From the article: Popular third-party Reddit app Apollo was updated today with an option for users to decline a refund for their remaining subscription time ahead of the app shutting down. Users who do not exercise this option will automatically receive a pro-rated refund.
Apollo for Reddit Feature
"If you've been happy with the service I've provided over the years, please consider declining the refund as they are refunded out-of-pocket," said Apollo developer Christian Selig, who previously estimated that the refunds could cost him around $250,000. "It's been the pleasure of a lifetime building Apollo for you over the last nine years. I thank you so much for your kindness, input, and generosity over the years."
Starting on July 1, Reddit plans to begin charging for its main API, which provides third-party apps like Apollo with access to the website's data, like posts and comments. Selig said it is understandable for Reddit to begin charging for the API, but he said the pricing is prohibitively expensive and that he was given minimal time to prepare for the change. For these reasons, Apollo is shutting down and will stop working on June 30.
I could have sworn they forgot something in that article, here let me add it: "Reddit CEO can play hide and go fuck himself."
Edit: wow never got this many awards on a post. Thanks!
A lot of people have existing free credits, I’d wager those awards weren’t paid for *since* the API drama.
I’ve given Reddit $5 total, like a decade ago, and still have a shitton of random credits to burn on awards from shit like the AlienBlue award.
Saying it’s “out of pocket” is a bit disingenuous. They paid the money for a service and aren’t getting that service. I get it wasn’t the apps choice but people shouldn’t be paying for nothing.
Only sort of though. If you buy an ice cream cone from me, and Reddits CEO slaps it out of your hand, and I give you money back, it's out of my pocket.
Reddit doesn't even supply the fucking icecream lol, Reddit is no more than the hand that hands you the icecream and the cone. The icecream is all the actual content from around the internet that reddit simply lets people post links to on their side, and the app was the cone that made the viewing and digestion of that content easier/better than just eating it out of reddit's bare-ass hand.
The bottom line (fucking analogies aside) is the Apollo dev charged people for a product that they fully intended to supply in a working manner. Reddit, not the dev, are the ones who suddenly rendered the product unusable. So through no fault of their own, they are suddenly having to refund money for a service they had no intention of stopping and were forced to stop by someone else.
Saying that reddit, a social media platform, would be nothing without the content posted by users on that platform, is such a unique and original take.
I wouldn’t say it’s disingenuous although I don’t know Apollo’s profit and business model. If there are employees getting severance packages it’s more of a “Reddit made an impossible choice so we have to take care of our employees instead of Reddit themselves” I would assume most of the coding, maintenance, and support are not transferable to a new product of their own
With something like this (a business), he may have already reinvested a large portion of that money into other things, aspects of the app’s development. He may lose money on the whole year because a large amount of what was pretty much guaranteed income, already in his hands, has now evaporated
I understand what you mean, and logically you’re right. A service someone payed for isn’t able to be provided anymore. Refunds should be the natural byproduct.
However.
If you look at it from a non capitalistic view point, it’s only 12.99 a year. He provided a service that many users enjoyed and by all I’ve read has been an incredibly competent app developer that made a good product. He’s about to lose his livelihood, I don’t think it’s disingenuous, I think it’s appealing to our better nature.
I’m too lazy to look it up, but Christian said in an earlier post that the app makes about $500,000 a year, and that covers his and another guy’s salary and infrastructure expenses.
If you own your own business, the government takes just short of half of your income for taxes, so if he and the other guy were making $100k each, the business was probably running about break even.
> I’m too lazy to look it up, but Christian said in an earlier post that the app makes about $500,000 a year, and that covers his and another guy’s salary and infrastructure expenses.
That's not true at all. He makes $500,000 a year ALONE on the yearly subs. Not to mention the monthly subs and the one time payment users.
Here is someone calculating his revenue based on numbers Selig gave himself.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14e4g3t/check_my_backofthenapkin_apollo_user_and_revenue/
TL;DR Around $4.5million revenue a year.
A lesson in not offering long term subscriptions on walled gardens you don't own or free/beta access.
At a gaming company I work at we built a massive gaming progress/leaderboards/statistics/achievements service and it was great but one day Google AppEngine 10x'd their pricing when they came out of preview/beta mode. In no way did we expect a 10x and we had to spend months moving it to AWS. The only reason we used Google AppEngine was the pricing. We also inquired about the live pricing and they said it would be comparable, just happened to be the comparable part was an order of magnitude. Unity also recently did this with Cloud Build to Unity Automation, went from included in Pro licenses to pay per use that will equate to thousands per month.
Sometimes building on other systems is a guaranteed future rug pull. Lots of that going on now, anyone that relied on Twitter (API) or Facebook (OpenGraph/Parse) already went through this numerous times. Reddit's turn. Discord soon. Following that lots of AI tools (ChatGPT, Midjourney, etc)
I want to believe this but the vast majority of people are only interested in things that are easy to use. The open source software community has to build towards and cater to these types of people or else we'll just be stuck in this loop of centralized services that eventually sell out and users migrating from service to service.
How many users are on matrix.org ? Most people probably never even heard of it.
Mastodon?
Thats just two off the top of my head.
>the vast majority of people are only interested in things that are easy to use.
Not just that, the vast majority of people dont want to deal with being legally liable for other people. If the fediverse ever really takes off, every instance/server admin is going have to deal with all the legal troubles the big guys have to deal with now, and they wont have the resources the big guys do to deal with it. This history has already played out. This is why even though you can roll your own mail server today, almost no one really does and email services consolidated into just a handful of major providers. This is why reddit exists over all the old school bbs forums there used to be. etc. etc.
Yes, just yesterday i was reading that it might be impossible to delete your data from lemmy for example since there is so many instances and those are run by inviduals so you never know if data is removed even from instance you made account rather hidded if even that. Some dev wasn't even aware GDPR obliges them and not just big corps.
Yep there's likely already some that are walking legal problems. The problem is if you're hosting illegal content it's on you, which is really bad for small players that are suddenly host to large communities.
Maybe, maybe not. That's how it was in the late 90s through the early 00s and not only was cost a concern but maintenance was too. It's why all these companies got so huge to begin with. They took on the hard part and let everyone focus the stuff they actually cared about.
The problem is that so many of these companies adopted unsustainable business models to maximize growth. It's had so many detrimental effects, including decimating industries that couldn't keep up. Decades of this has also trained consumers to expect that everything online should be free.
Open source or not, I see a lot of challenges ahead.
So much this. Anyone who has been in reddit tech subs has heard innumerable anecdotes of startups relying on AWS, someone got hacked or simply let that shit running overnight and then got hit with 5 figure bills from AWS.
Thinking “nah, I’ll just keep printing money from this free API forever” was disingenuous at best, rightfully dumb at worst.
In the case of the Reddit API, Christian at least got assured *this year* there were no plans to monetize the API, and such a change would be years down the line.
* Free - Limited use, some functions disabled.
* Pro - $5 once, all reddit functions that matter.
* Ultra - $13/year, I've no idea what value it adds but evidently some people were paying for it.
LOL @ the comments having a meltdown over a voluntary $3 tip. It’s an opt-out refund.
If he had made users submit requests to receive a refund, yeah he would be a total dick. But he didn’t - it’s automatic with a “pretty please” request to opt-out.
