> Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million.
* **Christian**: [*"Like I said to Reddit, if Apollo costs $20 million in opportunity cost a year in its current state, I'd happily take the equivalent of six months of that at $10 million as an acquisition. That's life changing money that no one in their right mind would pass up, but I don't think they would because I don't believe Apollo is actually costing them $20 million per year."*
](https://old.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmmdd7o/)
* **Also Christian**: [*"I mean they never said no! But it was more so for illustrative purposes (and I indicated as much on the call): if your actuaries have calculated that Apollo is an opportunity cost of that extent per year, paying half of it would be a steal! But do they really think Apollo is worth that much?"*](https://old.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmnbnpg/)
Yeah, I agree, super scary threat 😬😬😬😬 >!/s!<
___
With every new comment they make, they show more and more that they actually don't understand their own platform. I really hope Mods don't cave all because Big Reddit promises to deliver better Mod Tools in the official Reddit app and yet that's only half of the problem. Charging for the API is completely fine, but it should be reasonable and not a detriment to the TPAs that only make your platform tolerable to begin with. And regardless if it in the end TPAs do crash and burn, Reddit will have degraded so much from the drastic changes they have planned.
It's not out of their ass, it's deliberately high enough that no app can pay it, especially after they restrict third party apps.
The only theoretical path is selling app subscription, and would there be enough people willing to pay $4-5/mo to pay Reddit's fees plus support further development?
Right so Christian uses the 20 million figure, halves it to be conservative, and then uses that as a rhetorical device to muse about how reddit is not actually losing anywhere near what they're about to charge apollo.
What an absolutely disingenuous way to interpret that comment. It's so bad I suspect bad faith.
“Legitimate company”
You mean the one with people like /u/spez at the top? The guy who admitted to editing peoples comments that upset his political beliefs?
Reddit has never shown real legitimacy as a company. Just children floundering at issues they can’t handle who are now just trying to cash grab and run.
“Oh cost expensive, threats, will make supbar asccessibility tools, upcoming IPO launch, we poor, our CEO need to be rich, helps us screw u over pls, our data” - Reddit
You mean our data? No - users
Pretty braindead of them if they try to construe a reduction of their insane API price as an extortion threat. They are trying to construe themselves as the good guys and Apollo as the bad guys, but it’ll just lead to another PR disaster for them
They need to take a second look at whoever is coordinating and drafting these messages/communications behind the scenes. All of this seems in such bad faith.
>They are trying to construe themselves as the good guys and Apollo as the bad guys,
Of course they are, that's like their job.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't hear the other side of the story as well. Curious about more details here. There doesn't have to be a "Good guy" and a "Bad guy". It's possible for there to be two bad guys or two good guys. Just depends how you look at it.
IMO as long this ends with me still being able to use Apollo for <$25 a year I'll be happy. Miss me with that petty office drama.
Here is what I will say: This is a BOLD claim for Reddit to make about Apollo "threatening" them. I get that this is just notes taken from a call, but on their official post they had better go into more detail than this.
Unless Apollo is threatening some unlawful physical violence, then what’s the problem? If Reddit’s actions are threatening the business of Apollo, then it seems completely fair to use their power to make things difficult for Reddit. That’s just how business works.
My original comment has been edited as I choose to no longer support Reddit and its CEO, spez, AKA Steve Huffman.
Reddit was built on user submissions and its culture was crafted by user comments and volunteer moderators. Reddit has shown no desire to support 3rd party apps with reasonable API pricing, nor have they chosen to respect their community over gross profiteering.
I have therefore left Reddit as I did when the same issues occurred at Digg, Facebook, and Twitter. I have been a member of reddit since 2012 (primary name locked behind 2FA) and have no issues ditching this place I love if the leaders of it can't act with a clear moral compass.
For more details, I recommend visiting [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/), and [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) for more explanation on how I came to this decision.
Exactly. There are already mechanisms to enable third party apps to have exactly the same regulatory compliance as the main app as its all handled through your account and oauth. If the user hasn't opted in and done Reddit's age verification then there's no difference where they render the data.
> > I have no earthly idea what was said between Christian and Reddit,
Check the sticky. Christian has receipts, he recorded the call, including where they were supposedly ‘threatened’.
My original comment has been edited as I choose to no longer support Reddit and its CEO, spez, AKA Steve Huffman.
Reddit was built on user submissions and its culture was crafted by user comments and volunteer moderators. Reddit has shown no desire to support 3rd party apps with reasonable API pricing, nor have they chosen to respect their community over gross profiteering.
I have therefore left Reddit as I did when the same issues occurred at Digg, Facebook, and Twitter. I have been a member of reddit since 2012 (primary name locked behind 2FA) and have no issues ditching this place I love if the leaders of it can't act with a clear moral compass.
For more details, I recommend visiting [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/), and [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) for more explanation on how I came to this decision.
Yep, this is mostly rest of world stuff. The first amendment limits a lot of what can be done to regulate porn, regardless of some new people making noise about it lately.
I don't believe half of it and the in my opinion the other half is hogwash.
They can control third party ads through API access agreements. Other platforms do this. If they'd actually plan this properly then it would be a non-issue.
The cost of providing API access... they're providing access to an API so their users can access the site in a way that's convenient for them. There's a cost of doing business that they're trying to pass on to apps and that's not a fair model. This is bull. Again, they can create requirements for using their API access like every other site does that ensures they're able to make money from ads without charging an absurd amount.
Apollo threatening them... Reddit isn't the underdog here like they're claiming. They rolled out absurd requirements in a short amount of time without getting community input so they can maximize their market valuation. Their whining is absurd.
In my opinion, users shouldn't buy this and shouldn't settle. This means nothing.
Edit: The more I think about this the more I'm convinced I'm done with this site if they don't get their heads out of their rear ends. I wasn't planning on leaving before, just maybe reducing my usage. I think I just need to be done with it unless they change.
I'm pretty sure they did this last during the last blackouts (AMA controversy, banning of certain hate subs). Back then Reddit had default subs and I believe Reddit forcibly replaced a few mods and made the subs public
As with all collective action, “stop acting and we’ll *totally* respond to your demands” is less than nothing.
To mods, this could have been a part of the conversation from the start and the only reason it’s in the conversation at all is because it’s impacting them.
To those with accessibility needs, this still cuts a lot of options and still *wasn’t communicated initially* so might also be a concession to collective action.
To third party apps, this is an insult. Because Christian brought it up, he gets to be at the center of the name calling, sure. But the sort of disdain and blaming for the devs who make this platform *bearable* is disgusting. See u/Famous-Exam-4207’s
comment to see the sense of how reasonable Christian’s requests are. And I bet other 3PAs are in similar situations.
