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Apollo will close down on June 30th

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Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#531

Post by mustacheemperor »

bardfinn wrote: post #500
mustacheemperor wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really astounding to see the CEO of Reddit being caught in a blatant lie denigrating a third party developer whose work has done a lot for the platform and who has the ear of a reasonably sized and loud portion of the community. I really hadn’t expected that. Corporate doublespeak is one thing, and management decisions aren’t necessarily always in the interest of their users - but such an egregious act is reall…

[flagged]

To clarify, I'm not opining personally on reddit's API changes at all in my comment. I'm pointing out that regardless of anyone's opinion of the API changes, Steve's behavior is just egregious, ridiculous, and cruel.

You certainly raise good points about the policy change itself and about the ensuing debate and my own view is certainly closer to yours than to "not care / no position." I'm just not talking about it here, my comment was my stunned reaction to steve huffman's abominable public behavior.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#532

Post by rcxdude »

honksillet wrote: post #267

Reddit’s censorship of r/the_donald was a huge moment in the splintering of political discourse into disconnected silos. It used to be you could go to the front page of Reddit and see what each side of American politics was pushing that day. People on both the left and right would be confronted with news that otherwise they might not see in their personal echo chambers. That all died when spez and co first “quarantin…

No, you could see what the_donald was pushing. They were constantly manipulating things to be as over-represented on the front page as they could. This is why they got canned.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#533

Post by burnished »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #236
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…

So the bad guys are not the ones making an alternative client that makes money off of Reddit while not displaying their ads? Oh, okay. Those 3rd party apps are leeches that are playing surprised_pikachu.jpeg when the blood supply is cut. The simple fact that this guy has to reimburse 250K of subscriptions shows the insane amount of money he made off of the back of Reddit.

Weird taken given that it was a resource provided for people to use that benefited Reddit to offer.

Are shipping companies leeches in your worldview?

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#534

Post by 0______0 »

mpalczewski wrote: post #319
falcolas wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Don't be evil" is simply impossible for large corporations I see Patagonia as the antithesis of this broadly accepted assertion. It's possible, it just takes having a goal for your company that's more than greed.

Patagonia is pushing polyester with its associated micro-plastics, instead of the renewable natural fibers that they were using before like wool. Good, evil, depends on who is counting.

> Good, evil, depends on who is counting.

I'm gonna use that statement from now on.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#535

Post by kaqvze »

Does anyone have the least bit of business experience? This is outrageous. I have not followed this at all but how can everyone here be so biased against Steve?

If you listen to the call this Christian guy literally said: "if your opportunity cost is really $20 million, you cut me a cheque for $10 million dollars and we can both skip off into the sunset"

A joke, seriously? Why on earth would you say this in what was audibly a very tense, high-stakes call and negotiation for both sides? There is no excuse whatsoever.

Very funny, because one week later he dishes reddit and Steve the biggest shitstorm in the entire history of the site - which it would be even without all the blackmail call drama. Hello? Costing and causing surely 10s of millions in damage.

Can we appreciate that even if this Christian guy is just so genuinely ignorant, selfish and toxic without intentionally meaning any harm that at least Steve certainly was fully aware of all the implications, the seriousness and non-funny nature of the conversation?

He had and has every reason and right to feel blackmailed. The only interpretation one can take away from Christian's behavior now is that Steve had better taken him up on the "joke". Clearly, the PR disaster could have been avoided by paying up instead of accepting the cost and reacting exactly as Steve did - in the call Steve rejected the offer and notion of doing any deals. The way he apologised is what you do to save the other person's face and keep the door open for the relationship. It's not what you literally think and mean.

Steve was never going to go back to his team and say "silly me! I'm such an idiot for getting this idea into my head. That he's threatening us because he's about to shut down, cause maximum damage on the way out and stage a user revolt. When he was just trying to entertain us with a funny joke about us buying him out for $10 million. When we have no legal or moral obligation to do so. I love him, he's so funny, glad I apologised on the spot.".

If anything, one should pay some respect to Steve, not taking up the blackmail and steering head on into this mess. Good luck!

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#537

Post by DeRock »

DecayingOrganic wrote: post #525
mustacheemperor wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really astounding to see the CEO of Reddit being caught in a blatant lie denigrating a third party developer whose work has done a lot for the platform and who has the ear of a reasonably sized and loud portion of the community. I really hadn’t expected that. Corporate doublespeak is one thing, and management decisions aren’t necessarily always in the interest of their users - but such an egregious act is reall…

After carefully reading the comments and going back to the post, I take back my argument. It was flawed and did not represent the whole picture. I apologize for that. I think it wasn't a threat, but rather an unsuccessful attempt to sell Apollo before time runs out. I apologize for the confusion I created with my poor argument. I need to read more carefully. --- I initially clicked on this post fully prepared to be o…

The complaint was not with the audio call itself, but how Steve had paraphrased the audio call to others not in attendance, specifically saying:

> 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."

In the audio call Steve apologizes for the misinterpretation after clarifying, but then goes off and still makes claims of threats.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#538

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

DecayingOrganic wrote: post #525
mustacheemperor wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really astounding to see the CEO of Reddit being caught in a blatant lie denigrating a third party developer whose work has done a lot for the platform and who has the ear of a reasonably sized and loud portion of the community. I really hadn’t expected that. Corporate doublespeak is one thing, and management decisions aren’t necessarily always in the interest of their users - but such an egregious act is reall…

After carefully reading the comments and going back to the post, I take back my argument. It was flawed and did not represent the whole picture. I apologize for that. I think it wasn't a threat, but rather an unsuccessful attempt to sell Apollo before time runs out. I apologize for the confusion I created with my poor argument. I need to read more carefully. --- I initially clicked on this post fully prepared to be o…

I’m curious what the threat here is. Is the implication that they can pay 10 Million and he shuts down the app quiet or he shuts the app down revealing the cost of the API?

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#539

Post by jlmorton »

DecayingOrganic wrote: post #525
mustacheemperor wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really astounding to see the CEO of Reddit being caught in a blatant lie denigrating a third party developer whose work has done a lot for the platform and who has the ear of a reasonably sized and loud portion of the community. I really hadn’t expected that. Corporate doublespeak is one thing, and management decisions aren’t necessarily always in the interest of their users - but such an egregious act is reall…

After carefully reading the comments and going back to the post, I take back my argument. It was flawed and did not represent the whole picture. I apologize for that. I think it wasn't a threat, but rather an unsuccessful attempt to sell Apollo before time runs out. I apologize for the confusion I created with my poor argument. I need to read more carefully. --- I initially clicked on this post fully prepared to be o…

This is exactly correct.

It is always amazing to me how easily people will accept however an issue is framed for them on social media.

Of course this was a threat. It wasn't a language issue. And the post-hoc explanation was nonsense. It was an obvious and indisputable threat.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#540

Post by tantalor »

WeylandYutani wrote: post #350
SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #287

When your landlord raises your rent from $2000 to $8000, they're not really hoping to raise your rent. They're evicting you. I think the new API pricing model was developed with a single purpose: extinguishing third-party apps to improve the official app's install/usage metrics before their upcoming IPO.

Agreed. All those 3rd party apps were blocking ads and trackers. Hell you can't even browse Reddit without an account anymore!

Not sure what you mean by "trackers". Reddit knows exactly what you did in the 3rd party app via the API. The app tells the API who you are.
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