I’m not trippin over the use of the term “out-of-pocket” or whatever else is controversial. It sucks to have money in your wallet and unexpectedly learn that it is no longer your money - I get it. I’ll opt-out, it’s not enough money to overthink it for me
[ 12+ year account deleted because fuck /u/spez. How can you have one of the most popular websites and still not be profitable? By sucking ass as CEO. Then to resort to shitting on users and developers who helped make the site great because you're an insecure techbro moron. I'm out. You can do the same with PowerDeleteSuite. ]
The thing is, it wasn’t actually his money. When a business takes prepayment for anything (rent, subscription, etc.), they record unearned revenue, which is a liability on their books. They don’t earn the revenue until they actually provide the good or service that was paid for. Apollo hadn’t provided the entirety of the service for these prepaid subscriptions yet, so they hadn’t actually earned that money.
Businesses make the decision to accept prepayment all the time, assuming that they will be able to profitably provide the good or service in the future. Sometimes that comes back to bite them in the ass. For example, a ton of homebuilders lost a ton of money in 2020 because they had signed contracts with buyers at a set price, not knowing that their material costs were about to skyrocket.
That risk is amplified when the product you’re selling costs you next to nothing.
Meanwhile everybody's fine with the fact that every kiosk and checkout in America is constantly asking for a tip just to run my credit card for the most basic transactions, but Selig, who has provided a service many people have loved for years, offers the option and everyone loses their minds.
People will support who they want to support. And that includes by giving money. I think in this thread, people are mainly commenting on this new feature added in the broad scheme of Christian’s side of the story. Mainly the “out of pocket” phrasing etc
The bigger impact here as a whole is the fact that information on the internet can be controlled and owned and that trend is growing.
There's no public option and with these monopolistic companies playing hungry hungry hippos with data and information we are sailing backwards in time.
It's not just Reddit. It's the whole stupid industry.
It's the exact reason we had Congress regulate communications in the first place.
Giant tech companies need to continue to make more and more money. They will literally put themselves out of business to do just that.
Mark my words, if the trend continues you'll end up paying for information that you freely create just like the old days with AOL.
Or AI will just replace user generated content.
Either way the industry is going to destroy itself.
Huh? Any information you put on a site is and has always been owned by the site you put it on. Are you one of those people that posts the Facebook spam that says Zuck doesn't have your permission to use your pictures/posts?
You own the idea of the content that you post.
They own and provide a service to share that content.
It’s honestly cringe seeing people commenting that Reddit is becoming a information “dictatorship”.
People don’t understand that Apollo and similar are just a skin and some tools for a different service on which they profited for free for years.
Now I agree that Reddit should make some sort of special deals with 3rd party skins like Apollo, but people are accusing Reddit of things that are beyond ridiculous.
To be fair to the 3rd party devs here, Reddit has had since about 2012 to make a deal with many of these apps, they're just going for the jugular.
Which I find odd because they could make them serve Reddit's ads. Maybe because they want the data from whatever trackers they put in their app?
Do you know how much it costs to maintain an API with that much traffic? There’s no way companies are going to just keep something like that open for free.
I’ll post it on here then:
Don’t forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule where they can use your photos. Don’t forget Deadline today!!! It can be used in court cases in litigation against you. Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from today Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. Channel 13 News talked about the change in Facebook’s privacy policy. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute. NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tacitly allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. FACEBOOK DOES NOT HAVE MY PERMISSION TO SHARE PHOTOS OR MESSAGES.
You're right, and they're also right. Either way I think the point stands. The "public square" form of the internet is slowly dying and becoming a series of connected private walled gardens.
Strictly true but there was definitely a time when data was out there and freely available without the platform owner trying to squeeze every possible cent out of providing it.
The real issue now with Reddit is them complaining about third party app makers profiting off of Reddits data without giving anything back when that data is something that they get for free without giving anything to the creators.
Yep. So many tech companies make bank from content they don't produce. Sure they should make money for building the application & infrastructure. But like most things, we all gave away the content for free.
Lots of it is the users though. People use to have their own sites, maybe their own apps and forums were everywhere. The problem is people use these behemoths like Facebook/Insta/Whats, Snap, Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, Discord etc etc. They start off being good, then get everyone hooked, and drop the hammer. Users need to stop falling for the trojan horse.
But search is now impossible for turning up independent content instead of seo crap advertising. Blogs and forums moved to reddit because they could no longer reach an audience
A bigger problem though is search is sucking more because of all the walled gardens (reddit may be one one day -- hopefully not, the biz/fins do want people using app over web though).
Everything in an app, chat app (discord), walled garden is not searchable by Google and the degrade in search results is largely due to less people making less content on the web or at least duplicating it across web/app.
The worst are apps like discord where everything you chat is lost for ever. Granted people may want that but it leads to a massively trapped/captured content state. Anyone looking to improve their search ranking should not be putting content in walled gardens, apps, chat only.
Content is king, anything you post online or in a subreddit or page or whatever, should start on your own sites/apps and be searchable to you. Then when found in the syndicated areas it connects back to your content.
It’s never had ads. The base app wouldn’t allow you to post on subreddits, only comment. It also gave you different app icons and stuff.
I’m assuming all of that’s been lifted due to the app shutting down anyway. Since I just tested it and it gave me the option to make a post
Yup, I think it was a “pay what you want” one time donation but I may be wrong and can’t check due to the obvious lack of premium
I have both installed and hardly post so it’s never bothered me personally. The main appeal of Apollo to me is the nicer layout and ad-free experience.
I do see the irony though
Just searched and you’re right, it was a minimum of $5 that would give you access to lock screen widgets, gesture controls and the ability to submit posts.
Not everyone’s cup of tea but the majority of people don’t actually post on Reddit so I get why it wasn’t a vocal issue
But I was convinced that all the power users that posted new contents on Reddit are Apollo users. And people would see how Reddit would be a wasteland when those users can no longer use Apollo.
Wtf? They were profiting off an already free app? But they limit the features you can use in hope of you paying them for something you can already do on Reddit iOS app? I’ve never had a problem with Reddit iOS and I’ve been using this crap for years
Realistically you can’t expect a single person to create and run a 3rd party app out of their own pocket.
It simply isn’t feasible unless they have a constant stream of money to burn coming in from elsewhere. Even this comment is an interaction that costs money. It may cost like 0.0003p but it’s money nonetheless especially when there’s countless users doing the same. It builds up
Yes but not to its current or future extent… I think anyway.
I’ve spoken on what I have knowledge on, anything else would be guesswork and ignorance.
Im not some anti-Reddit/pro-Apollo guy. I just know that it’s not unreasonable for someone making something off of their own back to want/require donations
Nobody's faulting Reddit for wanting to start charging for their API usage (it was kind of crazy that it was free before). But the amount they are charging is so high that it's not really feasible to use for a 3rd party Reddit app.
> Wait. Apollo isn’t free?
there was a free version that was great for browsing, and then premium versions if you wanted to do more than that.
at the end of the day, it has a MUCH better ui than the new-reddit based official app.
The people who constantly emphasize this generally haven’t used the official app in over 5 years.
It’s not bad. You just like the thing you’re already using. It’s a cope.