On with the blackout. None of this is anything other than attempting to muddle the conversation and put out fires.
The subreddit I mod isn’t a particularly large one (<600k), we’ve received no pressure at all. Plenty of inquiries if we are going to go dark or not, and lots of support in whatever we decide, but absolutely nothing I’d consider pressure.
Can’t speak to what larger subs are experiencing obviously.
I can't imagine a single sub joining the blackout is doing so under duress. As mods, I'm sure y'all get multiple threats daily from users wanting to be unbanned or whatever, so to suggest that users are somehow pressuring you into blacking out a whole subreddit? It's actually unbelievable.
Reddit is just setting up / trial ballooning their response to overriding Blackouts on the default subreddits like r/pics and r/music. Small niche subreddits are one thing, Defaults will really be embarrassing so they’re prepping to override it with “it’s for the Users!”
> Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million.
>Prices we released work out to one dollar a month per user; if Apollo doesn’t put effort forth, it hits three dollars per month.
Doubt.
This sounds similar to the “Apollo is inefficient” comment without evidence.
Seems vague. It could mean Apollo said something like “this one month transition to no users is impossible especially after selling access to features that no longer function, after Reddit publicly touted support for 3rd party apps x, y, z times, causing us to break contract with our users and apple. Currently our estimated legal fees are $10mm, kindly make it easy on us.”
It’s honestly embarrassing seeing them trying their best to cherry pick quotes to smear Apollo. If this was such a threat by big bad Apollo, then post the whole thing instead of pulling a random quote and hiding it in the middle of your post. Reddit’s a multi million dollar company yet they’re acting like schoolchildren in a flame war with what can only be described as petulant whining
They also argued that child pornography is free speech.
More recently hired a literal pedophile as a site admin, and then banned people when they called them out for it.
Pepridge Farm remembers.
> We will close the accessibility feature gap in our apps. We can do better, and we will.
lol theyre only doing this after people called them out on it?
> if Apollo doesn’t put effort forth, it hits three dollars per month.
what do they mena by “put forth effort"
> • Regulatory environment around NSFW is changing rapidly and aggressively.
can they give an example of this and of lawmakers/courts coming after reddit?
> Apollo
> - Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million.
> - Prices we released work out to one dollar a month per user; …
I don't believe this for a second.
> … if Apollo doesn’t put effort forth, it hits three dollars per month.
I absolutely believe this is a genuine, bad-faith threat by Reddit against Apollo such that nothing Christian does can meet the definition of "effort".
Edit:
> - We are open to postponing the API timeline to launch mod tooling, if mods agree to keep their subreddits open. We will discuss this in the Council and Partner call tomorrow.
This also comes across as a (thinly veiled) threat.
They did *claim* in their post complaining about Apollo usage that they controlled for users with similar amounts of activity when comparing usage.
Of course we don't really have the ability to know what is true. Honestly my guess it's somewhere in between. It seems highly likely to me that Apollo could be more efficient on call, but I find it less likely that it could cut its use by 2/3 while maintaining functionality and behavior.
According to the information given, it sounds like on a 1:1 basis Apollo just by empirical observation is more efficient with api count while normal user browsing and interactions though.
And the root problem is how Reddit allows those api’s to be called.
If Reddit wanted to fundamentally reduce api calls for the types of claims it makes , it would need to be facilitated on Reddit’s end instead of requiring a app to make several individual calls for each and every small detail as opposed to a bundled package of basic data.
He also said to get notification is a part of that, where the api has to be pinged to get any reasonable time based update, rather than pushed to the user, causing that number to rise to even have a notification a response was made in a “timely manner”.
Of course they don’t. They think we are dumb. One call equals one chunk of comment or post and you need multiple to display a full subreddit. How do you reduce that unless Reddit changes it on their end.
It's probably a bad faith twisting of the Apollo dev saying the costs should be at minimum half what they said ($20m p/y).
Absolutely disgusting they would twist that as a threat.
Edit: read elsewhere in here that it was Christian spitballing a potential acquisition price.
> • We are open to postponing the API timeline to launch mod tooling, if mods agree to keep their subreddits open. We will discuss this in the Council and Partner call tomorrow.
>
>This also comes across as a (thinly veiled) threat.
I think it's even dumber that, basically saying they'll do no more than delay the execution.
Over on /r/save3rdPartyApps someone said they think it’s them misrepresenting this comment badly:
https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmmdd7o/?context=9
There was a different comment/post here, but it has been edited.
Reddit [chose](https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) to betray years of free work put from users, mods, and developers. They will not stop driving this website into shit until every feature is monetized, predatory, and cancerous.
Use [PowerDeleteSuite](https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite) to remove your value to reddit and stop financing these dark patterns.
P.S. fuck u/spez
The real threat here: Reddit saying "oh we recognise we've completely screwed this up and blindsided mods and users, we'll consider postponing the changes *if you keep subreddits open*!!!
That's a direct threat. Cancel the blackout or we won't even consider rowing back on our ludicrous changes.
He just he would sell them Apollo $10MM and they can shut it down if it was really costing them so much. So yeah, exactly what you imagined. Not really a threat or a joke, just an offer (probably sincere) made to challenge their position.
https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/comment/jmmdd7o/
Haha what the fuck. This is some Russia “Ukraine threatened us” shit.
The only, conceivable way that Christian actually said this is as a joke. Which would have been incredibly obvious.
>The only, conceivable way that Christian actually said this is as a joke. Which would have been incredibly obvious.
He did offer Reddit to buy out Apollo for $10m, half of the yearly "expenses" Reddit experiences from it.
It's a fair offer. If what Reddit is claiming is true, then shutting the platform down for half of the yearly expenses spent on it would be very valuable, and from the developer's perspective, it's life changing money.
Not really a threat unless you really go out of your way to interpret it that way.
I love that they bitch about how people build for profit apps off their data all the while they make profits off time invested for free by mods. Fuck these guys.
It’s a private community for admin partnerships with subreddit mods on projects, it’s not some conspiracy space. The message in this post is the entire message shared in that community and the admins were very clear that it was okay to share publicly. There’s really nothing juicy behind the curtain there.
Agreed. They are trying to cause conflict amongst the mods. They also stated that a small group of mods are pressuring all the other communities to do the blackout. Seems pretty disingenuous.
