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Apollo Back end just made public

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Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#41
post #31

Hi all! I wrote this code, and for educational purposes, I’d be more than happy to answer any questions. A gentle reminder that the whole history is here for show. This is very vulnerable — you can see the times I was in a rush, or when I took my time. You’ll find my mistakes. Either way, all I ask is please be kind. I know there are 50 things I could have done better, but this is a product of the reality at the time…

Maybe a description of what we're looking at in the Readme would be helpful. Why wouldn't the Apollo client just directly call reddit? Or does it partially do that and this server component is additional for certain functionality? What functionality does this offer?

That’s great feedback. Any particular areas I can walk you through?

Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#42
post #8

There's a Reddit CEO AMA later today: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/144ho2x/join_our_ce... Can't see it being anything other than a PR disaster for them, unless they change their stance.

For this being such an important moment for the site, it’s absurd that the link they announced didn’t even have a set time. And they haven’t added one.

I think I read it’s going to go live at 10-10:30am PT

Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#43

Hi all! I wrote this code, and for educational purposes, I’d be more than happy to answer any questions. A gentle reminder that the whole history is here for show. This is very vulnerable — you can see the times I was in a rush, or when I took my time. You’ll find my mistakes. Either way, all I ask is please be kind. I know there are 50 things I could have done better, but this is a product of the reality at the time…

Wouldn't it be possible to change it to use Lemmy or some other alternative?

Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#44

Hi all! I wrote this code, and for educational purposes, I’d be more than happy to answer any questions. A gentle reminder that the whole history is here for show. This is very vulnerable — you can see the times I was in a rush, or when I took my time. You’ll find my mistakes. Either way, all I ask is please be kind. I know there are 50 things I could have done better, but this is a product of the reality at the time…

> A gentle reminder that the whole history is here for show. This is very vulnerable — you can see the times I was in a rush, or when I took my time. You’ll find my mistakes. Either way, all I ask is please be kind. I know there are 50 things I could have done better, but this is a product of the reality at the time — a balance between something that works and something that was cost effective for Christian. The way…

Christian talked about this.

A payload of 25 comments vs a payload of 100, takes less time to generate and deliver.

So sometimes, to optimize his users experience, he might request 25 to show something quick to the user and then do a request for 100 and append it.

He also mentioned that he’s being compared to other apps, _not_ to the API limit (which he was under anyway).

So, can it be less?, of course. Heck, he could make it 1/minute or even 1/day. But his quota was 60/min. So why not use the 60?.

Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#46
post #38

GitHub repo link, in case Reddit deletes the thread: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend Interestingly, this seems to just be a proof of concept, and the repo is archived. While the developer of the Apollo front end is getting screwed in this whole debacle, this seems to me like an opportunity. He could literally build an alternate Reddit back end (ok, pay someone to do it, if he doesn't want to do it hi…

Realistically, it would cost more to start a new Reddit using Apollo than it would to pay Reddit for API fees.

Sure the server costs for the API costs alone aren't 1.2m a month for Reddit. But when you add in all the things that need to operate. Databases, storage, data transfer, etc. It would realistically be more than 1.2m in server costs. That's without paying people to build and maintain it.

Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#47
post #38

GitHub repo link, in case Reddit deletes the thread: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend Interestingly, this seems to just be a proof of concept, and the repo is archived. While the developer of the Apollo front end is getting screwed in this whole debacle, this seems to me like an opportunity. He could literally build an alternate Reddit back end (ok, pay someone to do it, if he doesn't want to do it hi…

This backend does very very little outside of continually polling the reddit API for new messages and some other sundry tasks for operating the iOS app. There's nothing here that suggests any of this could be built out to a full fledged social media backend that is similar to reddit. Not to detract from the work being done but it's for a very specific use case: supporting adding features to the app frontend

Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#48

> The goal of making the code for this repo available is to show that despite statements otherwise by Reddit administrators, Apollo does not scrape anything and users purely authenticated Reddit API requests, and does a great deal of work to ensure the Reddit API rate limits are respected.

If this is true why does Apollo need its own server at all? Couldn't the client make requests directly to the reddit api servers instead? Then each user could use their own api key, rather than Apollo having to pay millions for a single key that accommodates everyone.

Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#49
post #38

GitHub repo link, in case Reddit deletes the thread: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend Interestingly, this seems to just be a proof of concept, and the repo is archived. While the developer of the Apollo front end is getting screwed in this whole debacle, this seems to me like an opportunity. He could literally build an alternate Reddit back end (ok, pay someone to do it, if he doesn't want to do it hi…

That’s also one way to kill all credibility from users.

Re: Apollo Back end just made public

#50
post #18

All this backlash is going to kill Reddit. It will take a thousand little cuts for sure, but it started the moment they announced their ludicrous pricing.

I don't think it will. It'll IPO just fine, make their shareholders wealthy and become another millquetoast advertiser friendly walled garden for your average internet user while the jilted original users go and find another platform, which will in turn IPO just fine, make their shareholders wealthy and the cycle repeats forever. The average internet user by the way, is statistically not you reading this, doesn't rea…

This is what will happen, and generally the people who would leave over these changes are the ones who make worthwhile content, and now they will move elsewhere. But where?
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