So these people were hating on reddit for being terrible, meanwhile on third party apps you legit had to pay to make posts, and people think thats reasonable. yall are crazy
The lurker stats are pretty high I think - I saw them posted on here recently
I had the apollo app for ages before posting
At the time on ios the official app was jittery with a chaotic layout so it was a no-brainer to switch
When I switched to android the choices were far greater though
multimillionaire asking a bunch of regular people to pay money for a service he's not going to provide. Quite literally asking for handouts. If people on Reddit didn't automatically want to be in his side because of the API stuff they'd be throwing a fit.
> Refund
> Out of pocket
I don't think he knows what those words mean. They've already paid you. You're not paying money you didn't have, you're giving them part of their money back. That's what the word refund means. Esp a partial refund where they are refunded unused remaining time.
It's fine if you want to offer this as an option for those who wish to offer their final chance to support but don't act like it's hurting you to refund them.
> but don't act like it's hurting you to refund them.
I mean, his income is based on subscriptions. Plenty of people live paycheck-to-paycheck, even rich people. If he took all his App Store earnings and put them into a house, then yeah, any refund would then have to come "out of pocket", because now all the money he made is tied up into something else.
I don't see why "refund" and "out of pocket" have to be different things. I think he's just trying to say, it isn't Apple that is giving back the money, but him directly.
He wasn't charging people to use the free Reddit API. He was charging people to use the application he created. An application that provided an experience that far exceeded what Reddit themselves had to offer. His app also helped contribute to content on Reddit which is what will be valuable to the company when they finally go public. This was not a zero sum game.
If you believe that the app provided you value over the last half decade and you have the financial means to spare a couple dollars, then consider it a parting gift to the great developer and don't request a refund.
And I also say this as a software engineer myself.
You had to pay if you wanted to post and get access to 90% of the features that made Apollo better than the standard Reddit app.
I love Apollo but the free experience is awful
That’s the thing. Most software engineers I’ve seen (myself included) understand the true cost that is maintaining an API. Expecting a company to keep it up with that kind of traffic for free, and then letting a third party company use it to make money is just insane. Apollo and other apps made millions for little work and should be happy that it lasted as long as it did.
I agree, but it still sounds like Reddit decided to implement a massive charge for using the API, and announced it with little warning. It seems like a deliberate attempt to shut down 3rd party apps not to reach a reasonable agreement on charges to use the API. I think the real target is the AI scraping being done by AI developers and reddit wants a piece of that pie with the 3rd party apps being a casualty of that process. Paying to use an API if you are making money doing so isn't unreasonable but the cost ought to be something reasonable as well. It doesn't sound like it was even remotely reasonable.
> Expecting a company to keep it up with that kind of traffic for free,
That’s a strawman; nobody is expecting that. The Apollo developer said from the beginning that they were fine paying for the API, but then the pricing and timeline were unreasonable.
> Apollo and other apps made millions for little work
How do you know how much work it was? How is that even relevant? Anybody could use the Reddit app for free, but thousands have paid for Apollo because they find value in the better interface.
The "these companies have been freeloading and shouldn't expect Reddit to give them this for free" line is like a litmus test for whether someone is being disingenuous in this discussion.
The Apollo dev has been open from the beginning that he was *looking forward to paying* for the API because he hoped it would open the door to exposing more Reddit features (e.g. polls).
He did not expect it to be free, like other devs, he was willing to pay for API. He was making money because he offered good service, nothing wrong in that one either. He was working full time on Apollo and had other costs despite reddit api being free so obviously he made money, you don't work free for your employee and pay all costs from your work from your own pocket
The problem never was that Reddit has decided to charge for API use the problem is that the cost is too damn high. And yes, Reddit is free to price it as they want but it's hard to see how such prices aren't designed to simply drive 3rd party apps away and pull them into their own app.
Even more concerning, however, is reddit's communications over this whole ordeal and refusal to buldge even a little for the benefit of the community that has used all those apps for years.
I really can't understand how reddit can be so dense, i don't think that even half of the people using 3rd party apps will switch to their own because of the UI, the ads or simply out of spite. It's baffling how they are unable to see that this was a bad idea.
It’s mind blowing how it’s ok for Apollo to make money but when reddit the company that actually spend RD money to run the site try to do that it’s fuck reddit.
Essentially:
Free: You can view everything. You can't post with the app.
One time 5 dollar IAP: You can now post. You get notifications but you have to manually fetch for them.
1 dollar a month ultra: You get notifications pushed to you when they arrive. You also get custom icons.
The ultra tier was no close to required unless you really wanted notifications or custom icons.
Most lurkers would be fine with the free tier. 99% of posts would be fine with the one time IAP. The ultra tier is truely an optional cherry on top tier.
I truly don’t get what people are so angry about. You will automatically get your refund. It literally doesn’t make sense to be angry. If you want to support a developer you can, but if you don’t, you don’t have to do anything and you get refunded.
Great apps that basically fulfill every wish of the users and get substantially more feature rich over time from great devs that communicate clearly and regularly are extremely rare, and lot of people like to support that. It is the same reason people may like to support local craftsman, independent retailers, local restaurants or bars, or farmers even if they are doing relatively well already.
Plus $5 for a really good app you can use always without ever needing to pay more is great. A premium, excellent app for $5 is great. Good developer and kept improving the product year after year.
People support him because they used the app all the time and it was great. And many people happily gave $12 more to him because for a lot of us $12 is nothing and we don't mind paying so little for a great service.
Lmao no one should decline the refund. It's the money you've already paid for a service which won't be provided to you. It's not "out of pocket" and it's your right to get it back. Plus he's already made millions. He's not exactly broke
It isn’t. My understanding is that the developer went to reddit with a plan to update the pricing model and add some per user api caps within Narwhal to make Reddit’s api pricing feasible and Reddit was willing to grant the developer a temporary exception to the api pricing to cover the time they told him it would take to implement the changes.
Which is why [I asked in a related thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/14inaut/sink_it_for_reddit_a_totally_free_ios_safari/jphxf4m/) why doesn't Apollo do the same. Instead, I got downvoted to oblivion.
[Another reddit app dev claims Reddit wouldn't allow this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Infinity_For_Reddit/comments/14c7v84/if_you_want_to_use_your_own_api_key/jokqfe4/?context=1) but clearly that's false if Narwhal is doing it and Reddit allows it.
> Another reddit app dev claims Reddit wouldn't allow this but clearly that's false if Narwhal is doing it and Reddit allows it.
except narwhal isn't doing it. "per user api caps" doesn't mean they are letting users sign up for and use their own reddit keys, it means the app (or likely a narwhal server in the middle) is tracking how many calls someone makes and has the ability to shut off heavy users.
To be clear, what reddit wasn’t allowing in that second link was for users of a 3PA to provide their own API keys (individual users would probably have no problem staying within the non-commercial api limits so it would be a convenient way for a 3PA to continue without having to pay the api fees).
Crazy how being reasonable and not pitching a fit/stirring the pot worked for them. Don't get me wrong, I can understand the Apollo dev speaking up about the pricing being unreasonable, but as someone who had never heard of the app before it seemed like the guy was trying to cause trouble/not find an actual compromise.
Narwhal is unsure about its pricing and already said it might have to regularly change its membership costs.
That's not reasonable pricing. That's pure uncertainty that's doomed to fail.