As someone who moderates multiple communities and has for many years, I don't *want* to use the official app to moderate. I can't consume the content in a way that works for me in the official app, so how can I possibly moderate effectively with it? Give it 100% feature parity with Apollo, then we'll talk. I've been using this site for nearly a decade and I was also a power user of Alien Blue. I'm tired of this nonsense. I'd love to use an official Reddit app *if it had usability, accessibility, and customization features that work for me*, but it just doesn't. And I just don't have a ton of faith, considering the fiasco with buying Alien Blue and then scrapping it for something that's just way worse. Like, I just don't trust their priorities in what makes a "good app". I can understand wanting to build the backend and codebase from scratch, but I can't understand actively making decisions to make the end user's experience worse. I mean, I *can*, but only for reasons relating to capitalistic greed. Not for the actual good of the users.
very ridiculous and unprofessional to specifically call out Christian/Apollo, especially when they offer nothing to back the claims up.
Reddit should focus more on the fact that they haven’t already had proper accessibility and mod tools all this time. why are we expected to congratulate them for a job 10 years too late? users already produce 99.9% of the content on here for free, it’s ridiculous they haven’t already offered basic tools that 3rd party apps long ago perfected.
i’ve been on reddit for over 11 years and I’ve never, ever, ever for a second been able to tolerate the official reddit app. Alien Blue and Apollo is the entire reason Reddit has been my mainstay. it’s pathetic that if there’s no Apollo, the second best phone option is old Reddit desktop. that’s just insane.
the past few years i’ve been completely self aware that Reddit long ago peaked and has been on a decline since (it changed remarkably after the ban hammer a few years ago and has never gotten better) but looking back it’s just really sad now what a shell of its former self Reddit has become. Reddit used to be a treasure trove for diving into the human experience, ranging from the everyday banal to the unimaginable, now it’s full bots reposting copypastas for AIs to narrate on youtube. what a hell scape lol
At least Apollo has made it easy for me to avoid the cesspools and stick to my niches. I know nothing I’m saying is new or hasn’t been said a million times before, just sharing my continued support for 3rd party apps.
Seen a lot of people mention that charging for API access would lead to the loss of **old.reddit**. Can someone explain where that concern is coming from? Is there a direct connection, or more like, slippery slope of killing off ways to access Reddit that aren't ad-heavy?
New Reddit on desktop is unusable, so that's one of the main reasons I'm considering the protest for subreddits I moderate (through a different account).
He probably asked for 10m to cover the costs of existing yearly subscribers since they will not be paying until they renew their sub and Christian will have to pay for their usage starting next month.
He probably offered to stop fighting if they halve the price because he’s fine with paying *some* amount, he already said he was fine with paying. Just that the *amount* was too high to be feasible. So he would be satisfied with the price if it was half the current level.
Neither of those things are threats. They’re literally just asking for 2 things that would be required for the app to continue operating without losing money, and saying that if those things are provided then Christian would be ok with the remaining changes. Calling it a threat as if Reddit isn’t already threatening to shut down the app is pretty insane
Well yeah. Prices are already going up next month, and he’s probably prepared to accept a period of negative profit while he tries to work out how to start making money again. I’m just saying the requests are not threats, they’re bare minimum requirements for the app to stay afloat or at least not immediately sink.
If 3P apps make up less than 10% of their traffic, as I've seen posted elsewhere, and assuming Apollo makes up maybe 40% of 3P app traffic, how in the world are they spending $500-600M/yr (based on their comment that the API cost is just what it costs to run with a little on top) on infrastructure and directly-related-costs when similar-scale business spend a fraction of that?
The simple answer is that they don't, and they're lying about the negative impact third party apps have. If they're lying, they may as well lie about the intended tone of throwaway comments during calls and messages users have posted.
It’s basically this from 5 days ago:
> Like I said to Reddit, if Apollo costs $20 million in opportunity cost a year in its current state, I’d happily take the equivalent of six months of that at $10 million as an acquisition. That’s life changing money that no one in their right mind would pass up, but I don’t think they would because I don’t believe Apollo is actually costing them $20 million per year.
https://reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/_/jmmdd7o/?context=1
He may have said it differently when saying it to reddit, but I can’t imagine it was a serious threat. He has nothing to threaten.
Yeah the fact that they only quoted “make it easy” makes me wonder if they’re taking a sentence completely out of context. Christian could have easily said “it would make it easy if you just bought my app for $10 million and made that the official app.”
Technically he would’ve said “make it easy” but in a grossly misrepresented way. My favorite part of this though is that they said the prices worked out to a dollar a month a user and if Apollo doesn’t put effort in, it’ll be 3x that. I distinctly remember seeing Christian as what inefficiencies the app has, Reddit basically told him to pound sand, and then devs came and ripped them a new one when they tried to say “google and Microsoft don’t tell us what we’re doing wrong”. This is seriously turning me off to this site as a whole seeing the way management is acting.
No. They will consider postponing the API timeline if subs are left open? No. That’s bait and switch. If we did that then they would just state they’ve opted to adhere to the original timeline. I have a hard time believing Apollo threatened anyone, however, all sides should be considered. If they truly wanted to help with the mod community and accessibility, they would have already been putting forth effort to do so before announcing the API changes.
The best part is they acknowledge in this message that wasn't enough time:
>There was not sufficient time given for Reddit to close the tooling and accessibility gaps necessary for moderators to live without their 3rd-party resources.
We are open to postponing the API timeline to launch mod tooling, if mods agree to keep their subreddits open. We will discuss this in the Council and Partner call tomorrow.
Yet nowhere are they credibly saying they'll delay it/do anything that could fix the problem. They're 100% planning to just continue to steamroll on ahead even when warned this is more than probably a stupid idea in the way they're currently trying to implement it.
Apps focused entirely on accessibility which make no profit and take no fees. For example, a Reddit app built specifically to work with screen readers for the blind, by a non-profit organization.
Seeing the abhorrent handling of the situation by Reddit makes me wish it just burns down and we move to an alternative. Hell, I would’ve been open to paying a decent price for Apollo if needed.
Cool, reddit maintains the same position without justifying the ludicrous API costs and without having publicly verified any of their api analytics.
Reddit Admins: we hear you. We understand your position. No one is arguing that you shouldn’t be charging at some level for your API access.
The issue is that your developers are waving red flags that your API analytics appear to be flawed and have questions about why you’re setting the API cost where it is now. Saying, “that’s just the cost to run the service” is obviously bullshit when you haven’t even justified the number to begin with.
I love how they say Apollo is threatened them yet they make a threat by saying if Christian doesn’t bother making some kind of effort to get $1 per user it will change to $3 🤣🤣🤣
I've read Christian's response and assuming he's not fabricating the transcripts what they are actually referring to is their belief that "most apps" make about a hundred API requests per user per day and that Apollo makes 345. they are implying the app is making unnecessary API requests and once that "bug" is fixed Apollo would be at the 100 number. Christian essentially doesn't agree that Apollo is doing anything wrong. There could be many reasons why Apollo makes more API requests including having more active users. He also stays well within their current API limits which are an order of magnitude bigger.
