Apollo will close down on June 30th • Hacker News Board

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#741

Post by vkou » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

Demmme wrote: post #290

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…

I actually believe reddit when they say the impact is small I'm using reddit for ages and never even considered anything besides their website. If the traffic to their site is primarily from the web (or web mobile or the official Reddit app), the client (3th party) users are only a loud minority. Of course I think the behavior is shitty but I don't think most people really care and reddit will not see any real impact…

The impact will be small?

I won't be using Reddit on mobile going forward, and I'll stop using it on desktop when old.reddit inevitably goes away.

That sounds like a pretty big impact for me...

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#742

Post by mulmen » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:47 PM UTC

timmytokyo wrote: post #434

square_usual wrote: post #16

> Then yesterday, moderators told me they were on a call with CEO Steve Huffman (spez), and he said the following per their transcript: > 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." > Wow. Because my memory is that you didn't take it as a threat, and you even apologized profusely when you admitted…

Reddit could have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat simply by purchasing Apollo and making it available as an official app. So many people would have paid a significant monthly fee for an ad-free, quality mobile reddit experience. But no, they had to go full-on maximalist destroy-all-intruders mode, and now they've got an unnecessary PR nightmare on their hands. From the perspective of fiduciary responsibility…

How long do you think Reddit would have kept Apollo ad-free? That would cost them whatever Apollo cost and have the same result. The value proposition of Apollo is that Reddit doesn't own it. They already have a client. It sucks. Why would this be better?

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#743

Post by goolz » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:50 PM UTC

The year is 2030, Reddit is now on it's 38th iteration. Steve and team have been slaving away, year after year, trying to come up with ideas on how to make the loads quicker, memes funnier, all while also pumping in 2000 metric tonnes of adverts/second. As it dawns on them that the app is somehow even slower, they frown. But Steve notices something out of the corner of his eye (despite all of the full page ads)... what could it be? It is a notification that ad-based revenue has gone UP!!! Everyone rejoices, Reddit is saved and Steve-and-Co have once again saved the world. Hooray.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#744

Post by jacksnipe » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:50 PM UTC

Wow, up until this point I thought the Reddit api drama was a bit tragic, but the inevitable endpoint of Reddit being a profit-driven corporation.

This is straight-up villainy.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#745

Post by jhatemyjob » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #144

I still don't understand why the user flow can't be: 1. Download Apollo 2. Go to Reddit.com 3. Open your user settings 4. Generate a client_id and client_secret 5. Paste that into these two places in Apollo 6. There you go Sure it's not strictly to OAuth2, but it's going to work just fine, right?

Because it would get pulled from the App Store.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#746

Post by goolz » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

I am tempted to make an allusion that involves us, the making of foie gras and Reddit's ad-tech supremacy. With Steve being the guy who nails the ducks to the wood, forces the funnel down their throat and. . . well ya, you get the point.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#747

Post by srge » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

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…

That’s a disaster

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#748

Post by nonethewiser » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #437

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…

Realistically this is the right time for the large subreddits to move onto a different platform. The moderators and the community ultimately have the power here, not Reddit. And in the sense that those communities are just forums, good old PHPbb could be the answer.

> Realistically this is the right time for the large subreddits to move onto a different platform.

Like Apollo. He could build a backend himself.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#749

Post by Infinity315 » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

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.

I don't know what's a reasonable rate per API call. But it costs reddit to provide this API for free, not only are these apps not serving reddit's ads but they are actively taking up server resources.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#750

Post by dimmke » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

Demmme wrote: post #290

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…

I actually believe reddit when they say the impact is small I'm using reddit for ages and never even considered anything besides their website. If the traffic to their site is primarily from the web (or web mobile or the official Reddit app), the client (3th party) users are only a loud minority. Of course I think the behavior is shitty but I don't think most people really care and reddit will not see any real impact…

I think you’re wrong - the audience that Reddit was built on is paying attention to this, and it’s going to have a lot of knock on effects. People who have been around for a while. Hell, I was one of the people that moved from Digg to Reddit in 2009 and I’m barely in my thirties.

Do I think it’s going to kill Reddit? No. But I think this is going to have a large effect on their IPO and they will be treated as a hostile entity going forward than a neutral one, and that will add up over time. There’s no plausible deniability.