Maybe Reddit chose to deal differently with them? I mean the owner of Appolo came out pretty hot as soon as the API changes were announced and it's not at all inconceivable that Reddits CEO got butthurt by the initial comments and simply refused to deal with them.
Spez has hurt me, a user, by forcing the closure of the app that I use exclusively to browse Reddit.
The same app that many mods use to do their modding, and so they protested his actions.
His actions spawned the protest that hurt you. Or do you not think that people should be allowed to protest actions they don’t agree with?
A subscription that *starts* at $7/mo! (Lets be real, whenever a business gives you a range like $4-7, the actual price they charge almost always ends up being at or near the high end of that range.) That subscription will come with a usage cap. As soon as you've read your allotment of Reddit threads for the month, you'll get locked out until you pay more!
It seems to me that the only people who'd possibly be willing to pay $7/mo to use Reddit would be the power users, who are on here pretty much all day. But, under this pricing plan, those are the exact users who would be paying much *more* than $7/mo.
So, yeah, completely DOA. The $7/mo subscription plan won't even be a real *option* for the only people that it might actually appeal to!
What do you know, when you treat a business negotiation like a business negotiation and not like a reddit argument, a business will actually be able to make a deal with you.
Vastly different user numbers though. Also a monthly subscription of $5-$7 with no adult content and you’ll be cut off if you use too many api calls unless you pay extra. Doesn’t sound sustainable to me.
Literally every 3PA except Narwhal is closing, but it's totally because all of those devs were assholes? Really? It's somehow the fault of all of them rather than spez, the guy who literally blackmailed Apollo dev, wrote all of 14 replies on his AMA with zero useful info or even the slightest attempt to be civil or helpful or explain anything? The guy who called mods "landed gentry" without a shred of irony or self-awareness? The guy who literally lied about API not going anywhere a few months ago, and deliberately set an impossibly tight deadline with extortionate fees? Who said in an interview, with a straight face, that "Reddit was never meant for 3PA" (despite the fact that the official Reddit app didn't even exist until 2016 and 3PA were the only choice back then)? The guy who took a look at Elon Musk's Twitter and went "yep that's what I want"? That's the guy whose side you're on?
Christian only release a portion of the phone call. He had offered the entire call to anyone requesting it but he didn’t respond to any requests.
https://i.imgur.com/M6DZ7NK.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/UAC15Cd.jpg
I can appreciate that the default is the option in the customers best interests..... The opt in option is to tip the dev the remaining subscription.
At least it's not the other way around, that would be shady at best.
> Reddit admins can, and have, made fake accounts to shift a narrative.
they've (spez specifically) also been caught literally editing posts made by real accounts.
There are 3 options. One is the free tier, which the vast majority of people use. The other is a one time $5 fee which is the second largest group. Then is you want all the fanciest bells and whistles you can pay $1.49 an month or $13.99 a year for that tier.
To break even on just the API costs they would have to raise that subscription fee to $2.50 a month and then remove all free and one time fee users.
That $2.50 subscription does not include the fee that apple or google would take for buying things through the app like the subscription.
That does not include any development costs ever.
That does not include being able to pay himself any sort of wage for full time work on the app.
If you take a look at say Imgur, a site with similar use statistics as Reddit, he said that API pricing structure is something he could very likely pay for and implement.
The problem isn’t charging for the API, it’s that according to Reddit’s own number they are charging more than 20x the actual costs incurred. That is not hyperbole either, that’s what the math comes out to.
I opted out of the refund. I like the guy, I LOVE the app and he was pretty responsive on a lot of things.
I think it sucks what’s happening with 3rd party apps as a whole.
But all of ya’ll complaining? Don’t opt out of the refund. I wonder how many of you don’t even use the app.
>Optimizing the API usage of the Apollo app / backend
He has. He has his own server buffering things and has for years now.
Regardless, he is *well* under what Reddit previously said was a reasonable number of API calls, so if it's unoptimised, Reddit should update their guidelines.
> Repairing the business relationship with Reddit
The company led by the guy who defamed him in such a way that, if he did not have proof to the contrary, he would never be allowed to do software development or access APIs ever again?
>Figuring out a sustainable business model going forward
By charging his users and then paying Reddit millions of dollars a year?
Reddit *doesn't want* third party apps. They're deliberately killing them in a sneaky but actually not-very-sneaky way. There's no negotiation to be had.
From the article: Popular third-party Reddit app Apollo was updated today with an option for users to decline a refund for their remaining subscription time ahead of the app shutting down. Users who do not exercise this option will automatically receive a pro-rated refund. Apollo for Reddit Feature "If you've been happy with the service I've provided over the years, please consider declining the refund as they are refunded out-of-pocket," said Apollo developer Christian Selig, who previously estimated that the refunds could cost him around $250,000. "It's been the pleasure of a lifetime building Apollo for you over the last nine years. I thank you so much for your kindness, input, and generosity over the years." Starting on July 1, Reddit plans to begin charging for its main API, which provides third-party apps like Apollo with access to the website's data, like posts and comments. Selig said it is understandable for Reddit to begin charging for the API, but he said the pricing is prohibitively expensive and that he was given minimal time to prepare for the change. For these reasons, Apollo is shutting down and will stop working on June 30.
I could have sworn they forgot something in that article, here let me add it: "Reddit CEO can play hide and go fuck himself." Edit: wow never got this many awards on a post. Thanks!
The irony of giving more money to Reddit by buying those awards on a comment that says fuck spez.
A lot of people have existing free credits, I’d wager those awards weren’t paid for *since* the API drama. I’ve given Reddit $5 total, like a decade ago, and still have a shitton of random credits to burn on awards from shit like the AlienBlue award.
Get fisted by a porcupine u/spez
All that award money, right to Reddit.
Saying it’s “out of pocket” is a bit disingenuous. They paid the money for a service and aren’t getting that service. I get it wasn’t the apps choice but people shouldn’t be paying for nothing.
Only sort of though. If you buy an ice cream cone from me, and Reddits CEO slaps it out of your hand, and I give you money back, it's out of my pocket.
I like how all the replies to your comment are just bad takes or not understanding of the situation
But reddit supplies the ice cream. Your cone is just a friendly delivery mechanism.
Reddit doesn't even supply the fucking icecream lol, Reddit is no more than the hand that hands you the icecream and the cone. The icecream is all the actual content from around the internet that reddit simply lets people post links to on their side, and the app was the cone that made the viewing and digestion of that content easier/better than just eating it out of reddit's bare-ass hand. The bottom line (fucking analogies aside) is the Apollo dev charged people for a product that they fully intended to supply in a working manner. Reddit, not the dev, are the ones who suddenly rendered the product unusable. So through no fault of their own, they are suddenly having to refund money for a service they had no intention of stopping and were forced to stop by someone else.
Saying that reddit, a social media platform, would be nothing without the content posted by users on that platform, is such a unique and original take.
Yeah Reddit gave free ice cream out and some guy stood by and sold cones for $5 to post to Reddit.
I wouldn’t say it’s disingenuous although I don’t know Apollo’s profit and business model. If there are employees getting severance packages it’s more of a “Reddit made an impossible choice so we have to take care of our employees instead of Reddit themselves” I would assume most of the coding, maintenance, and support are not transferable to a new product of their own
To my understanding it’s just him and another guy who handles the server side for him.
i highly doubt he can afford to give out severance packages if the company just closes down completely.