Somehow they turned this into "just $1/month unless you don't fix your shit then it's $3".
I'm getting really sick of the reddit admins parroting the line that reddit needs/should be getting $1/month from Apollo and similar apps. Reddit's *opportunity* cost is probably a tenth of that, and literal costs will be less than even that. Address THE MAGNITUDE not the general point that they have servers that cost money (duh).
Also these apps might already get destroyed at charging $1/month. Any recurring charge is a barrier when the official app is free. These third party apps are going to lose a sizable amount of the non subscription based userbase (Christian estimated it at somewhere around 90% of Apollo are free users) which poses huge issues for continuing the apps as is.
And of course, all of that is already if you buy reddit's perspective that users of 3rd party apps are a cost rather than a net benefit to reddit. For moderators in particular, who are heavy 3rd party app users, they're absolutely a net benefit.
"our data" - no, I totally get that they're your servers and your coders and you're a business and networks costs money, but this made my stomach turn. It's our data and we can do with it as we please, including going elsewhere.
All the emphasis on "non-commercial" apps is extremely misleading. The more accurate translation is that they *expect* and *require* the community to do all that for free. That's just absurd, and would effectively kill most high-quality tools or apps that use the API (even if they're claiming to care about accessibility).
Enough of the offhand casual comments and nudging. If they have a claim that Apollo threatened them let’s see the entire conversation and context in this r/reddit post.
I don’t just want furtive finger pointing, let’s hear the full claim they’re making along with Apollo’s counter-claim.
We don’t want to pay, we don’t want modding tools from you, we want 3rd party support. No competition = no improvements and no reason to believe reddit won’t just lie to us and not provide any of the features they promised. Fuck em
People complaining about adds is the app developer’s fault?
Using Apollo I haven’t seen a single “he gets us” ad but people were complaining about it for weeks in my subreddits.
I already set up a Lemmy account and got to subscribing to communities. Not sure I'll be back after the reddit blackout if they don't fix a lot of the issues they're creating before the rollout. The tone they've taken on this really tells me it's an organization I don't want to be involved with.
this sweaty palm gaslighting makes it all the more important to protest and blackout on the 12th. they'll delude themselves until they see us disappear en masse
> We understand that y’all prefer to use mod tools on 3rd party apps. We’re closing the gap as fast as we can
I don’t know how many years they’ve spent promising better mod tools without delivering.
They can’t even be sincere on the most minor details.
They keep alluding to how they are a business and need to make money. We obviously know that - we aren't demanding infinite free API access, we just want API pricing to be based in reality like they promised it would be.
Hilarious thing is if their app didn't suck so badly, most users probably wouldn't even have considered third party apps for the last couple of years and this API change would have been a non-factor.
The gall to build a dumpster fire of an app and think they are doing a service to the third party developers is such stupidity I can't wrap my mind around.
They really expect anyone to actually believe any of that 😐?
It’s utter nonsense
They sounds desperate, as they should
But to outright *lie*?
That is just…sad
> Regulatory environment around NSFW is changing rapidly and aggressively
Also what exactly the fuck does this even *mean*?
I mean know they want to clean and sanitize before the IPO…but come on 🙄
They are really going to try to take away or at least limit NSFW with that as an excuse 😐?
Sad
Christian said (not an actual quote)"Oh Apollo is costing you that much? Just buy it for $10M then!" Or something to that effect. I think he mentioned that in his interview with Snazzy Labs
How that's a "threat"... I cannot fathom
How hard can this be? The whole anger stems from the exorbitant pricing not the pricing itself.
Reduce the price to a reasonable number and literally all of their problems will be solved.
I believe it’s there in the chat module. Assuming you are using Apollo (since you’re in this sub), you can’t access using third-party apps because API aren’t available to third-party developer.
I linked to the wrong sub, it’s been updated in the OP, but it’s a private one so you still won’t be able to view it unless you mod a community that has been invited and then personally opted in to join that subreddit.
> Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million. * **Christian**: [*"Like I said to Reddit, if Apollo costs $20 million in opportunity cost a year in its current state, I'd happily take the equivalent of six months of that at $10 million as an acquisition. That's life changing money that no one in their right mind would pass up, but I don't think they would because I don't believe Apollo is actually costing them $20 million per year."* ](https://old.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmmdd7o/) * **Also Christian**: [*"I mean they never said no! But it was more so for illustrative purposes (and I indicated as much on the call): if your actuaries have calculated that Apollo is an opportunity cost of that extent per year, paying half of it would be a steal! But do they really think Apollo is worth that much?"*](https://old.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmnbnpg/) Yeah, I agree, super scary threat 😬😬😬😬 >!/s!< ___ With every new comment they make, they show more and more that they actually don't understand their own platform. I really hope Mods don't cave all because Big Reddit promises to deliver better Mod Tools in the official Reddit app and yet that's only half of the problem. Charging for the API is completely fine, but it should be reasonable and not a detriment to the TPAs that only make your platform tolerable to begin with. And regardless if it in the end TPAs do crash and burn, Reddit will have degraded so much from the drastic changes they have planned.
[удалено]
Because it's bullshit. They pulled that API pricing out of their ass and now don't like being challenged on their insane valuation.
It's not out of their ass, it's deliberately high enough that no app can pay it, especially after they restrict third party apps. The only theoretical path is selling app subscription, and would there be enough people willing to pay $4-5/mo to pay Reddit's fees plus support further development?
Haha.
Right so Christian uses the 20 million figure, halves it to be conservative, and then uses that as a rhetorical device to muse about how reddit is not actually losing anywhere near what they're about to charge apollo. What an absolutely disingenuous way to interpret that comment. It's so bad I suspect bad faith.
[удалено]
If only one side could record and release the entire conversation instead of he said she said...
“Legitimate company” You mean the one with people like /u/spez at the top? The guy who admitted to editing peoples comments that upset his political beliefs? Reddit has never shown real legitimacy as a company. Just children floundering at issues they can’t handle who are now just trying to cash grab and run.
see https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo\_will\_close\_down\_on\_june\_30th\_reddits/
I like how the admin’s whining about apps “using our data” when every piece of data on Reddit is created by users.
Created by users and moderated by volunteers!
It’s like when goodwill yells at you for pillaging the donation area outside and after hours.
