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Apollo will close down on June 30th

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Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#441

Post by rocky_raccoon »

jonas21 wrote: post #427
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 co…

You should listen to the audio transcript that was posted in the original link. I believe it will dispel that notion.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#442

Post by ARandumGuy »

vachina wrote: post #401

> 50,000 yearly subscribers at $10 per year Wow. Now I know why reddit is tightening the noose. Third party developers making bank feeding off of the firehose that is reddit API.

$10 a year doesn't cover the estimated $2.50 per user per month cost after the API changes go through (especially considering Apple's cut). That estimated cost is also substantially higher then the estimated revenue reddit gets per user.

The issue isn't that third party developers now have to pay for API access. That was a long time coming, and I don't know of anyone opposed to this. The issue is the price seems completely unreasonable, and the time frame is ridiculously short.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#443

Post by Jackim »

bardfinn wrote: post #414
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]

You need an API key to access the reddit API. There's no MITM, it's just that requests made through Apollo are tracked to Apollo. And Apollo will be charged for those requests.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#444

Post by meonmyphone »

That's sad.

I started using the mobile site after Reddit bought Alien Blue, and I saw how the user experience gradually deteriorated to push their mobile app.

I occasionally used Apollo as an alternative, and I can understand the sentiment of the users. As a reluctant iOS user, Apollo was one of the things that kept me on the platform.

Seeing the direction thar Reddit has been taking, I hope a new platform comes to take its place with the focus on discussions/community.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#445

Post by [deleted] »

khangaroo wrote: post #376
duped wrote: post #312

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…

Probably because third-party apps aren't optimized to shove as many ads down the user's throat as possible.

[deleted]

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#446

Post by toyg »

dbbk wrote: post #352
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…

> Is spez (Steve Huffman, CEO and cofounder) going to lose his job over this? Oh please. Let's be honest, this is not financially going to hurt the company.

But it has generated enough bad PR and user bleeding to significantly push competitors, which eventually will financially hurt Reddit - or possibly even kill it.

An old-school investor would be fuming right now, but VCs only care about IPOs and they probably blessed this strategy already.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#448

Post by bhtru »

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,…

Reading the transcripts and listening to the audio and seeing how Reddit is behaving is a fucking wild ride.

I use old.reddit.com on mobile and desktop so I'm not directly effected by these changes aside from the likely steep decline in moderation quality as longstanding mods lose their tools.

I feel compelled to migrate from reddit and only utilize it as a resource for knowledge when it's the only resource for some obscure niche thing or sub-culture. That last statement alone speaks volumes about the danger of centralizing communities as reddit has done.

Maybe a federated internet is back on the table for the future.

Reddit for amusement is a blackhole.

For the best really to leave.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#449

Post by s1artibartfast »

ink_13 wrote: post #314
Pyxl101 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>The alternative is he goes public

yes, that is the threat. Yes, it is also a business transaction. The two are not mutually exclusive.

black·mail:

demand money or another benefit from (someone) in return for not revealing compromising or damaging information about them.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#450

Post by tylerhou »

DHPersonal wrote: post #313
bogwog wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think Apollo is just a hobby for Christian, given that he said that working on it is now his full-time job.
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