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Apollo will close down on June 30th

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Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#961

Post by austhrow743 »

Guest9081239812 wrote: post #557
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #182

In this situation, do you hire someone to negotiate with or for you? I'm thinking the intention here was to sell the company for $10 million and that came across as a threat because of the language that was used. You would not record the call [1] and then publish it if you actually were blackmailing them for $10 million. I'm not faulting the guy here at all, I just think it comes down to lack of experience in dealing…

It's certainly a strange call. Hey, you want to charge me $20 million per year, so why don't we make it easy and you just pay me $10 million to go quiet? It's really confusing. He wants Reddit to pay $10 million so he isn't "loud" with API usage? He wants them to buy and takeover the app? He's wants a payment to shutdown? Is he even serious about any of this? I get the impression he lacks the confidence to ask for a…

>There's no benefit to paying $10 million.

Him not rabble rousing their user base against them would have been the benefit.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#962

Post by danpalmer »

kats wrote: post #952
danpalmer wrote: post #119

Well done to Christian for remaining calm, professional, and engaging with this process in an honest way, standing up for his users, but not attacking Reddit or its staff with emotion, just stating facts and holding them to account in a considered way. He comes across as a mature individual and one that I'm sure many would want to deal with in business or hire as an engineer or leader. In a way, Reddit couldn't have…

[flagged]

I don't know how anyone can reasonably come to this conclusion from the post and from his interviews. If you can elaborate on your reasoning I'm keen to hear it because this whole situation is wild enough that I feel like there should be two sides to it, but so far I've not heard anything concrete, only personal attacks, unsubstantiated and refuted technical criticism, and straw-man arguments about monetising the API, something he is clearly in favour of.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#963

Post by PestoDiRucola »

sebastialonso wrote: post #69

I see two pretty distinct issues here: 1) most people's favourite app is going to die, and 2) many subreddits will be negatively affected by this move: prime example is /r/AskHistorians. Personally, 1) is not really an issue and people are enjoying the outrage train, and that's ok and valid and whatever, but it's a third party app. It's a no-brainer decision to try to kill it if it's hindering your ability to make mo…

> It's a no-brainer decision to try to kill it if it's hindering your ability to make more money

The no-brainer decision would be to make your app a lot better than any third-party app instead of pulling the rug from under people whose work has made reddit better in the long-run.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#964

Post by truculent »

the_gipsy wrote: post #941
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #182

In this situation, do you hire someone to negotiate with or for you? I'm thinking the intention here was to sell the company for $10 million and that came across as a threat because of the language that was used. You would not record the call [1] and then publish it if you actually were blackmailing them for $10 million. I'm not faulting the guy here at all, I just think it comes down to lack of experience in dealing…

Bad negotiation because the other end owns the platform, has all the leverage. Apollo simply cannot stand up and leave the table, which is what reddit predictably did. Let that be the lesson: don't sink your time (and money) into building OSS (or a business) on top of a platform. It's like building on sand.

This guy had a job he loved running his own business for 8 years. Yes, it can get taken away in an instant, but that doesn’t seem like a terrible deal to me in hindsight.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#965

Post by 2143 »

> I quickly put together a small app where I could input the prices and it would output monthly/yearly cost, cost for free users, paid users, etc. so I'd be able to process the information immediately.

Next time this kind of situation comes up, I highly recommend using a spreadsheet.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#966

Post by beowulfey »

bhtru wrote: post #448
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,…

Reading the transcripts and listening to the audio and seeing how Reddit is behaving is a fucking wild ride. I use old.reddit.com on mobile and desktop so I'm not directly effected by these changes aside from the likely steep decline in moderation quality as longstanding mods lose their tools. I feel compelled to migrate from reddit and only utilize it as a resource for knowledge when it's the only resource for some…

I would not be surprised if they announce an end to support for Old Reddit soon. They are gearing up for an IPO and want to get rid of all the non-moneymaking cruft.

Essentially what they are doing is trying to reach equilibrium in terms of users and income sources so it all looks tight on the books. They won’t IPO until they can figure out final changes in user numbers, etc.

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#967

Post by jimmySixDOF »

kernal wrote: post #426
justusthane wrote: post #12

Apollo is such an incredibly high quality app — in fact, it’s so good that I haven’t had it installed on my phone in a couple of years because when I have it I spend way too much time on Reddit. The features, the polish, the customizability — everything about it is really top notch.

I use both Apollo for iOS and Sync on Android and I would give the edge to Sync for polish, aesthetics and customizability.

.........aaaaaaand Reddit Sync "will shut down on June 30, 2023"

RIP

https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/comments/144jp3w/sync_wi...

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#968

Post by ineedasername »

Peleus wrote: post #932
ineedasername wrote: post #803

I'm confused about the details, maybe someone can clarify. The OP says Reddit claims they were being blackmailed (which clearly they weren't) but it's the talk around opportunity cost that I don't understand, especially as related alleged blackmail. 1) It would cost Apollo $20m to continue operating, and somehow Apollo, not able to afford it and offering to just kind of walk away from the app constitutes Blackmail? 2…

1) You're correct in saying it clearly doesn't constitute Blackmail. 2) No, the opportunity cost for Reddit is the users using Apollo to browse Reddit as opposed to official channels. This prevents Reddit from effectively monetizing those users, because they cannot display them ads, track their usage habits, and all the other things social media companies do to monetize their user base. The reality is that using a us…

Thanks, that clarifies a bit and helps me put this post in a proper perspective

Re: Apollo will close down on June 30th

#969

Post by rawfan »

bogwog wrote: post #254
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #182

In this situation, do you hire someone to negotiate with or for you? I'm thinking the intention here was to sell the company for $10 million and that came across as a threat because of the language that was used. You would not record the call [1] and then publish it if you actually were blackmailing them for $10 million. I'm not faulting the guy here at all, I just think it comes down to lack of experience in dealing…

Yeah this guy didn't handle this situation very well. I don't know if it would've been possible to save Apollo for reddit, but that call didn't help at all. Also, what's the deal with him not wanting to start a competitor? That's like his only bargaining chip in this situation, and he's just throwing it away because he feels overwhelmed and wants to make iOS widgets. I totally sympathize with him and how this situati…

Starting a competitor involves doing all the things that Reddit is doing (having a legal team, servers across the world and staff to operate them, making policy decisions, ...).

That is not at all the same as building an iOS client using an API as a one man show (or 1-3) and directly selling that.

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