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Apollo will close down on June 30th

old.reddit.com

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Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#821

Post by solarkraft »

Infinity315 wrote: post #749
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.

It's not charity. These apps are providing traffic, engagement and valuable content. Reddit should be paying them for bringing users to their platform.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#822

Post by drubio »

kaqvze wrote: post #535

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…

Wow, I thought I was taking crazy pills, THIS

I expected this to be a top comment, instead its buried 1000 comments deep, posted by a new account and down voted, just wow.

Its been years since I've used Reddit and never heard of this Apollo app, so I'm not rooting for anyone, but c'mon, what's the deal with the Apollo dev audio and mob'esque "deal you can't refuse" skit: 'you cut me a cheque for $10 million dollars and we can both skip off into the sunset', this alone sounds legally actionable even in a banana republic.

And yet, they're rallying for the Apollo dev on this entire thread and trashing Reddit's CEO. As despicable as they want to frame Reddit's CEO present and past actions, this dev sounds just as -- if not more -- despicable.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#824

Post by wand3r »

willis936 wrote: post #801
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,…

I think the users that will be leaving reddit are worth 100 normal reddit users in terms of content value. Drain them and the rest will swirl down quickly.

This is an interesting point. I use free Apollo, and realized when I tried to post, that its a paid feature.

So you have to figure that all the revenue is largely from contributing users and the dynamics on social media go something like 5-10% of people post all the content. Also, i heard it has great tooling for mods as well.

We'll see how big of a blow this is but yeah, you're right, a lot of Apollo users are probably high value reddit users.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#825

Post by kojeovo »

Veen wrote: post #501
kojeovo wrote: post #330

Looking at #s on the app store / play store and it looks like RIF / Apollo usage is a drop in the bucket compared to the actual reddit app. I doubt this has any meaningful impact after all is settled. Just seems like a loud vocal minority.

Yes, but all the high-value content on reddit is created by a minority of users. The people who moderate reddit are a minority of users. The issue for reddit is that these are the same people as your "loud vocal minority" who use third-party apps. You know, the ones that do the work generates Reddit's value in the first place.

Are you theorizing that majority of content is posted through these third party apps? I can definitely see it's plausible that the content quality/quantity could drop. But if the average user is using the official app, will they notice or care? Doubt it. As for mods, I think there will always be people that will want to mod, using whatever way is available.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#827

Post by thepasswordis »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #243
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.

Not only do the receipts contradict the Reddit CEO, but even if they didn't, the Apollo dev is well within his rights to offer an ultimatum that either Reddit acquires his app, or he shuts it down. If he has enough leverage in that situation for Reddit to feel as if that's "blackmail," then it actually means that Reddit is the one blackmailing him with the pricing changes. On one hand they claim they need to increase…

It was certainly telling when Apollo guy offered what seemed like a pretty lighthearted open in a potential negotiation, and reddit claimed this as "blackmail".

When I negotiate the price on a piece of real estate, I often will include things that I want the owner to fix before closing (this is very common). The implication is "fix this or I won't buy the property".

Is that "blackmail"? Apparently according to Spez it is.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#828

Post by jeremyjh »

spideymans wrote: post #757
sh34r wrote: post #740

Reddit is Digging its own grave. Eternal September awaits all the old school forums that still remain. But perhaps that decentralization will be a good thing in the end. I think the network effects of Reddit are a lot easier to undo than that of Twitter. There is little core functionality that didn’t exist in forum software from the Naughties.

I'd love to see a federated Reddit clone. Administrators should have power over their communities, nor Reddit.

You mean other than Lemmy?

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#830

Post by johnnyanmac »

apozem wrote: post #248
duckfruit wrote: post #39

This makes me indescribably sad. Apart from mourning the loss of a fantastic app by an awesome developer, to me it signals the end of a golden era of small indie client only apps. Since the APIs for the likes of reddit, twitter (RIP tweetbot) and others were available for free or a reasonable fee it spawned a whole cottage industry of developers who made a living selling alternate front ends for these services. These…

My feelings exactly. We're all stuck with the official Reddit and Twitter clients now. They're not even good. We know they're not good, but they're now the only place to experience Reddit and Twitter. It's like enterprise software for a whole social network.

"We're" not stuck unless your career is in social media, in which case yes, they will still be the most popular sites and the best way to reach people.

But for the rest of us, there's always a choice to foster a new community. Whether there is enough for that, and if a server is ready for that load, are big questions to answer though

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