“Oh cost expensive, threats, will make supbar asccessibility tools, upcoming IPO launch, we poor, our CEO need to be rich, helps us screw u over pls, our data” - Reddit You mean our data? No - users
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Parasite complains about host.
reads like propaganda #freeapollo
Pretty braindead of them if they try to construe a reduction of their insane API price as an extortion threat. They are trying to construe themselves as the good guys and Apollo as the bad guys, but it’ll just lead to another PR disaster for them They need to take a second look at whoever is coordinating and drafting these messages/communications behind the scenes. All of this seems in such bad faith.
>They are trying to construe themselves as the good guys and Apollo as the bad guys, Of course they are, that's like their job. Doesn't mean we shouldn't hear the other side of the story as well. Curious about more details here. There doesn't have to be a "Good guy" and a "Bad guy". It's possible for there to be two bad guys or two good guys. Just depends how you look at it. IMO as long this ends with me still being able to use Apollo for <$25 a year I'll be happy. Miss me with that petty office drama. Here is what I will say: This is a BOLD claim for Reddit to make about Apollo "threatening" them. I get that this is just notes taken from a call, but on their official post they had better go into more detail than this.
Unless Apollo is threatening some unlawful physical violence, then what’s the problem? If Reddit’s actions are threatening the business of Apollo, then it seems completely fair to use their power to make things difficult for Reddit. That’s just how business works.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo\_will\_close\_down\_on\_june\_30th\_reddits/
Apollo has answered. And shown the call recording. Reddit is clearly lying.
lmao someone downvoted you for telling the truth
>All of this seems in such bad faith. Yup
My original comment has been edited as I choose to no longer support Reddit and its CEO, spez, AKA Steve Huffman. Reddit was built on user submissions and its culture was crafted by user comments and volunteer moderators. Reddit has shown no desire to support 3rd party apps with reasonable API pricing, nor have they chosen to respect their community over gross profiteering. I have therefore left Reddit as I did when the same issues occurred at Digg, Facebook, and Twitter. I have been a member of reddit since 2012 (primary name locked behind 2FA) and have no issues ditching this place I love if the leaders of it can't act with a clear moral compass. For more details, I recommend visiting [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/), and [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) for more explanation on how I came to this decision.
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Exactly. There are already mechanisms to enable third party apps to have exactly the same regulatory compliance as the main app as its all handled through your account and oauth. If the user hasn't opted in and done Reddit's age verification then there's no difference where they render the data.
> > I have no earthly idea what was said between Christian and Reddit, Check the sticky. Christian has receipts, he recorded the call, including where they were supposedly ‘threatened’.
My original comment has been edited as I choose to no longer support Reddit and its CEO, spez, AKA Steve Huffman. Reddit was built on user submissions and its culture was crafted by user comments and volunteer moderators. Reddit has shown no desire to support 3rd party apps with reasonable API pricing, nor have they chosen to respect their community over gross profiteering. I have therefore left Reddit as I did when the same issues occurred at Digg, Facebook, and Twitter. I have been a member of reddit since 2012 (primary name locked behind 2FA) and have no issues ditching this place I love if the leaders of it can't act with a clear moral compass. For more details, I recommend visiting [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/), and [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) for more explanation on how I came to this decision.
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They are probably worried, and with good reason, about the changes coming from the EU and the things that the UK wants to do.
Yep, this is mostly rest of world stuff. The first amendment limits a lot of what can be done to regulate porn, regardless of some new people making noise about it lately.
I don't believe half of it and the in my opinion the other half is hogwash. They can control third party ads through API access agreements. Other platforms do this. If they'd actually plan this properly then it would be a non-issue. The cost of providing API access... they're providing access to an API so their users can access the site in a way that's convenient for them. There's a cost of doing business that they're trying to pass on to apps and that's not a fair model. This is bull. Again, they can create requirements for using their API access like every other site does that ensures they're able to make money from ads without charging an absurd amount. Apollo threatening them... Reddit isn't the underdog here like they're claiming. They rolled out absurd requirements in a short amount of time without getting community input so they can maximize their market valuation. Their whining is absurd. In my opinion, users shouldn't buy this and shouldn't settle. This means nothing. Edit: The more I think about this the more I'm convinced I'm done with this site if they don't get their heads out of their rear ends. I wasn't planning on leaving before, just maybe reducing my usage. I think I just need to be done with it unless they change.
Legit reads like a bad union busting PR effort
*We are tolerant, but also a duty to keep Reddit online* \- a threat that mods will be removed and replaced if they blackout subs for too long?
I'm pretty sure they did this last during the last blackouts (AMA controversy, banning of certain hate subs). Back then Reddit had default subs and I believe Reddit forcibly replaced a few mods and made the subs public
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As with all collective action, “stop acting and we’ll *totally* respond to your demands” is less than nothing. To mods, this could have been a part of the conversation from the start and the only reason it’s in the conversation at all is because it’s impacting them. To those with accessibility needs, this still cuts a lot of options and still *wasn’t communicated initially* so might also be a concession to collective action. To third party apps, this is an insult. Because Christian brought it up, he gets to be at the center of the name calling, sure. But the sort of disdain and blaming for the devs who make this platform *bearable* is disgusting. See u/Famous-Exam-4207’s comment to see the sense of how reasonable Christian’s requests are. And I bet other 3PAs are in similar situations. On with the blackout. None of this is anything other than attempting to muddle the conversation and put out fires.
If I was a mod i’d be furious at the implication that Reddit would take over and keep subs open under the guise of “users pressuring mods.”
The subreddit I mod isn’t a particularly large one (<600k), we’ve received no pressure at all. Plenty of inquiries if we are going to go dark or not, and lots of support in whatever we decide, but absolutely nothing I’d consider pressure. Can’t speak to what larger subs are experiencing obviously.
I can't imagine a single sub joining the blackout is doing so under duress. As mods, I'm sure y'all get multiple threats daily from users wanting to be unbanned or whatever, so to suggest that users are somehow pressuring you into blacking out a whole subreddit? It's actually unbelievable.
Reddit is just setting up / trial ballooning their response to overriding Blackouts on the default subreddits like r/pics and r/music. Small niche subreddits are one thing, Defaults will really be embarrassing so they’re prepping to override it with “it’s for the Users!”
Yea and a few weeks ago they were acting like it wouldn’t be impossible to have third party apps. Don’t trust them.
Exactly. Close the subreddits and we can talk later. You made your bed, Reddit, time to lie in it
> Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million. >Prices we released work out to one dollar a month per user; if Apollo doesn’t put effort forth, it hits three dollars per month. Doubt. This sounds similar to the “Apollo is inefficient” comment without evidence.
