Apollo will close down on June 30th • Hacker News Board

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#311

Post by cryptoegorophy » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #74

I'm not a user of Apollo, and honestly have been perfectly fine using old.reddit.com on both mobile and desktop. That said, while I realize it's just his side of the story, the Apollo developer comes across as imminently reasonable and rational (and he apparently has the receipts to back it up), while Reddit comes across as embodying typical corporate greed. On a related note, I think everyone should understand that,…

Yeah. I old.Reddit into specifics subs. Other than that it is too radicalized nowadays. Once you are starting out you care about user experience, but once you are too big to fail then you pretty much don’t care - see Facebook, Twitter, YouTube they all designed UI around how THEY want the user to use the platform instead of how user would actually want to use it.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#312

Post by duped » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

The only thing more embarrassing than Reddit's behavior is that after 18 years and hundreds of millions in funding they can't make an app or website with a better experience than what someone can do in their basement with just API access.

Part of me thinks that one of the reasons they want to kill 3rd party apps is because they're embarrassed that they're all better than whatever Reddit has come up in the last decade.

Maybe they should listen to mods and users instead of trying to push whatever they want down users' throats, because it's not going to last much longer.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#313

Post by DHPersonal » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:50 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #254

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #182

In this situation, do you hire someone to negotiate with or for you? I'm thinking the intention here was to sell the company for $10 million and that came across as a threat because of the language that was used. You would not record the call [1] and then publish it if you actually were blackmailing them for $10 million. I'm not faulting the guy here at all, I just think it comes down to lack of experience in dealing…

Yeah this guy didn't handle this situation very well. I don't know if it would've been possible to save Apollo for reddit, but that call didn't help at all. Also, what's the deal with him not wanting to start a competitor? That's like his only bargaining chip in this situation, and he's just throwing it away because he feels overwhelmed and wants to make iOS widgets. I totally sympathize with him and how this situati…

Why don’t we all monetize our hobbies? Why don’t we market our personal lives? Why don’t we each have our own line of branded merchandise? Why haven’t we written a memoir?

Because some people don’t want to! And that’s okay.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#314

Post by ink_13 » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:50 PM UTC

Pyxl101 wrote: post #239

wolpoli wrote: post #29

> 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." I can't believe that CEO of Reddit was telling internal people that Apollo tried to blackmail Reddit for a $10 million payout when that didn't happen.

I've listened to the voice call [1] linked in [2] and I interpret it the same way that Reddit staff apparently did -- as a veiled threat. Here's why: Christian is saying during the call that if Reddit wants Apollo to "quiet down", then to "make it easier" on everyone, Reddit should pay Christian $10 million dollars. I agree that there is ambiguity to the conversation, but if you listen to the exchange in context ...…

I don't see it that way. That was just a proposed business transaction: reddit pays a fee, and in exchange, the Apollo dev doesn't comment publicly on the API changes. What's the threat, real or implied? The alternative is he goes public, which is only a problem for reddit if they know what they're doing is wrong.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#315

Post by jdminhbg » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:50 PM UTC

Jackim wrote: post #226

_yb2s wrote: post #215

Do you guys really expect a for profit company to offer free API access to 3rd parties, that offer a better experience with no ads, bypassing their revenue stream, and making their own site and apps look terrible in comparison? I've always been shocked Reddit allowed this at all. No other major player that owns a platform- FB, instagram, Google, etc. offers this either. I don't like it either but it makes perfect sen…

The developers aren't asking for a free API, just one that is justified based on reddit's costs.

The problem is people think of this in terms of "cost to keep the server on that serves an API request" and not the opportunity cost for ad engagement that actually makes the business viable.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#316

Post by symlinkk » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:50 PM UTC

Why not just pay Reddit for their APIs? If you’re making $20M a year by building an app on their platform, it seems totally fair to pay them $10M a year for access. Do you expect AWS to host your stuff for free too?

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#317

Post by dimgl » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

honksillet wrote: post #267

Reddit’s censorship of r/the_donald was a huge moment in the splintering of political discourse into disconnected silos. It used to be you could go to the front page of Reddit and see what each side of American politics was pushing that day. People on both the left and right would be confronted with news that otherwise they might not see in their personal echo chambers. That all died when spez and co first “quarantin…

The problem with this is that the discourse in those kinds of sites are way too extreme. People who have been kicked off of Reddit and want to _only_ engage in that topic tend to be fanatical. We need companies to embrace _both_ sides.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#318

Post by TechBro8615 » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

rogers18445 wrote: post #228

Is there a legal reason why they can't just scrape reddit and forget about API? It would be the app users doing the scraping.

Or just clone whatever API the official Reddit mobile client is using. As long as it's offered for free to the official app, there's no technical way to stop another app from using the same API. The best they could do is bundle some private keys in the official app, but ultimately anything on the client can be reverse engineered and cloned by another app.

The only solution Reddit has to that is complaining to Apple, who can reject the third party app from the App Store. There's precedent for this with things like "unofficial" Pokémon Go clients. Apple is usually happy to remove them. But I'm not sure it's ever gone to trial - it would certainly be interesting, given case law around APIs like with Oracle v Google, or LinkedIn v HiQ.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#319

Post by mpalczewski » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #101

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #74

I'm not a user of Apollo, and honestly have been perfectly fine using old.reddit.com on both mobile and desktop. That said, while I realize it's just his side of the story, the Apollo developer comes across as imminently reasonable and rational (and he apparently has the receipts to back it up), while Reddit comes across as embodying typical corporate greed. On a related note, I think everyone should understand that,…

> "Don't be evil" is simply impossible for large corporations I see Patagonia as the antithesis of this broadly accepted assertion. It's possible, it just takes having a goal for your company that's more than greed.

Patagonia is pushing polyester with its associated micro-plastics, instead of the renewable natural fibers that they were using before like wool. Good, evil, depends on who is counting.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#320

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #256

wolpoli wrote: post #29

> 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." I can't believe that CEO of Reddit was telling internal people that Apollo tried to blackmail Reddit for a $10 million payout when that didn't happen.

I know I'm stretching really far with this, but is it at all possible that the mods made that up, or somehow misheard Steve? Maybe I'm missing it, but that claim seems unverified. Did Christian post a transcript somewhere of exactly what Steve said to the mods? It seems like this could all be a big misunderstanding... Basically, the whole post hinges on the claim that spez was telling internal employees that Christia…

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