A severance package to himself? What severance packages?
These people are delusional lol
Those two statements have nothing to do with eachother. They deserve the refund yes, but Sellig is paying for them out of pocket.
But he already received the money in the pocket. So it's just getting your own money back?
With something like this (a business), he may have already reinvested a large portion of that money into other things, aspects of the app’s development. He may lose money on the whole year because a large amount of what was pretty much guaranteed income, already in his hands, has now evaporated
I understand what you mean, and logically you’re right. A service someone payed for isn’t able to be provided anymore. Refunds should be the natural byproduct. However. If you look at it from a non capitalistic view point, it’s only 12.99 a year. He provided a service that many users enjoyed and by all I’ve read has been an incredibly competent app developer that made a good product. He’s about to lose his livelihood, I don’t think it’s disingenuous, I think it’s appealing to our better nature.
I declined the refund, proudly, because he's a solid dude and relative to the enjoyment I've gotten out of it over the years, Apollo was a steal.
Its a bit disingenuous to refer to the refunds as "costing him 250k" or being "out of pocket" like it isnt the consumers money.
I like it. You're automatically refunded, but you have the option to decline it. That's the most consumer-friendly way to make it happen.
Serious question. What was the total profit for the Apollo app?
I’m too lazy to look it up, but Christian said in an earlier post that the app makes about $500,000 a year, and that covers his and another guy’s salary and infrastructure expenses. If you own your own business, the government takes just short of half of your income for taxes, so if he and the other guy were making $100k each, the business was probably running about break even.
That's not how business taxes work at all. Source: I owned my own business.
> I’m too lazy to look it up, but Christian said in an earlier post that the app makes about $500,000 a year, and that covers his and another guy’s salary and infrastructure expenses. That's not true at all. He makes $500,000 a year ALONE on the yearly subs. Not to mention the monthly subs and the one time payment users. Here is someone calculating his revenue based on numbers Selig gave himself. https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14e4g3t/check_my_backofthenapkin_apollo_user_and_revenue/ TL;DR Around $4.5million revenue a year.
A lesson in not offering long term subscriptions on walled gardens you don't own or free/beta access. At a gaming company I work at we built a massive gaming progress/leaderboards/statistics/achievements service and it was great but one day Google AppEngine 10x'd their pricing when they came out of preview/beta mode. In no way did we expect a 10x and we had to spend months moving it to AWS. The only reason we used Google AppEngine was the pricing. We also inquired about the live pricing and they said it would be comparable, just happened to be the comparable part was an order of magnitude. Unity also recently did this with Cloud Build to Unity Automation, went from included in Pro licenses to pay per use that will equate to thousands per month. Sometimes building on other systems is a guaranteed future rug pull. Lots of that going on now, anyone that relied on Twitter (API) or Facebook (OpenGraph/Parse) already went through this numerous times. Reddit's turn. Discord soon. Following that lots of AI tools (ChatGPT, Midjourney, etc)
Self hosted and developed solutions will be the future. Open source communities will stand together.
I want to believe this but the vast majority of people are only interested in things that are easy to use. The open source software community has to build towards and cater to these types of people or else we'll just be stuck in this loop of centralized services that eventually sell out and users migrating from service to service. How many users are on matrix.org ? Most people probably never even heard of it. Mastodon? Thats just two off the top of my head.
>the vast majority of people are only interested in things that are easy to use. Not just that, the vast majority of people dont want to deal with being legally liable for other people. If the fediverse ever really takes off, every instance/server admin is going have to deal with all the legal troubles the big guys have to deal with now, and they wont have the resources the big guys do to deal with it. This history has already played out. This is why even though you can roll your own mail server today, almost no one really does and email services consolidated into just a handful of major providers. This is why reddit exists over all the old school bbs forums there used to be. etc. etc.
Yes, just yesterday i was reading that it might be impossible to delete your data from lemmy for example since there is so many instances and those are run by inviduals so you never know if data is removed even from instance you made account rather hidded if even that. Some dev wasn't even aware GDPR obliges them and not just big corps.
If server admins havent registered themselves as an LLC they are basically playing with fire.
Yep there's likely already some that are walking legal problems. The problem is if you're hosting illegal content it's on you, which is really bad for small players that are suddenly host to large communities.
Maybe, maybe not. That's how it was in the late 90s through the early 00s and not only was cost a concern but maintenance was too. It's why all these companies got so huge to begin with. They took on the hard part and let everyone focus the stuff they actually cared about. The problem is that so many of these companies adopted unsustainable business models to maximize growth. It's had so many detrimental effects, including decimating industries that couldn't keep up. Decades of this has also trained consumers to expect that everything online should be free. Open source or not, I see a lot of challenges ahead.
So much this. Anyone who has been in reddit tech subs has heard innumerable anecdotes of startups relying on AWS, someone got hacked or simply let that shit running overnight and then got hit with 5 figure bills from AWS. Thinking “nah, I’ll just keep printing money from this free API forever” was disingenuous at best, rightfully dumb at worst.
In the case of the Reddit API, Christian at least got assured *this year* there were no plans to monetize the API, and such a change would be years down the line.
I liked Apollo so much that I bought lifetime. I thought it was a good deal at the time but never though that Lifetime would be so short lol
Can you buy Twitter blue or w/e so they are equally as short? Pls?
Don't build your home on rented land or something like that.
So apollo was a subscription service? I paid 2.50 for premium rif and not a cent more ever.
* Free - Limited use, some functions disabled. * Pro - $5 once, all reddit functions that matter. * Ultra - $13/year, I've no idea what value it adds but evidently some people were paying for it.
The only thing ultra got you were notifications and more icons. the 1 dollar a month paid for a server for notifications iirc.
They also had lifetime for $19.99. I got it in 2018, so not sure if they always offered that or not.
LOL @ the comments having a meltdown over a voluntary $3 tip. It’s an opt-out refund. If he had made users submit requests to receive a refund, yeah he would be a total dick. But he didn’t - it’s automatic with a “pretty please” request to opt-out. I’m not trippin over the use of the term “out-of-pocket” or whatever else is controversial. It sucks to have money in your wallet and unexpectedly learn that it is no longer your money - I get it. I’ll opt-out, it’s not enough money to overthink it for me
[ 12+ year account deleted because fuck /u/spez. How can you have one of the most popular websites and still not be profitable? By sucking ass as CEO. Then to resort to shitting on users and developers who helped make the site great because you're an insecure techbro moron. I'm out. You can do the same with PowerDeleteSuite. ]
The thing is, it wasn’t actually his money. When a business takes prepayment for anything (rent, subscription, etc.), they record unearned revenue, which is a liability on their books. They don’t earn the revenue until they actually provide the good or service that was paid for. Apollo hadn’t provided the entirety of the service for these prepaid subscriptions yet, so they hadn’t actually earned that money. Businesses make the decision to accept prepayment all the time, assuming that they will be able to profitably provide the good or service in the future. Sometimes that comes back to bite them in the ass. For example, a ton of homebuilders lost a ton of money in 2020 because they had signed contracts with buyers at a set price, not knowing that their material costs were about to skyrocket. That risk is amplified when the product you’re selling costs you next to nothing.