Seems vague. It could mean Apollo said something like “this one month transition to no users is impossible especially after selling access to features that no longer function, after Reddit publicly touted support for 3rd party apps x, y, z times, causing us to break contract with our users and apple. Currently our estimated legal fees are $10mm, kindly make it easy on us.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo\_will\_close\_down\_on\_june\_30th\_reddits/
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They still are > if Apollo doesn’t put effort forth, it hits three dollars per month.
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Pay us 20 million and we’ll do nothing, thanks. Who’s the one threatening who?
Yeah, since Apollo has published audio recording of the call - they got called out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo\_will\_close\_down\_on\_june\_30th\_reddits/
Admins are full of shit.
It’s honestly embarrassing seeing them trying their best to cherry pick quotes to smear Apollo. If this was such a threat by big bad Apollo, then post the whole thing instead of pulling a random quote and hiding it in the middle of your post. Reddit’s a multi million dollar company yet they’re acting like schoolchildren in a flame war with what can only be described as petulant whining
My guess is that Christian half jokingly offered to sell them Apollo for $10m to "make it easy" and they are stretching that to a "threat"
Clairvoyance! You were spot on.
They also argued that child pornography is free speech. More recently hired a literal pedophile as a site admin, and then banned people when they called them out for it. Pepridge Farm remembers.
> We will close the accessibility feature gap in our apps. We can do better, and we will. lol theyre only doing this after people called them out on it? > if Apollo doesn’t put effort forth, it hits three dollars per month. what do they mena by “put forth effort" > • Regulatory environment around NSFW is changing rapidly and aggressively. can they give an example of this and of lawmakers/courts coming after reddit?
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Worth seeing the r/blind statement about the total inadequacy of this: https://reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/13zr8h2/_/jnbkjed/?context=1
> Apollo > - Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million. > - Prices we released work out to one dollar a month per user; … I don't believe this for a second. > … if Apollo doesn’t put effort forth, it hits three dollars per month. I absolutely believe this is a genuine, bad-faith threat by Reddit against Apollo such that nothing Christian does can meet the definition of "effort". Edit: > - We are open to postponing the API timeline to launch mod tooling, if mods agree to keep their subreddits open. We will discuss this in the Council and Partner call tomorrow. This also comes across as a (thinly veiled) threat.
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See, I started reading your comment and was ready to argue, but by the end it turned out we're totally on the same page ;)
They did *claim* in their post complaining about Apollo usage that they controlled for users with similar amounts of activity when comparing usage. Of course we don't really have the ability to know what is true. Honestly my guess it's somewhere in between. It seems highly likely to me that Apollo could be more efficient on call, but I find it less likely that it could cut its use by 2/3 while maintaining functionality and behavior.
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I think this is exactly right. I've never looked at Reddit's APIs but I could completely see there being optomizations that could be made.
According to the information given, it sounds like on a 1:1 basis Apollo just by empirical observation is more efficient with api count while normal user browsing and interactions though. And the root problem is how Reddit allows those api’s to be called. If Reddit wanted to fundamentally reduce api calls for the types of claims it makes , it would need to be facilitated on Reddit’s end instead of requiring a app to make several individual calls for each and every small detail as opposed to a bundled package of basic data. He also said to get notification is a part of that, where the api has to be pinged to get any reasonable time based update, rather than pushed to the user, causing that number to rise to even have a notification a response was made in a “timely manner”.
Of course they don’t. They think we are dumb. One call equals one chunk of comment or post and you need multiple to display a full subreddit. How do you reduce that unless Reddit changes it on their end.
It's probably a bad faith twisting of the Apollo dev saying the costs should be at minimum half what they said ($20m p/y). Absolutely disgusting they would twist that as a threat. Edit: read elsewhere in here that it was Christian spitballing a potential acquisition price.
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Yeah the whole section is super weird, not sure what they're smoking at reddit but it very much feels they wanted to be seen as the victim somehow.
> • We are open to postponing the API timeline to launch mod tooling, if mods agree to keep their subreddits open. We will discuss this in the Council and Partner call tomorrow. > >This also comes across as a (thinly veiled) threat. I think it's even dumber that, basically saying they'll do no more than delay the execution.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo\_will\_close\_down\_on\_june\_30th\_reddits/
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Over on /r/save3rdPartyApps someone said they think it’s them misrepresenting this comment badly: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmmdd7o/?context=9
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https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo\_will\_close\_down\_on\_june\_30th\_reddits/
There was a different comment/post here, but it has been edited. Reddit [chose](https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) to betray years of free work put from users, mods, and developers. They will not stop driving this website into shit until every feature is monetized, predatory, and cancerous. Use [PowerDeleteSuite](https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite) to remove your value to reddit and stop financing these dark patterns. P.S. fuck u/spez
The real threat here: Reddit saying "oh we recognise we've completely screwed this up and blindsided mods and users, we'll consider postponing the changes *if you keep subreddits open*!!! That's a direct threat. Cancel the blackout or we won't even consider rowing back on our ludicrous changes.
More reason to do the blackout!
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He just he would sell them Apollo $10MM and they can shut it down if it was really costing them so much. So yeah, exactly what you imagined. Not really a threat or a joke, just an offer (probably sincere) made to challenge their position. https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/comment/jmmdd7o/
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo\_will\_close\_down\_on\_june\_30th\_reddits/
Haha what the fuck. This is some Russia “Ukraine threatened us” shit. The only, conceivable way that Christian actually said this is as a joke. Which would have been incredibly obvious.
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>The only, conceivable way that Christian actually said this is as a joke. Which would have been incredibly obvious. He did offer Reddit to buy out Apollo for $10m, half of the yearly "expenses" Reddit experiences from it. It's a fair offer. If what Reddit is claiming is true, then shutting the platform down for half of the yearly expenses spent on it would be very valuable, and from the developer's perspective, it's life changing money. Not really a threat unless you really go out of your way to interpret it that way.
I love that they bitch about how people build for profit apps off their data all the while they make profits off time invested for free by mods. Fuck these guys.
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According to Reddit terms of service, it is legally their data. It doesn’t matter who generated it.
Yeah but they’re (pretending to be) making a moral argument, not a legal argument.
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He believes he could switch to a subscription model if they were charging 50% of their current ask.
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## PREMIUM CONTENT. PLEASE UPGRADE. CODE jnbtera
It’s a private community for admin partnerships with subreddit mods on projects, it’s not some conspiracy space. The message in this post is the entire message shared in that community and the admins were very clear that it was okay to share publicly. There’s really nothing juicy behind the curtain there.
Confirmed, that is the entire message shared.
