I'm assuming 90% of these API requests are reads. Is there a reason Apollo couldn't develop an intermediate proxy server and cache all the responses for a short period of time? I assume that would cut the API usage significantly and potentially the cost.
Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
241–250 of 585 posts
Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#242>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…
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Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes me wonder why even bother in that case to introduce phony pricing.
IMO, it tries to shift the blame a little. Pretend the price is reasonable and the developers who shut down the apps instead of paying are who took your app away, not the company. Killing them outright would make the blame very clearly on Reddit's side. The other benefit is if anyone does decide to pay, it's profitable.
Except that doesn't work if every single third party app shuts down, which as far as I know is the case.
That's why I roll my eyes and gag in disgust a little when I hear Reddit management and their apologists somehow try to blame Christian for not negotiating in good faith. Even if that were true (which, to be clear, I don't believe it actually is, the opposite in fact), it just means that some other developer would step up if the pricing let them continue. The fact that every other app also shut down just proves that was the entire goal of these API pricing changes in the first place.
Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder why Reddit didn't buy the app?
Because it hasn't worked before. They bought Alien Blue, made it the official app, failed to iterate on it, and eventually gave up on it. Now they've made a new reddit app, which is also not good. No reddit official app is going to look good compared to the the third party ones, partly because their profit making attempts are at odds with good user experience, and if they buy the third party ones they've already show…
> made it the official app
They did not. They bought it and killed it. Their home-grown application is built from scratch.
Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#245I'm not a webdev so I understand if this point is naive. The Apollo dev said the cost will be about 20x what Reddit pays for its user. Obviously Reddit needs and can maintain a competitive advantage by having a native app. So charging more per user for a 3rd party app is not unreasonable.
For the sake of simplicity let's say that reddit makes $1.00 per user per month that uses their app. Currently they make no money on third party apps. All third party app devs seem fine paying a price to use the API as that is standard practice for different websites. It seems like Reddit could have just charged them 3.00 Per user per month, so they get a healthy margin off of the third party apps. They would actually be making money off of third party apps, and if everyone used the third party app over the native one, then they would be making 3x what they would with users using the native one.
3x seems like a healthy enough margin for me, and they win whether we use their app or not. Devs like Apollo would have a lot more options for monetizing it's users at 3x Reddit's price per user than at 20x. Everyone seems to win. Instead they went with the move that is obviously intended to kill third party apps, and face major backlash from its most devoted users in a self own. The path seems simple to me but maybe that's why I'm not a CEO.
Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#246Why doesn't he get his users to get their own API keys?
I've actually asked the baconreader guys to go that direction, not sure if they will. It's a bit of a hassle to the user, but it's pretty straightforward on https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps
If you click through that you actually have to go over here [0] eventually to ask for access, it's not automated AFAICT:
From your link:
> By creating an app, you agree to Reddit's Developer Terms and Data Api Terms. You must also register to use the API [1].
Which takes you to a page that says:
> When you are ready, you must register [0] in order to use the Reddit API. Select “I’m a Developer” and “I want to register to use the Reddit API.”
[0] https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/wiki/api#wiki_read_the_full_api_terms...
Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#247Maybe I'm missing something: why can't Apollo--or any other app--pass the API burden to the user? I get that this means the user experience via the app would effetively turn out to be paid service. But then, to match, Reddit could have also relaxed their policy to the effect that, up to n API access would be free; beyond that, Reddit would charge the user. Microsoft, for example, already do this for many of their Azu…
Do you mean letting users provide their own API key? Most people would probably stay within the free API limits-but I believe this is also a violation of the reddit TOS which strongly discourages using multiple oauth client IDs.
Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So the solution is easy for any laywer to provide - just shut down the business. I don't really agree with that take. He's already talked about what happens now, and it includes refunds for unused subscription time. > I've been talking to my rep at Apple, and over the next few weeks my plan is to release something similar to what Tweetbot did (Paul has been incredibly helpful in all of this) where folks can decide…
I'm astounded that he was actually able to run a business pulling in $500,000 a year in subscriptions without ever having to pay the actual platform the users are "subscribing" to a dime. And he's been doing this for what? 8 years? No wonder he doesn't care about shutting it down. It was a free lunch the whole time.
They aren't "subscribing" to the platform: they're engaging with it via a premium toolset that is not provided by the platform. The platform benefits because the engagement, content creation, moderation, etc. that the users provide is the ONLY thing of value on the platform.
Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something I've been wondering—why couldn't the API just send a batch of ads to be served with the content? Since the apps need an authorized API key, if they don't cooperate in showing the ads then Reddit could simply threaten revocation. Then users who want "premium" could pay for whatever feature Reddit-side to allow an ad-free experience, or they could even partner with the third party apps to offer it for a cut o…
Because ads still need all the privacy-invading telemetry from the client device, which these apps wouldn't want to participate in.
Plus advertisers want a more trusted-loop to prevent or detect fraud.
Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
#250They 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.
Based on the info that Reddit had disclosed earlier, it might be inaccurate today but it's not fair to say "completely made up" -- unless Reddit made it up.