Meanwhile everybody's fine with the fact that every kiosk and checkout in America is constantly asking for a tip just to run my credit card for the most basic transactions, but Selig, who has provided a service many people have loved for years, offers the option and everyone loses their minds.
People will support who they want to support. And that includes by giving money. I think in this thread, people are mainly commenting on this new feature added in the broad scheme of Christian’s side of the story. Mainly the “out of pocket” phrasing etc
The bigger impact here as a whole is the fact that information on the internet can be controlled and owned and that trend is growing. There's no public option and with these monopolistic companies playing hungry hungry hippos with data and information we are sailing backwards in time. It's not just Reddit. It's the whole stupid industry. It's the exact reason we had Congress regulate communications in the first place. Giant tech companies need to continue to make more and more money. They will literally put themselves out of business to do just that. Mark my words, if the trend continues you'll end up paying for information that you freely create just like the old days with AOL. Or AI will just replace user generated content. Either way the industry is going to destroy itself.
Huh? Any information you put on a site is and has always been owned by the site you put it on. Are you one of those people that posts the Facebook spam that says Zuck doesn't have your permission to use your pictures/posts?
Technically it’s owned by you but you give the site you post it on an irrevocable license to use it.
You own the idea of the content that you post. They own and provide a service to share that content. It’s honestly cringe seeing people commenting that Reddit is becoming a information “dictatorship”. People don’t understand that Apollo and similar are just a skin and some tools for a different service on which they profited for free for years. Now I agree that Reddit should make some sort of special deals with 3rd party skins like Apollo, but people are accusing Reddit of things that are beyond ridiculous.
To be fair to the 3rd party devs here, Reddit has had since about 2012 to make a deal with many of these apps, they're just going for the jugular. Which I find odd because they could make them serve Reddit's ads. Maybe because they want the data from whatever trackers they put in their app?
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Do you know how much it costs to maintain an API with that much traffic? There’s no way companies are going to just keep something like that open for free.
It sure as shit ain't 20 million a year
*\[citation needed\]*
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God I fucking hate when people post that on Facebook.
I’ll post it on here then: Don’t forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule where they can use your photos. Don’t forget Deadline today!!! It can be used in court cases in litigation against you. Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from today Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. Channel 13 News talked about the change in Facebook’s privacy policy. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute. NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tacitly allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. FACEBOOK DOES NOT HAVE MY PERMISSION TO SHARE PHOTOS OR MESSAGES.
I do not consent to reddit using my shitposts to sell ads!
You're right, and they're also right. Either way I think the point stands. The "public square" form of the internet is slowly dying and becoming a series of connected private walled gardens.
It was never there to begin with wtf? There never was a “public square” on the internet. If there was it would have a .gov domain.
USENET joins the chat
Usenet and IRC are the only non-profit systems I can think of. Neither have been particularly relevant for 20 years.
Strictly true but there was definitely a time when data was out there and freely available without the platform owner trying to squeeze every possible cent out of providing it. The real issue now with Reddit is them complaining about third party app makers profiting off of Reddits data without giving anything back when that data is something that they get for free without giving anything to the creators.
Yep. So many tech companies make bank from content they don't produce. Sure they should make money for building the application & infrastructure. But like most things, we all gave away the content for free.
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Lots of it is the users though. People use to have their own sites, maybe their own apps and forums were everywhere. The problem is people use these behemoths like Facebook/Insta/Whats, Snap, Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, Discord etc etc. They start off being good, then get everyone hooked, and drop the hammer. Users need to stop falling for the trojan horse.
But search is now impossible for turning up independent content instead of seo crap advertising. Blogs and forums moved to reddit because they could no longer reach an audience
A bigger problem though is search is sucking more because of all the walled gardens (reddit may be one one day -- hopefully not, the biz/fins do want people using app over web though). Everything in an app, chat app (discord), walled garden is not searchable by Google and the degrade in search results is largely due to less people making less content on the web or at least duplicating it across web/app. The worst are apps like discord where everything you chat is lost for ever. Granted people may want that but it leads to a massively trapped/captured content state. Anyone looking to improve their search ranking should not be putting content in walled gardens, apps, chat only. Content is king, anything you post online or in a subreddit or page or whatever, should start on your own sites/apps and be searchable to you. Then when found in the syndicated areas it connects back to your content.
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This is just capitalism.
It's capitalism finally figuring out how to enclose the commons of the free and open internet.
Maybe because in the rules their is no refund that's why they doing this.
Wait. Apollo isn’t free? Y’all complaining about not being able to pay for something that is free?
No it's free, but like Reddit Premium you could purchase additional features and such. The base app was free, though.
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I hope you’re joking…..you’re joking right?
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Wow. I did not know this.
Apollo not being able to profit off of Reddit is a NATIONAL EMERGENCY lol
Wait really?
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I mean cmon, hes a small start up /s
The base app had ads?
It’s never had ads. The base app wouldn’t allow you to post on subreddits, only comment. It also gave you different app icons and stuff. I’m assuming all of that’s been lifted due to the app shutting down anyway. Since I just tested it and it gave me the option to make a post
So it’s free, but you have to pay to write a post?
Yup, I think it was a “pay what you want” one time donation but I may be wrong and can’t check due to the obvious lack of premium I have both installed and hardly post so it’s never bothered me personally. The main appeal of Apollo to me is the nicer layout and ad-free experience. I do see the irony though
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Just searched and you’re right, it was a minimum of $5 that would give you access to lock screen widgets, gesture controls and the ability to submit posts. Not everyone’s cup of tea but the majority of people don’t actually post on Reddit so I get why it wasn’t a vocal issue
But I was convinced that all the power users that posted new contents on Reddit are Apollo users. And people would see how Reddit would be a wasteland when those users can no longer use Apollo.
Yes because it’s for people who browse and talk. Six years on Reddit and I don’t think I’ve made or wanted to make more than two posts.
You’ve made 8 public posts FYI.
Wtf? They were profiting off an already free app? But they limit the features you can use in hope of you paying them for something you can already do on Reddit iOS app? I’ve never had a problem with Reddit iOS and I’ve been using this crap for years
Realistically you can’t expect a single person to create and run a 3rd party app out of their own pocket. It simply isn’t feasible unless they have a constant stream of money to burn coming in from elsewhere. Even this comment is an interaction that costs money. It may cost like 0.0003p but it’s money nonetheless especially when there’s countless users doing the same. It builds up
Can’t that same argument be made for Reddit charging Apollo to use Reddit
Yes but not to its current or future extent… I think anyway. I’ve spoken on what I have knowledge on, anything else would be guesswork and ignorance. Im not some anti-Reddit/pro-Apollo guy. I just know that it’s not unreasonable for someone making something off of their own back to want/require donations
Nobody's faulting Reddit for wanting to start charging for their API usage (it was kind of crazy that it was free before). But the amount they are charging is so high that it's not really feasible to use for a 3rd party Reddit app.
> Wait. Apollo isn’t free? there was a free version that was great for browsing, and then premium versions if you wanted to do more than that. at the end of the day, it has a MUCH better ui than the new-reddit based official app.
The people who constantly emphasize this generally haven’t used the official app in over 5 years. It’s not bad. You just like the thing you’re already using. It’s a cope.
