Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted • Hacker News Board

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#51

Post by mynameisvlad » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

superfrank wrote: post #38

tedivm wrote: post #2

It absolutely amazes me how badly reddit has handled this whole situation. From the years of broken promises to moderators, the complete lack of accessibility in their own apps, and then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. As much as reddit wants to make these developers into the bad guys, every move they've made in this mess has hurt their reputa…

> then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. > Even spez complaining about Christian recording the calls seems hollow when those recordings are what proved that spez was lying to the community Were the calls ever posted? For the way Reddit has handled this and previous issues I definitely believe Christian over spez, but unless I missed something, r…

Transcripts and recordings were posted a few days back by Christian.

The transcript is here: https://gist.github.com/christianselig/fda7e8bc5a25aec9824f9...

The recording itself was posted on Reddit in the apolloapp subreddit.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#52

Post by EthicalSimilar » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

superfrank wrote: post #38

tedivm wrote: post #2

It absolutely amazes me how badly reddit has handled this whole situation. From the years of broken promises to moderators, the complete lack of accessibility in their own apps, and then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. As much as reddit wants to make these developers into the bad guys, every move they've made in this mess has hurt their reputa…

> then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. > Even spez complaining about Christian recording the calls seems hollow when those recordings are what proved that spez was lying to the community Were the calls ever posted? For the way Reddit has handled this and previous issues I definitely believe Christian over spez, but unless I missed something, r…

Yes, they were posted by Christian in the Apollo subreddit.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#53

Post by ajmurmann » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

gs17 wrote: post #10

redmerchant2 wrote: post #7

They buried the lede. The article suggests the shutdown was because of free API to paid API. Anyone uninformed who just click off at that point. Even when they ask about costs, it was just saying it’s “ But the issue is two fold. (1) all the devs support a paid API, but the rate is absurd according to basic math. It would charge devs over 20x what a user actually cost/were worth. Devs were willing to take on a higher…

Do they really think it's reasonable? I presumed it was meant to kill off third party clients.

Makes me wonder why even bother in that case to introduce phony pricing.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#54

Post by wtallis » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

paddw wrote: post #31

googlryas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does there need to be a paid API, when reddit provides all of the content over a free HTTP API to user agents already? Are these apps more than just a custom user agent?

The free API is going away

I think he was trying to be clever by referring to the standard web interface as the free HTTP API, which is true to a limited extent. It's a poorly-designed and unstable API. The use of the unpopular term "user agent" may have made it harder to understand, but I appreciate almost any opportunity to bring that term back, because it has important implications that "web browser" lacks.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#55

Post by ljm » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

gs17 wrote: post #10

redmerchant2 wrote: post #7

They buried the lede. The article suggests the shutdown was because of free API to paid API. Anyone uninformed who just click off at that point. Even when they ask about costs, it was just saying it’s “ But the issue is two fold. (1) all the devs support a paid API, but the rate is absurd according to basic math. It would charge devs over 20x what a user actually cost/were worth. Devs were willing to take on a higher…

Do they really think it's reasonable? I presumed it was meant to kill off third party clients.

Even that makes little sense. Reddit has survived on volunteer moderation and their use of third party tools to manage the workload. If Reddit doesn’t want to cover the cost of that infrastructure then they’re going to incur the extra cost of hiring moderators.

I imagine they’re upset that they can’t send adverts through the API (and thus third party clients) and since these companies see ads as a money printing scheme they’re happy to sacrifice whatever they can for it.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#56

Post by joecot » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

jarym wrote: post #22

redmerchant2 wrote: post #7

They buried the lede. The article suggests the shutdown was because of free API to paid API. Anyone uninformed who just click off at that point. Even when they ask about costs, it was just saying it’s “ But the issue is two fold. (1) all the devs support a paid API, but the rate is absurd according to basic math. It would charge devs over 20x what a user actually cost/were worth. Devs were willing to take on a higher…

Also the normal way to introduce pricing to free services is to make it initially super-cheap so the majority will find it reasonable. Then overtime increase prices as you get a better sense of value and market dynamics. Starting high, creating a lot of negative reactions and almost killing any real market for profitable apps on your platform seems to be the opposite of smart. It’s now some governments go with taxati…

> Starting high, creating a lot of negative reactions and almost killing any real market for profitable apps on your platform seems to be the opposite of smart

It's really dumb if the point is to keep all the third party applications that made your platform popular. It's much smarter if the point is to kill them all in favor of your first party app, that you are promising your VC investors will have tremendous growth leading up to an IPO, and you don't want your site to look like the bad guy by killing all the third party apps.