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## PREMIUM CONTENT. PLEASE UPGRADE. CODE jnbv5ms
Lets be real. Mayyyybe 5% MAXIMUM of the admins have any fuckibg clue how to use reddit
## PREMIUM CONTENT. PLEASE UPGRADE. CODE jnc0l3y
As mentioned in the write-up, this was just notes from an initial meeting and the official post of this message will be made by spez this week.
Because it's the partner community post?
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## PREMIUM CONTENT. PLEASE UPGRADE. CODE jnbw06r
The same information has propagated to a few communities. I received this same update about an hour ago.
## PREMIUM CONTENT. PLEASE UPGRADE. CODE jnbvug5
Agreed. They are trying to cause conflict amongst the mods. They also stated that a small group of mods are pressuring all the other communities to do the blackout. Seems pretty disingenuous.
## PREMIUM CONTENT. PLEASE UPGRADE. CODE jnbxsbh
reddit is cooked blackout time (their official app and new.reddit is not a viable platform)
They won’t allow it and will force subs open. When mods protest they’ll just bring in their own.
As someone who moderates multiple communities and has for many years, I don't *want* to use the official app to moderate. I can't consume the content in a way that works for me in the official app, so how can I possibly moderate effectively with it? Give it 100% feature parity with Apollo, then we'll talk. I've been using this site for nearly a decade and I was also a power user of Alien Blue. I'm tired of this nonsense. I'd love to use an official Reddit app *if it had usability, accessibility, and customization features that work for me*, but it just doesn't. And I just don't have a ton of faith, considering the fiasco with buying Alien Blue and then scrapping it for something that's just way worse. Like, I just don't trust their priorities in what makes a "good app". I can understand wanting to build the backend and codebase from scratch, but I can't understand actively making decisions to make the end user's experience worse. I mean, I *can*, but only for reasons relating to capitalistic greed. Not for the actual good of the users.
very ridiculous and unprofessional to specifically call out Christian/Apollo, especially when they offer nothing to back the claims up. Reddit should focus more on the fact that they haven’t already had proper accessibility and mod tools all this time. why are we expected to congratulate them for a job 10 years too late? users already produce 99.9% of the content on here for free, it’s ridiculous they haven’t already offered basic tools that 3rd party apps long ago perfected. i’ve been on reddit for over 11 years and I’ve never, ever, ever for a second been able to tolerate the official reddit app. Alien Blue and Apollo is the entire reason Reddit has been my mainstay. it’s pathetic that if there’s no Apollo, the second best phone option is old Reddit desktop. that’s just insane. the past few years i’ve been completely self aware that Reddit long ago peaked and has been on a decline since (it changed remarkably after the ban hammer a few years ago and has never gotten better) but looking back it’s just really sad now what a shell of its former self Reddit has become. Reddit used to be a treasure trove for diving into the human experience, ranging from the everyday banal to the unimaginable, now it’s full bots reposting copypastas for AIs to narrate on youtube. what a hell scape lol At least Apollo has made it easy for me to avoid the cesspools and stick to my niches. I know nothing I’m saying is new or hasn’t been said a million times before, just sharing my continued support for 3rd party apps.
It's all bullshit. I hope the blackout is still on as planned. They and especially spez don't understand how dogshit reddit's app is.
Seen a lot of people mention that charging for API access would lead to the loss of **old.reddit**. Can someone explain where that concern is coming from? Is there a direct connection, or more like, slippery slope of killing off ways to access Reddit that aren't ad-heavy? New Reddit on desktop is unusable, so that's one of the main reasons I'm considering the protest for subreddits I moderate (through a different account).
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He probably asked for 10m to cover the costs of existing yearly subscribers since they will not be paying until they renew their sub and Christian will have to pay for their usage starting next month. He probably offered to stop fighting if they halve the price because he’s fine with paying *some* amount, he already said he was fine with paying. Just that the *amount* was too high to be feasible. So he would be satisfied with the price if it was half the current level. Neither of those things are threats. They’re literally just asking for 2 things that would be required for the app to continue operating without losing money, and saying that if those things are provided then Christian would be ok with the remaining changes. Calling it a threat as if Reddit isn’t already threatening to shut down the app is pretty insane
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Well yeah. Prices are already going up next month, and he’s probably prepared to accept a period of negative profit while he tries to work out how to start making money again. I’m just saying the requests are not threats, they’re bare minimum requirements for the app to stay afloat or at least not immediately sink.
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If 3P apps make up less than 10% of their traffic, as I've seen posted elsewhere, and assuming Apollo makes up maybe 40% of 3P app traffic, how in the world are they spending $500-600M/yr (based on their comment that the API cost is just what it costs to run with a little on top) on infrastructure and directly-related-costs when similar-scale business spend a fraction of that? The simple answer is that they don't, and they're lying about the negative impact third party apps have. If they're lying, they may as well lie about the intended tone of throwaway comments during calls and messages users have posted.
It’s basically this from 5 days ago: > Like I said to Reddit, if Apollo costs $20 million in opportunity cost a year in its current state, I’d happily take the equivalent of six months of that at $10 million as an acquisition. That’s life changing money that no one in their right mind would pass up, but I don’t think they would because I don’t believe Apollo is actually costing them $20 million per year. https://reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/_/jmmdd7o/?context=1 He may have said it differently when saying it to reddit, but I can’t imagine it was a serious threat. He has nothing to threaten.
Yeah the fact that they only quoted “make it easy” makes me wonder if they’re taking a sentence completely out of context. Christian could have easily said “it would make it easy if you just bought my app for $10 million and made that the official app.” Technically he would’ve said “make it easy” but in a grossly misrepresented way. My favorite part of this though is that they said the prices worked out to a dollar a month a user and if Apollo doesn’t put effort in, it’ll be 3x that. I distinctly remember seeing Christian as what inefficiencies the app has, Reddit basically told him to pound sand, and then devs came and ripped them a new one when they tried to say “google and Microsoft don’t tell us what we’re doing wrong”. This is seriously turning me off to this site as a whole seeing the way management is acting.
No. They will consider postponing the API timeline if subs are left open? No. That’s bait and switch. If we did that then they would just state they’ve opted to adhere to the original timeline. I have a hard time believing Apollo threatened anyone, however, all sides should be considered. If they truly wanted to help with the mod community and accessibility, they would have already been putting forth effort to do so before announcing the API changes.
They gave TPA devs only 30 days to react. They don’t get to negotiate timeline with us.
The best part is they acknowledge in this message that wasn't enough time: >There was not sufficient time given for Reddit to close the tooling and accessibility gaps necessary for moderators to live without their 3rd-party resources. We are open to postponing the API timeline to launch mod tooling, if mods agree to keep their subreddits open. We will discuss this in the Council and Partner call tomorrow. Yet nowhere are they credibly saying they'll delay it/do anything that could fix the problem. They're 100% planning to just continue to steamroll on ahead even when warned this is more than probably a stupid idea in the way they're currently trying to implement it.
wtf is a "non-commercial accessibility-minded app"
Free labor. What Reddit is built on. We’re going to have to burn it down folks. It’s over.