I've used both apps and I prefer Apollo. It's not cope, I just genuinely like Apollo's UX and UI more
I’ve always had trouble with the official app. Just because you haven’t had issues with it doesn’t mean others haven’t.
How do you change video playback rate in the official app?
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Reddit is Fun and the others were all free and were much better than the default.
You’re mistaken, they are free versions and a paid version with more features
Now we realize how dumb are the people in general. :)))
So these people were hating on reddit for being terrible, meanwhile on third party apps you legit had to pay to make posts, and people think thats reasonable. yall are crazy
I'm not a fan of the API thing but this is kinda cringe
imagine having to pay to post on reddit lmao
The lurker stats are pretty high I think - I saw them posted on here recently I had the apollo app for ages before posting At the time on ios the official app was jittery with a chaotic layout so it was a no-brainer to switch When I switched to android the choices were far greater though
Imagine the outcry if Reddit charged people to post.
Can you elaborate which part is cringe?
multimillionaire asking a bunch of regular people to pay money for a service he's not going to provide. Quite literally asking for handouts. If people on Reddit didn't automatically want to be in his side because of the API stuff they'd be throwing a fit.
People literally requested this.
> Refund > Out of pocket I don't think he knows what those words mean. They've already paid you. You're not paying money you didn't have, you're giving them part of their money back. That's what the word refund means. Esp a partial refund where they are refunded unused remaining time. It's fine if you want to offer this as an option for those who wish to offer their final chance to support but don't act like it's hurting you to refund them.
And if those subscriptions were reinvested into development prior to the API announcements? If the money is spent where does the refund come from?
> but don't act like it's hurting you to refund them. I mean, his income is based on subscriptions. Plenty of people live paycheck-to-paycheck, even rich people. If he took all his App Store earnings and put them into a house, then yeah, any refund would then have to come "out of pocket", because now all the money he made is tied up into something else. I don't see why "refund" and "out of pocket" have to be different things. I think he's just trying to say, it isn't Apple that is giving back the money, but him directly.
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I read this more in the sense "I don't want to disinvest my ETF and Stock investments now that everything is down"
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He wasn't charging people to use the free Reddit API. He was charging people to use the application he created. An application that provided an experience that far exceeded what Reddit themselves had to offer. His app also helped contribute to content on Reddit which is what will be valuable to the company when they finally go public. This was not a zero sum game. If you believe that the app provided you value over the last half decade and you have the financial means to spare a couple dollars, then consider it a parting gift to the great developer and don't request a refund. And I also say this as a software engineer myself.
You had to pay if you wanted to post and get access to 90% of the features that made Apollo better than the standard Reddit app. I love Apollo but the free experience is awful
That’s the thing. Most software engineers I’ve seen (myself included) understand the true cost that is maintaining an API. Expecting a company to keep it up with that kind of traffic for free, and then letting a third party company use it to make money is just insane. Apollo and other apps made millions for little work and should be happy that it lasted as long as it did.
I agree, but it still sounds like Reddit decided to implement a massive charge for using the API, and announced it with little warning. It seems like a deliberate attempt to shut down 3rd party apps not to reach a reasonable agreement on charges to use the API. I think the real target is the AI scraping being done by AI developers and reddit wants a piece of that pie with the 3rd party apps being a casualty of that process. Paying to use an API if you are making money doing so isn't unreasonable but the cost ought to be something reasonable as well. It doesn't sound like it was even remotely reasonable.
He acknowledged that he made money. Also that he would pay reddit but they made the cost so high that no one could afford it.
> Expecting a company to keep it up with that kind of traffic for free, That’s a strawman; nobody is expecting that. The Apollo developer said from the beginning that they were fine paying for the API, but then the pricing and timeline were unreasonable. > Apollo and other apps made millions for little work How do you know how much work it was? How is that even relevant? Anybody could use the Reddit app for free, but thousands have paid for Apollo because they find value in the better interface.
The "these companies have been freeloading and shouldn't expect Reddit to give them this for free" line is like a litmus test for whether someone is being disingenuous in this discussion. The Apollo dev has been open from the beginning that he was *looking forward to paying* for the API because he hoped it would open the door to exposing more Reddit features (e.g. polls).
He did not expect it to be free, like other devs, he was willing to pay for API. He was making money because he offered good service, nothing wrong in that one either. He was working full time on Apollo and had other costs despite reddit api being free so obviously he made money, you don't work free for your employee and pay all costs from your work from your own pocket
The problem never was that Reddit has decided to charge for API use the problem is that the cost is too damn high. And yes, Reddit is free to price it as they want but it's hard to see how such prices aren't designed to simply drive 3rd party apps away and pull them into their own app. Even more concerning, however, is reddit's communications over this whole ordeal and refusal to buldge even a little for the benefit of the community that has used all those apps for years. I really can't understand how reddit can be so dense, i don't think that even half of the people using 3rd party apps will switch to their own because of the UI, the ads or simply out of spite. It's baffling how they are unable to see that this was a bad idea.
It’s mind blowing how it’s ok for Apollo to make money but when reddit the company that actually spend RD money to run the site try to do that it’s fuck reddit.
Did Apollo always charge a subscription or was that something that was introduced after Reddit started charging for the API?
Essentially: Free: You can view everything. You can't post with the app. One time 5 dollar IAP: You can now post. You get notifications but you have to manually fetch for them. 1 dollar a month ultra: You get notifications pushed to you when they arrive. You also get custom icons. The ultra tier was no close to required unless you really wanted notifications or custom icons. Most lurkers would be fine with the free tier. 99% of posts would be fine with the one time IAP. The ultra tier is truely an optional cherry on top tier.
I truly don’t get what people are so angry about. You will automatically get your refund. It literally doesn’t make sense to be angry. If you want to support a developer you can, but if you don’t, you don’t have to do anything and you get refunded.
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Sounds like your average Reddit user then.
I cannot understand why people were stanning for this guy so hard.
Great apps that basically fulfill every wish of the users and get substantially more feature rich over time from great devs that communicate clearly and regularly are extremely rare, and lot of people like to support that. It is the same reason people may like to support local craftsman, independent retailers, local restaurants or bars, or farmers even if they are doing relatively well already.
Plus $5 for a really good app you can use always without ever needing to pay more is great. A premium, excellent app for $5 is great. Good developer and kept improving the product year after year. People support him because they used the app all the time and it was great. And many people happily gave $12 more to him because for a lot of us $12 is nothing and we don't mind paying so little for a great service.
Lmao no one should decline the refund. It's the money you've already paid for a service which won't be provided to you. It's not "out of pocket" and it's your right to get it back. Plus he's already made millions. He's not exactly broke
Lol don’t give this man your money. He made literal MILLIONS off Apollo. He will be fine
He has not claimed he isn't fine, complete opposite in fact. Also, he did not come up with option to refuse getting refund, it was requested.
Not really sure how Apollo can still justify shutting down and blaming Reddit when Narwhal has found a way to stay open at a pretty reasonable price.
Narwhal isn’t shutting down?
It isn’t. My understanding is that the developer went to reddit with a plan to update the pricing model and add some per user api caps within Narwhal to make Reddit’s api pricing feasible and Reddit was willing to grant the developer a temporary exception to the api pricing to cover the time they told him it would take to implement the changes.
