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Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

cnn.com

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Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#51

Post by asdff »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #19

> Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, which would put it at about 1.7 million dollars per month, or 20 million US dollars per year. Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $2.50 per month 900,000 total users, if they were all converted to paid users, would cost $1.89 per user, so Apollo could charge $1.99 per month. Or they could charge $2.50…

Why should I have to pay when my de facto web browser is the apollo app versus the safari app? At the end of the day its just an app interfacing with a website in both cases, and regulating that in either way is inconsistent and stupid.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#52

Post by kentm »

robertoandred wrote: post #3

Speaking as an Apollo user for five years, the official app is just terrible. From big problems like confusing/inconsistent navigation and missing video and text formatting options to annoyances like slow/delayed animations and janky scrolling, there's just a huge lack of thought or polish in Reddit's app. I think Reddit is just embarrassed that one guy can make an app that's so, so, soooo much better than their slow…

Even old.reddit.com has gotten bad. I have an annoying persistent problem that ads auto-play with sound, despite being disabled in my Reddit options and in my browser options. I've re-enabled and re-disabled all of these options and it still happens.

They (Reddit) claim that this is not expected behavior. Some other people have also reported this. No fixes.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#53

Post by pornel »

turnsout wrote: post #5
Irishsteve wrote: post #2

The owner of this client should just try to replace underlying Reddit with something else. Someone tried something similar years ago they bought up all the popular twitter clients

What? There are many people who pay to use Christian's app specifically to interact with Reddit. If Apollo suddenly switched to another social network, it would make a lot of people understandably angry

Tweetbot has been killed by a similar API shakedown, switched to Mastodon, and the app has been very well received.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#54

Post by veave »

basisword wrote: post #42
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #21

I'm pretty tired of the outrage headlines. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, and willing to move on. I'm not interested in the web or official app, and while I really appreciate Reddit, I spend a lot of time on the site that could probably be spent elsewhere, and maybe this change provides the impetus for me to find healthier ways of using my time.

You find healthier ways to use your time, a developer loses his livelihood. The outrage is at the latter, not about how you use Reddit.

That's what happens when you build your business on another business. He knew that reddit could close their API access at any time.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#55

Post by andrewstuart2 »

basisword wrote: post #42
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #21

I'm pretty tired of the outrage headlines. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, and willing to move on. I'm not interested in the web or official app, and while I really appreciate Reddit, I spend a lot of time on the site that could probably be spent elsewhere, and maybe this change provides the impetus for me to find healthier ways of using my time.

You find healthier ways to use your time, a developer loses his livelihood. The outrage is at the latter, not about how you use Reddit.

I do get that, and having to change up the focus of your career sucks, 100%. I don't want to diminish the pain and frustration there. But empathy doesn't need to include outrage.

I'd point out that any of third-party reddit app devs have one of the best resumes for whatever's next. They should have their choice of paths, whether that be adapting their codebase to $NEXT_PLATFORM, doing some high profile consulting, going back to a day job, etc. It'd be better if they didn't have to, for sure, but it also isn't career-ending.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#56

Post by canes123456 »

ezekg wrote: post #49
basisword wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You find healthier ways to use your time, a developer loses his livelihood. The outrage is at the latter, not about how you use Reddit.

This is just business. He'll figure it out. He's a businessman, after all.

Part of the reason big companies aren't going out of their way to screw over small companies is the terrible PR they get. Excusing it as just business negates this effect.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#57

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

jsnell wrote: post #46

This has been discussed to death in the last couple of days, and I don't see any new information in this article. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36162235 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36142285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36142418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36147252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36143308

It's probably that this time the whole freaking CNN has a story, more than anything. But otherwise yeah, call me they definitely reduce their appetite or definitely not, I'd say.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#58

Post by wand3r »

cheeze wrote: post #43
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #21

I'm pretty tired of the outrage headlines. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, and willing to move on. I'm not interested in the web or official app, and while I really appreciate Reddit, I spend a lot of time on the site that could probably be spent elsewhere, and maybe this change provides the impetus for me to find healthier ways of using my time.

That's fine for you, but for many this represents "the end of Reddit as they know it today" Kind of a big deal for me.

I only recently started using apollo so maybe it isnt as impactful. However, I exclusively browse reddit on old.reddit.com with a redirect plugin and RES. So that would be a much more major impact for me.

That said, Apollo is pretty rad. I hope they figure something out.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#59

Post by skinnymuch »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #41
typon wrote: post #13

Am I the online who uses Firefox and old.reddit.com to browse reddit on my phone? It works pretty well.

Not alone but definitely in the minority. I am not sure if it is statistically significant but I founded a small tech sub-reddit (~30k users) and from the moderator stats 70% of traffic is from their iOS app. I used to use 'reddit.com/.compact' which was an actual mobile friendly and light interface, but that was depricated this year and now, like you, I am stuck with old.reddit.com on mobile.

70% come from the official Reddit iOS app? How much are from visiting Reddit directly and any other Reddit official apps? I'd expect a tech community to use the official apps less than the norm.

Re: Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr

#60

Post by czinck »

robertoandred wrote: post #3

Speaking as an Apollo user for five years, the official app is just terrible. From big problems like confusing/inconsistent navigation and missing video and text formatting options to annoyances like slow/delayed animations and janky scrolling, there's just a huge lack of thought or polish in Reddit's app. I think Reddit is just embarrassed that one guy can make an app that's so, so, soooo much better than their slow…

Reddit's problems aren't because of their technology, it's product decisions. Yeah, sure, maybe all their devs suck, but it was managements decision to create the abomination of their new layout to be more instagram-like. Devs aren't putting a million nags to use the official app on their mobile site of their own accord. Devs aren't consistently ignoring moderator issues/complaints.

Maybe their devs are jealous of what one guy with freedom to actually create the best thing he can can do, but I really doubt they came up with the idea to charge 100x what imgur charges for similar API calls.

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