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Apollo will close down on June 30th

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Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#11

Post by Forgeties79 »

>Do I support the protest/Reddit blackout?

>Abundantly. Unlike other social media companies like Facebook and Twitter who pay their moderators as employees, Reddit relies on volunteers to do the hard work for free. I completely understand that when tools they take to do their volunteer, important job are taken away, there is anger and frustration there. While I haven't personally mobilized anyone to participate in the blackout out of fear of retaliation from Reddit, the last thing I want is for that to feel like I don't support the folks speaking up. I wholeheartedly do.

>It's been a horrible week, and the kindness Redditors and moderators and communities have shown Apollo and other third-party apps has genuinely made it much more bearable and I am genuinely so appreciative.

>I am, admittedly, doubtful Reddit wants to listen to folks anymore so I don't see it having an effect.

Man this is just a bummer to read.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#12

Post by justusthane »

Apollo is such an incredibly high quality app — in fact, it’s so good that I haven’t had it installed on my phone in a couple of years because when I have it I spend way too much time on Reddit.

The features, the polish, the customizability — everything about it is really top notch.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#13

Post by mr90210 »

Whatarethese wrote: post #6

Just unbelievable. This is just sad. I have no other words.

Don’t be. Sometimes businesses such as Reddit must make bad decisions so that new players emerge. That’s exactly how it’s been, and people jump to alternatives when such platforms start acting out.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#14

Post by robbiet480 »

I just don’t see Reddit’s response here other than “yes, turns out we are the bad guys who have been continually lying and manipulating the situation for our benefit”. I wonder if they’ll see employees quit over this. How do you trust your employer after this? I bet some subreddits will go permanently private or delete themselves over this.

Just absolutely stunning turn of events, massive kudos to Christian for recording his calls with them for over a year (legally I might add). Reddit has 0 wiggle room here.

EDIT: Just spitballing here but could an employee bring a shareholder lawsuit for negatively impacting financial outlook or destroying brand value? I feel like this is going to significantly reshape Reddit as moderators of large subreddits will be furious and quit if not destroy entire subreddits. Just look at how many big (millions and tens of millions of subscribers) subreddits are signed onto the blackout letter https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/1401qw5/incomplet...

EDIT 2: Is spez (Steve Huffman, CEO and cofounder) going to lose his job over this?

EDIT 3: Christian says in the post the refunds will cost him personally about $250,000. Does he have a claim against Reddit for that money I wonder? I'm sure lawyers are looking closely at the agreements right now.

EDIT 4: #1 Reddit Android app "Reddit is Fun" is shutting down too https://www.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/comments/144gmfq/rif_wi...

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#16

Post by square_usual »

> Then yesterday, moderators told me they were on a call with CEO Steve Huffman (spez), and he said the following per their transcript:

> Steve: "Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million." Steve: "This guy behind the scenes is coercing us. He's threatening us."

> Wow. Because my memory is that you didn't take it as a threat, and you even apologized profusely when you admitted you misheard it.

Wow, I didn't know it'd gotten that bad.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#17

Post by mr90210 »

rvz wrote: post #7

A lesson to be learned. Do not build your entire business on someone else's API. The outcome was unsurprising and it is unfortunate. But this is why third-party apps are always at a disadvantage. The same happened with Twitter and they made that clear and now so did Reddit. Like I said before in [0] "Either the API gets blocked for third-party clients, or you purchase a high price for it." [0] https://news.ycombinato…

Too bad you are being downvoted. You are rather accurate.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#19

Post by _hypx »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #11

>Do I support the protest/Reddit blackout? >Abundantly. Unlike other social media companies like Facebook and Twitter who pay their moderators as employees, Reddit relies on volunteers to do the hard work for free. I completely understand that when tools they take to do their volunteer, important job are taken away, there is anger and frustration there. While I haven't personally mobilized anyone to participate in th…

It's moves like these that will create the alternative to Reddit. It was this style of anti-consumer moves that killed Digg. History is repeating itself.
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