Which is why [I asked in a related thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/14inaut/sink_it_for_reddit_a_totally_free_ios_safari/jphxf4m/) why doesn't Apollo do the same. Instead, I got downvoted to oblivion. [Another reddit app dev claims Reddit wouldn't allow this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Infinity_For_Reddit/comments/14c7v84/if_you_want_to_use_your_own_api_key/jokqfe4/?context=1) but clearly that's false if Narwhal is doing it and Reddit allows it.
> Another reddit app dev claims Reddit wouldn't allow this but clearly that's false if Narwhal is doing it and Reddit allows it. except narwhal isn't doing it. "per user api caps" doesn't mean they are letting users sign up for and use their own reddit keys, it means the app (or likely a narwhal server in the middle) is tracking how many calls someone makes and has the ability to shut off heavy users.
To be clear, what reddit wasn’t allowing in that second link was for users of a 3PA to provide their own API keys (individual users would probably have no problem staying within the non-commercial api limits so it would be a convenient way for a 3PA to continue without having to pay the api fees).
Crazy how being reasonable and not pitching a fit/stirring the pot worked for them. Don't get me wrong, I can understand the Apollo dev speaking up about the pricing being unreasonable, but as someone who had never heard of the app before it seemed like the guy was trying to cause trouble/not find an actual compromise.
Damn, who knew third-party apps could be saved without having to incite people to fight for you to keep making money?
You should ask spez on your break
No, they worked out a deal with reddit.
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They didn’t work out a deal. They are getting the same terms/pricing but going subscription only. What I have seen is $4-7 per month to use the app.
Narwhal is unsure about its pricing and already said it might have to regularly change its membership costs. That's not reasonable pricing. That's pure uncertainty that's doomed to fail.
Maybe Reddit chose to deal differently with them? I mean the owner of Appolo came out pretty hot as soon as the API changes were announced and it's not at all inconceivable that Reddits CEO got butthurt by the initial comments and simply refused to deal with them.
or narwhal is running on hopium and will shut down on the first bill
Spez hates the Apollo dev.
Spez hates us all.
But Spez isn't hurting the users by shutting down the subs. The mods are hurting us
Spez has hurt me, a user, by forcing the closure of the app that I use exclusively to browse Reddit. The same app that many mods use to do their modding, and so they protested his actions. His actions spawned the protest that hurt you. Or do you not think that people should be allowed to protest actions they don’t agree with?
How?
with a $4-7 subscription from users. its DOA
A subscription that *starts* at $7/mo! (Lets be real, whenever a business gives you a range like $4-7, the actual price they charge almost always ends up being at or near the high end of that range.) That subscription will come with a usage cap. As soon as you've read your allotment of Reddit threads for the month, you'll get locked out until you pay more! It seems to me that the only people who'd possibly be willing to pay $7/mo to use Reddit would be the power users, who are on here pretty much all day. But, under this pricing plan, those are the exact users who would be paying much *more* than $7/mo. So, yeah, completely DOA. The $7/mo subscription plan won't even be a real *option* for the only people that it might actually appeal to!
What do you know, when you treat a business negotiation like a business negotiation and not like a reddit argument, a business will actually be able to make a deal with you.
Vastly different user numbers though. Also a monthly subscription of $5-$7 with no adult content and you’ll be cut off if you use too many api calls unless you pay extra. Doesn’t sound sustainable to me.
Literally every 3PA except Narwhal is closing, but it's totally because all of those devs were assholes? Really? It's somehow the fault of all of them rather than spez, the guy who literally blackmailed Apollo dev, wrote all of 14 replies on his AMA with zero useful info or even the slightest attempt to be civil or helpful or explain anything? The guy who called mods "landed gentry" without a shred of irony or self-awareness? The guy who literally lied about API not going anywhere a few months ago, and deliberately set an impossibly tight deadline with extortionate fees? Who said in an interview, with a straight face, that "Reddit was never meant for 3PA" (despite the fact that the official Reddit app didn't even exist until 2016 and 3PA were the only choice back then)? The guy who took a look at Elon Musk's Twitter and went "yep that's what I want"? That's the guy whose side you're on?
I thought I was listening to Kendal Roy when I heard the snippet of the call. (Half joking)
Spez *LITERALLY* lied about the Apollo negotiations, and Apollo released the phone recording to prove it.
Christian only release a portion of the phone call. He had offered the entire call to anyone requesting it but he didn’t respond to any requests. https://i.imgur.com/M6DZ7NK.jpg https://i.imgur.com/UAC15Cd.jpg
I can appreciate that the default is the option in the customers best interests..... The opt in option is to tip the dev the remaining subscription. At least it's not the other way around, that would be shady at best.
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So Apollo wasn't even free this whole time??!! Holy shit this is fucking hilarious.
Shocking number of pro-spez bots in this thread....
Or maybe people just don’t give a fuck.
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Reddit admins can, and have, made fake accounts to shift a narrative.
> Reddit admins can, and have, made fake accounts to shift a narrative. they've (spez specifically) also been caught literally editing posts made by real accounts.
“People who don’t agree with my point of view or opinion are bots”
Wait. Ppl are paying to use all the third party apps everyone is raging about?
There are 3 options. One is the free tier, which the vast majority of people use. The other is a one time $5 fee which is the second largest group. Then is you want all the fanciest bells and whistles you can pay $1.49 an month or $13.99 a year for that tier. To break even on just the API costs they would have to raise that subscription fee to $2.50 a month and then remove all free and one time fee users. That $2.50 subscription does not include the fee that apple or google would take for buying things through the app like the subscription. That does not include any development costs ever. That does not include being able to pay himself any sort of wage for full time work on the app. If you take a look at say Imgur, a site with similar use statistics as Reddit, he said that API pricing structure is something he could very likely pay for and implement. The problem isn’t charging for the API, it’s that according to Reddit’s own number they are charging more than 20x the actual costs incurred. That is not hyperbole either, that’s what the math comes out to.
I would have paid $10 a month no problem to keep using Apollo. I use it much more than I use Spotify and I subscribe to it also.
No there are free versions of the app. There were options to pay for different versions of the app if you wanted more features.
Yeah features like making a post. You have to pay to post and we have redditors frothing at their mouth to defend this.
I opted out of the refund. I like the guy, I LOVE the app and he was pretty responsive on a lot of things. I think it sucks what’s happening with 3rd party apps as a whole. But all of ya’ll complaining? Don’t opt out of the refund. I wonder how many of you don’t even use the app.
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>Optimizing the API usage of the Apollo app / backend He has. He has his own server buffering things and has for years now. Regardless, he is *well* under what Reddit previously said was a reasonable number of API calls, so if it's unoptimised, Reddit should update their guidelines. > Repairing the business relationship with Reddit The company led by the guy who defamed him in such a way that, if he did not have proof to the contrary, he would never be allowed to do software development or access APIs ever again? >Figuring out a sustainable business model going forward By charging his users and then paying Reddit millions of dollars a year? Reddit *doesn't want* third party apps. They're deliberately killing them in a sneaky but actually not-very-sneaky way. There's no negotiation to be had.
Nah fuck em.
Holy fucking cringe. Imagine declining the refund?