbers like "20x" are completely made up.

Do you really think reddit spends 2.50 monthly per user on their 430 million MAU?

That would mean 13 billion dollars in expenses yearly.

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

#182

Post by tornato7 » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #77

gs17 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they really think it's reasonable? I presumed it was meant to kill off third party clients.

I agree with this take - this seems pretextual rather than a good-faith attempt to charge for API access. Because history rhymes I suspect Reddit's leadership was heavily inspired by Twitter's killing of third-party clients, which actually ended up working out for Twitter. IMO Huffman's behavior in this entire saga has been extremely wanting, to the degree where one has to wonder about his suitability to lead the com…

No matter how you look at it, Reddit leadership massively screwed this up. When half your site goes offline for two days and the entire front page is calling for the CEO's head, it's obvious that they have lost touch. And since they aren't reversing course on this, you can assume even more user-hostile changes are coming in the near future.

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

#183

Post by kats » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

Marsymars wrote: post #169

kats wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear he is blackmailing them and the upset users are his leverage. After posting that "Apollo will close down on June 30th." he now says " Same as always : I love building Apollo, and if Reddit is willing to to talk I'm happy to as well." which of course was not what he always said. He was never joking about asking for 10 million dollars and is still hoping for an offer.

You might claim that’s extortion , but it clearly isn’t blackmail , unless you think he’s got even more dirt on reddit that he hasn’t publicly revealed.

You're right, it's not the right word.

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

#184

Post by wvenable » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

jarym wrote: post #22

redmerchant2 wrote: post #7

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…

Also the normal way to introduce pricing to free services is to make it initially super-cheap so the majority will find it reasonable. Then overtime increase prices as you get a better sense of value and market dynamics. Starting high, creating a lot of negative reactions and almost killing any real market for profitable apps on your platform seems to be the opposite of smart. It’s now some governments go with taxati…

The other thing is they don't have anything in place to support paying 3rd party developers. They don't have appropriate dashboards, they still don't provide complete APIs, they're making it more restrictive.

If they're truly trying to run a paid API service then they have to actually support those customers (the apps) and they really weren't prepared to do that.

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

#185

Post by jakelazaroff » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #134

jyxent wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit reported that they had 430 million monthly active users in 2019. $500 million per year / 430 million users = $1.16 per user per year $1.16 / 12 months = $0.10 per user per month.

Pretty big difference between users who open the site once a month to look at a meme someone sent them vs those who are online for multiple hours a day. The ones who use third party apps are more likely to be in the latter bucket, and the loss of revenue from them will be significant more than the bottom tier of users.

Let's do some back-of-the-napkin math. Selig estimates that the average user would cost him $2.50/mo and his annual costs would be $20m/yr, so it seems like Apollo has 600–700k monthly active users — something like 0.16% of all 430m active Reddit users. That is simply not going to represent a significant opportunity cost to Reddit's overall ad revenue.

Plus, I'd bet that third-party app users are far more likely to be mods and/or heavy content creators, which means that alienating them will have outsized negative effects on the engagement of the rest of the userbase.

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

#186

Post by slivanes » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

joecot wrote: post #56

jarym wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the normal way to introduce pricing to free services is to make it initially super-cheap so the majority will find it reasonable. Then overtime increase prices as you get a better sense of value and market dynamics. Starting high, creating a lot of negative reactions and almost killing any real market for profitable apps on your platform seems to be the opposite of smart. It’s now some governments go with taxati…

> Starting high, creating a lot of negative reactions and almost killing any real market for profitable apps on your platform seems to be the opposite of smart It's really dumb if the point is to keep all the third party applications that made your platform popular. It's much smarter if the point is to kill them all in favor of your first party app, that you are promising your VC investors will have tremendous growth…

I wonder why Reddit didn't buy the app?

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

#187

Post by tennisflyi » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #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 co…

Almost certain that table is out of date. I also want to say that it’s actually better now, too.

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

#188

Post by Timon3 » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

kats wrote: post #162

leokennis wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems you don’t really see the power dynamics here. Reddit holds all the power: they have the API, they can shut anyone out of it, they can ask for it whatever they want, they could even re-open all closed subreddits and install new mods. All the community and Apollo has is the power to say “Reddit, if you don’t play nice, we’ll walk away”. To call that a blackmail requires some mental gymnastics.

Nope, Reddit currently has a bunch of their subreddits private. And if the Apollo dev gets paid, then he can come up with something to make the blackout go away. That's the leverage he has to ask for money. It's what he implied in the call he had recorded, and he keeps indicating he's open to an offer. If reddit goes back to normal before he has an offer then that's when he has no leverage anymore.

> Nope, Reddit currently has a bunch of their subreddits private. And if the Apollo dev gets paid, then he can come up with something to make the blackout go away.

Can you explain what that could be? How can this one developer control the moderators and users of thousands of subreddits?

Could it be that people are choosing to support the Apollo dev, and Reddit has all the power to stop the blackout... by giving the people what they want?

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

#189

Post by n42 » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

kats wrote: post #80

nocoiner wrote: post #4

IMO, he’s doing a pretty good job negotiating this as well. I know there’s a lot of words right now about broken promises and everyone not wanting to do business with anyone else, but from the outside to this uninformed observer it looks to me like this is a high stakes showdown that’s inching toward a commercial resolution. There’s some dollar amount (representing either an exchange of value or avoided losses) where…

It's clear he is blackmailing them and the upset users are his leverage. After posting that "Apollo will close down on June 30th." he now says " Same as always : I love building Apollo, and if Reddit is willing to to talk I'm happy to as well." which of course was not what he always said. He was never joking about asking for 10 million dollars and is still hoping for an offer.

This is business. This is how it works. This a very similar situation as cable providers pulling networks and sending messages to users about how the networks are being unreasonable. The problem is Apollo is tied to one network.

Spez calling a kid’s awkward business negotiation a blackmail tactic, and appearing visibly threatened and agitated, immediately removed any credibility or respect I will ever hold for him or the Reddit executive team. His behavior made him look small and weak.

I am indifferent about their attempt to monetize, for what it’s worth. It’s inevitable, and third party clients won’t survive. I am more shocked at how it’s being handled.

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

#190

Post by graphe » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

joecot wrote: post #160

nikole9696 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inability to block ads I personally find offensive is the #1 reason I'll use a browser with ad block over a native app. Reddit and Tumblr are my two biggest offenders that do not let me properly block particular ads - notably gambling and religion, but also those scam mobile games and other scammy nonsense. I get that they need to pay the bills, but I should have some level of control over what I see.

Which is the real reason that reddit is killing both the third party apps and the mobile site. Same reason that Facebook, Twitter, and Tiktok make the mobile site as painful as possible. If you're using a website in a browser, the user has control. If you're using their app, the company has control.

Twitter and TikTok are pretty pleasant to use for me. Just AdBlock and move on.