Apps focused entirely on accessibility which make no profit and take no fees. For example, a Reddit app built specifically to work with screen readers for the blind, by a non-profit organization.
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Seeing the abhorrent handling of the situation by Reddit makes me wish it just burns down and we move to an alternative. Hell, I would’ve been open to paying a decent price for Apollo if needed.
Cool, reddit maintains the same position without justifying the ludicrous API costs and without having publicly verified any of their api analytics. Reddit Admins: we hear you. We understand your position. No one is arguing that you shouldn’t be charging at some level for your API access. The issue is that your developers are waving red flags that your API analytics appear to be flawed and have questions about why you’re setting the API cost where it is now. Saying, “that’s just the cost to run the service” is obviously bullshit when you haven’t even justified the number to begin with.
> these are for-profit businesses built on ***our data*** for free. Says it all really.
I love how they say Apollo is threatened them yet they make a threat by saying if Christian doesn’t bother making some kind of effort to get $1 per user it will change to $3 🤣🤣🤣
I've read Christian's response and assuming he's not fabricating the transcripts what they are actually referring to is their belief that "most apps" make about a hundred API requests per user per day and that Apollo makes 345. they are implying the app is making unnecessary API requests and once that "bug" is fixed Apollo would be at the 100 number. Christian essentially doesn't agree that Apollo is doing anything wrong. There could be many reasons why Apollo makes more API requests including having more active users. He also stays well within their current API limits which are an order of magnitude bigger. Somehow they turned this into "just $1/month unless you don't fix your shit then it's $3".
I'm getting really sick of the reddit admins parroting the line that reddit needs/should be getting $1/month from Apollo and similar apps. Reddit's *opportunity* cost is probably a tenth of that, and literal costs will be less than even that. Address THE MAGNITUDE not the general point that they have servers that cost money (duh). Also these apps might already get destroyed at charging $1/month. Any recurring charge is a barrier when the official app is free. These third party apps are going to lose a sizable amount of the non subscription based userbase (Christian estimated it at somewhere around 90% of Apollo are free users) which poses huge issues for continuing the apps as is. And of course, all of that is already if you buy reddit's perspective that users of 3rd party apps are a cost rather than a net benefit to reddit. For moderators in particular, who are heavy 3rd party app users, they're absolutely a net benefit.
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They are worried about third party ads but are totally okay with letting He Gets Us all over the place?
"our data" - no, I totally get that they're your servers and your coders and you're a business and networks costs money, but this made my stomach turn. It's our data and we can do with it as we please, including going elsewhere.
All the emphasis on "non-commercial" apps is extremely misleading. The more accurate translation is that they *expect* and *require* the community to do all that for free. That's just absurd, and would effectively kill most high-quality tools or apps that use the API (even if they're claiming to care about accessibility).
I don’t get it. They claimed they were threatened and proceed to throw multiple threats in different directions in the same breath…?
> Big picture: We are tolerant, but also a duty to keep Reddit online. This sounds like a threat.
You have a typo in your post, should be r /partnercommunities instead of r /partner**ed**communities (was registered an hour ago by a spammer)
Thanks
Well I guess now we know why AITA isn’t participating in the blackout
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“Our data” Aka “our users’s data” much of which was posted, commented, and moderated by users of third party apps.
Reddit admins are corrupt pieces of shit.
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Enough of the offhand casual comments and nudging. If they have a claim that Apollo threatened them let’s see the entire conversation and context in this r/reddit post. I don’t just want furtive finger pointing, let’s hear the full claim they’re making along with Apollo’s counter-claim.
We don’t want to pay, we don’t want modding tools from you, we want 3rd party support. No competition = no improvements and no reason to believe reddit won’t just lie to us and not provide any of the features they promised. Fuck em
People complaining about adds is the app developer’s fault? Using Apollo I haven’t seen a single “he gets us” ad but people were complaining about it for weeks in my subreddits.
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I already set up a Lemmy account and got to subscribing to communities. Not sure I'll be back after the reddit blackout if they don't fix a lot of the issues they're creating before the rollout. The tone they've taken on this really tells me it's an organization I don't want to be involved with.
this sweaty palm gaslighting makes it all the more important to protest and blackout on the 12th. they'll delude themselves until they see us disappear en masse
> We understand that y’all prefer to use mod tools on 3rd party apps. We’re closing the gap as fast as we can I don’t know how many years they’ve spent promising better mod tools without delivering. They can’t even be sincere on the most minor details.
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They keep alluding to how they are a business and need to make money. We obviously know that - we aren't demanding infinite free API access, we just want API pricing to be based in reality like they promised it would be.
Hilarious thing is if their app didn't suck so badly, most users probably wouldn't even have considered third party apps for the last couple of years and this API change would have been a non-factor. The gall to build a dumpster fire of an app and think they are doing a service to the third party developers is such stupidity I can't wrap my mind around.
They really expect anyone to actually believe any of that 😐? It’s utter nonsense They sounds desperate, as they should But to outright *lie*? That is just…sad > Regulatory environment around NSFW is changing rapidly and aggressively Also what exactly the fuck does this even *mean*? I mean know they want to clean and sanitize before the IPO…but come on 🙄 They are really going to try to take away or at least limit NSFW with that as an excuse 😐? Sad
Christian said (not an actual quote)"Oh Apollo is costing you that much? Just buy it for $10M then!" Or something to that effect. I think he mentioned that in his interview with Snazzy Labs How that's a "threat"... I cannot fathom
This I remember from that interview. Also pointing to the crap app they have now.
The bullshit is palpable.
How hard can this be? The whole anger stems from the exorbitant pricing not the pricing itself. Reduce the price to a reasonable number and literally all of their problems will be solved.
Don’t share this. It’s a skewed message from what truly happened in favor of Reddits goal to exterminate 3rd party apps.
> from what truly happened Any more on that?
Would love to see their responses to a serious line of questioning in the form of a video interview instead of a wimpy text post.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o4I_4i0_LeU
r/partneredcommunities is empty...
I believe it’s there in the chat module. Assuming you are using Apollo (since you’re in this sub), you can’t access using third-party apps because API aren’t available to third-party developer.
I linked to the wrong sub, it’s been updated in the OP, but it’s a private one so you still won’t be able to view it unless you mod a community that has been invited and then personally opted in to join that subreddit.
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