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Apollo will close down on June 30th

old.reddit.com

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Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#421

Post by flanbiscuit »

Here's a wild thought. What I would love to happen is that one of these apps (Sync or Apollo) release a version of their app where a user can enter their own API key. This would put the cost of the API usage on to the individual user instead of the app owner and the app owner can continue to focus on the app UI/features without worry. It wouldn't change how they made money off these apps either.

Let's see what that would cost the average user.

As mentioned in the post:

$0.24 for 1,000 API calls, average 345 requests per day per user

I have no idea if they prorate charges if you use less than 1000 calls so lets assume they don't, so the minimum daily cost for a user is $0.24.

$0.24 per day, for a 30 days is: $7.20

Hmm, I can't see many people wanting to pay that monthly.

Maybe if reddit had a lower tier (0.12 for 500 calls would be $3.60/month)

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#422

Post by dandellion »

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,…

I'm hoping at least we'll start to see some alternative communities to reddit pop up. I've been on the lookout for new smaller communities for a few years now, but the only interesting things I've found are a couple of Discord servers. While they are nice, Discord has a very different vibe from public anonymous forums.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#423

Post by bubblethink »

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…

>it comes down to lack of experience in dealing with negotiations of this level

Yeah, the conversation is so cringe. Why is he beating around the bush so much ? He wants to sell, shut down, or whatever for a $10M payout. It sounds easy to make that proposition. Instead, he uses terrible verbiage like, "go quiet, I'm joking, opportunity cost, Bob's your uncle, yada yada". Why is he so terrible at talking ? Nothing in the call resembles a sales pitch if he is actually trying to sell a product for $10M.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#424

Post by mustacheemperor »

sebastialonso wrote: post #69

I see two pretty distinct issues here: 1) most people's favourite app is going to die, and 2) many subreddits will be negatively affected by this move: prime example is /r/AskHistorians. Personally, 1) is not really an issue and people are enjoying the outrage train, and that's ok and valid and whatever, but it's a third party app. It's a no-brainer decision to try to kill it if it's hindering your ability to make mo…

I think issue 3, especially in relation to a potential IPO, is Reddit's leadership again demonstrating a flippant willingness to lie and distort reality to suit their purposes and the carelessness to get caught doing it.

Surely there is a reasonable business case to be made for this policy change. Attempted character assassination of a 3rd party developer with blatant falsehoods, not so much. I dunno, maybe they aren't worried and there's plenty of investors an wall street ready to hand over big bags of money to a demonstrated liar.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#425

Post by bastardoperator »

robbiet480 wrote: post #14

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 recor…

[flagged]

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#426

Post by kernal »

justusthane wrote: post #12

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.

I use both Apollo for iOS and Sync on Android and I would give the edge to Sync for polish, aesthetics and customizability.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#427

Post by jonas21 »

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.

It sounds to me like the conversation went in a way that it could be interpreted as a threat.

This is from the Apollo developer's own telling of the story:

> As said, a common suggestion across the many threads on this topic was "If third-party apps are costing Reddit so much money, why don't they just buy them out like they did Alien Blue?" That was the point I brought up. If running Apollo as it stands now would cost you $20 million yearly as you quote, I suggested you cut a check to me to end Apollo. I said I'd even do it for half that or six months worth: $10 million, what a deal!

If someone said that to me, i.e. "hey, just give me $10 million and I'll stop making things difficult for you," I would interpret that as a threat, even if they denied that it was.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#428

Post by gojomo »

Panoramix wrote: post #146
dtech wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest it sounded like that to me too. It's very hard to differentiate between some honest clumsy phrasing and fishing for a payout, and the "clarification" doesn't help with that since it could also be an excuse to save face.

Maybe with text snippets, but I don't see how somebody can listen to the conversation and come away with the idea that the dev was blackmailing anyone. https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-...

Having just listened, I can understand that misinterpretation!

I can buy that Selig's words may have been intended, at some level, as a jokey hypothetical to draw a point into contrast. That is, he meant it as (fleshed-out sympathetic rewording): "If this really is just about a $20M drain to you, it'd be a dead-simple & efficient solution to pay $10M to make me go away quietly forever. But of course I wouldn't ask for that & you wouldn't do it, thus this isn't really just about solving your $20M/year cost center, but other mutually-agreeable futures."

But Selig's actual wording in the clip is exactly how people coyly/semi-deniably imply that they be handed various kinds of "go-away" or "hush" money. (That includes arrangements that might not technically be "blackmail" as a legal definition, but feel like vernacular 'blackmail' to laypeople or business-negotiators.)

Selig's opening words, of this audio clip, absolutely sound like an actionable offer "pay me this specific cash amount & your troubles – both technical/competitive & in terms of any ruckus I can raise in public – go away." I mean, here's Selig's exact words:

"Uh, hey, I could make it really easy on you, if you think Apollo is costing you $20M a year, you cut me a check for $10M, and we can both skip off into the sunset. 6 months of use, we're good. That's mostly a joke."

Until "that's mostly a joke", & depending on earlier context/levels-of-mutual-trust, that sounds like a specific offer to do whatever eases things for Reddit in return for $10M cash.

And even after "that's mostly a joke", the 'mostly' leaves open that maybe something of this shape is legitimately in Selig's mind as a resolution.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#429

Post by lolinder »

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…

I don't know how serious he was about pursuing a sale in the calls, but he made it pretty clear in the post that he's done dealing with Reddit. This isn't an attempt at blackmail or otherwise an attempt to get Reddit to buy him out, this is him getting everything out in the open to head off lies that were being spread.

From the post:

> I bring this [audio recording] up for two reasons: ... It shows why I've finally come to the conclusion that I don't think this situation is recoverable. If Reddit is willing to stoop to such deep lows as to slander individuals with blatant lies to try to get community favor back, I no longer have any faith they want this to work, or ever did.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#430

Post by Brendinooo »

Scarblac wrote: post #81
justusthane wrote: post #12

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.

I had never heard of it before this. Could he just make a backend for it and take his users with him?

This never struck me as a realistic option. The Apollo user base is orders of magnitude less than Reddit, and, even though Apollo is an incredible iOS app, the primary benefit of a large social network like Reddit is the social network.
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