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

Post by aniforprez » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

bagels wrote: post #343

mishagale wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on their published user numbers and revenue, Selig estimated that reddit's revenue per user is about $0.12. They are asking for $0.24 per 1,000 API calls. Apollo averages ~345 calls per-user per-day (although some users are much higher), but Reddit claims that other apps are "more efficient" and only use about 100 calls/day. If we assume 100 calls/day/user, then that's 36,500 calls/year/user, and a user is wort…

$0.12 per user per year... how many users are using third party apps to skip out on ads? Is the true value higher once they start seeing ads? Also, that number is so laughably low!

Post by adrr » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #318

phire wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the plan was always to kill the 3rd party apps, but not until their own app was feature competitive with the 3rd party ones. But they ran into time limitations. They plan to IPO later this year and they want the 3rd party apps to be dead before then.

I can't see that. If a 1.5 person app (Apollo) is handily beating Reddit's app... what on earth is the holdup? Either the eng team is wildly incompetent, or this is by executive choice. Reddit's inability to deliver on mod tools despite a decade's worth of promises makes me think it's 40/60 wildly incompetent and needing firing vs exec choice.

Post by czx4f4bd » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

Sunspark wrote: post #252

ink_13 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some subs held polls, and in every one that I saw, the strike was quite broadly popular. I think characterizing this as a few power mods throwing their toys out of the pram is unfair.

I was amused to see yesterday that my comments the day previous that some, but not all, reddit mods are paid had been silently deleted. I didn't get a bot message, they were just.. gone.. So, the corporation is watching, or the mod that is a reddit employee in the sub deleted them. I was also surprised to see yesterday that this same large sub I made them in was blacked out. Virtue-signalling? Throwing a bone to volu…

Post by edgyquant » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

ntaylor wrote: post #127

nightski wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are probably right, but at the same time there are probably plenty of people willing to step in and take their place.

The truth is that there are many, many niche communities where this is simply not true. Whole sections of reddit will die off due to lack of moderation and people will be forced to go elsewhere. This may not be a killing blow for reddit, but it will be devastating to the communities that it impacts.

Post by hbn » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

nlarew wrote: post #66

googlryas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are two Reddit APIs - the public REST API and a private GraphQL API which limits access. Third-party apps use the REST API and the Reddit website/app use GQL. For a hobby project you could maybe get away with scraping a GQL bearer token and issuing requests as if you were an official Reddit client. Or you could even request the HTML and scrape that. At the scale of these third party apps that approach just woul…