They just handled it poorly. If the reddit app actually had the moderation tools they've been promising for years, I doubt the moderator outcry would be anywhere near this bad.

And if you watch you'll notice, even during the blackout, reddit's messaging is all about the things you can still do besides use the third party apps. They're making the API still free for moderation bots. They're working with apps that provide accessibility tools for reddit. They're working with the services moderators use for moderation. They're appealing to the moderators. They've made no mentions of working with: Apollo, BaconReader, or RedditIsFun. The point was to kill the third party apps.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#57

Post by nemo44x » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

0zemp3c wrote: post #30

tedivm wrote: post #2

It absolutely amazes me how badly reddit has handled this whole situation. From the years of broken promises to moderators, the complete lack of accessibility in their own apps, and then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. As much as reddit wants to make these developers into the bad guys, every move they've made in this mess has hurt their reputa…

99.99% of reddit users have no idea who spez is and probably wouldn't care if they learned about his shenanigans 99% of reddit users are aware that moderators do some nice volunteer work but wouldn't cross the street to save them its only Extremely Online people who care about this Insider Baseball stuff

> its only Extremely Online people who care about this Insider Baseball stuff

I think this is the case for many things. And I imagine people will/are get wise to it. Elon Musk I think figured this out when he did what he did with Twitter. Some very online people really cared and made a lot of noise and the very online part of the media that cares made a lot of noise. But those people don't really matter and the media side has declining ratings year after year as they become more and more irrelevant.

I think the paper tigers are starting to be exposed and they had a good run for the last 10 years by being very online and making a lot of noise. But ultimately, their voices don't matter.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#58

Post by underyx » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

superfrank wrote: post #38

tedivm wrote: post #2

It absolutely amazes me how badly reddit has handled this whole situation. From the years of broken promises to moderators, the complete lack of accessibility in their own apps, and then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. As much as reddit wants to make these developers into the bad guys, every move they've made in this mess has hurt their reputa…

> then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. > Even spez complaining about Christian recording the calls seems hollow when those recordings are what proved that spez was lying to the community Were the calls ever posted? For the way Reddit has handled this and previous issues I definitely believe Christian over spez, but unless I missed something, r…

http://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-3...

via https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_w...

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#59

Post by flutas » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #21

The part about him already selling 50K annual subscriptions to Apollo is the interesting one in the piece, and explains the decision to discontinue the app. He entered into a contract with users assuming that his API costs would be 0. He can't change that contract and start charging another fee on top, and is obligated to continue to provide the service no matter what Reddit now decides to charge him. So the solution…

> So the solution is easy for any laywer to provide - just shut down the business.

I don't really agree with that take. He's already talked about what happens now, and it includes refunds for unused subscription time.

> I've been talking to my rep at Apple, and over the next few weeks my plan is to release something similar to what Tweetbot did (Paul has been incredibly helpful in all of this) where folks can decide if they want a pro-rated refund on any existing time left in their subscription as Apollo will not be able to afford to continue it, or they can decline the refund if they're feeling kind and have enjoyed their time with Apollo.

> For the curious, refunding all existing subscriptions by my estimates will cost me about $250,000.

Re: Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

#60

Post by tedivm » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

0zemp3c wrote: post #30

tedivm wrote: post #2

It absolutely amazes me how badly reddit has handled this whole situation. From the years of broken promises to moderators, the complete lack of accessibility in their own apps, and then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. As much as reddit wants to make these developers into the bad guys, every move they've made in this mess has hurt their reputa…

99.99% of reddit users have no idea who spez is and probably wouldn't care if they learned about his shenanigans 99% of reddit users are aware that moderators do some nice volunteer work but wouldn't cross the street to save them its only Extremely Online people who care about this Insider Baseball stuff

Sure, but without those moderators there's not much of a site. I don't spent a lot of time thinking about trash collection, but if all the garbage on my street stopped being collected I'd absolutely notice.