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> Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $2.50 per month, which is over double what the sub

> Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $2.50 per month, which is over double what the subscription currently costs, so I'd be in the red every month. I just don't understand why developers underprice their apps so much. You're talking about an app that people are constantly raving about, and that people use for multiple hours per day. Charge $5/month, that's half the price of Netflix or Disney+.

denimnerd42 3y ago
well the problem with mobile apps is the alternatives are free. It's a bad business and why I didn't take my passion for mobile apps as a career.
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  The reddit ones won't be though, unless they scrape instead of use the api. I doubt that's viable for a consumer app though, Reddit will probably break your app constantly.
  - denimnerd42 3y ago
    the official app isn't going to remain free?
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      Ok but the official app is basically unusable. It's better to use the browser instead and ignore the annoying message telling you to use the app.
      - denimnerd42 3y ago
        agreed but that’s what your up against as an app developer. free and shit or good and not free. people will deal with shit sadly.
    - stjohnswarts 3y ago
      It will but it is also ad supported.
sosodev 3y ago
I suspect that a fraction of users would convert and many others would trash the developer/app for the switch to subscription. Users of free apps like this have a seriously warped view of software costs. It seems like Reddit is pushing these changes because that's exactly what they want to happen. They want all users to be using the free first-party Reddit app.
kdkdowp 3y ago
LMAO can you imagine paying monthly to use Reddit? That'd be like paying monthly to browse this site or 4chan. I think I'd reevaluate my life if I considered paying monthly to access that cesspool. Reddit is already nearly entirely astroturfed advertisements, and you pay for the site by reading the shill posts that fill its pages. The fact that anyone pays Apollo or Reddit for a subscription is already just sad. Like paying for cable.
Alupis 3y ago
I agree. The OP makes the case that it will cost him on average $2.50 per month per user - so... charge $3 per month - no blog post needed. Same with Twitter. So many businesses were built upon basically free API access and are now shocked the company responsible for their app's customer appeal wants some of that action. It's not Reddit's responsibility to float OP's business and make it profitable. OP's billions of monthly requests have a real cost for Reddit - and now that Reddit's API is so coveted, they can charge whatever they want for it's access. No Twitter - no Twitter App. No Reddit - no Reddit App. It's really simple...
- lapcat 3y ago
  > The OP makes the case that it will cost him on average $2.50 per month per user - so... charge $3 per month Apple takes at least 15% of that, or 30% depending on the developer's revenue, leaving $2.55 or $2.10.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    The point was - figure out what you need to charge instead of complaining you can't profit off someone else's resources. Reddit, Twitter et all don't owe you anything. They do not make money via read-access API calls - they lose money. It's super simple... Only a fool would build a business around a free service with no escape plan.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > Reddit, Twitter et all don't owe you anything. They do not make money via read-access API calls - they lose money. It's super simple... Twitter eliminated 3rd party clients, and now Twitter is estimated to be worth 1/3 of its acquisition price.
      - Alupis 3y ago
        Seeing how all the numbers are private, I don't know how anyone can reasonably estimate it's value. Seeing how unaffected Twitter has been in public discourse, and media, it seems these estimates are grossly underinflated. Lastly - Twitter's market price has nothing to do with it's profitability. That seems obvious, but apparently needs to be said here.
infofarmer 3y ago
You also don't understand how 95% of the world or 80% of HN lives. $5/month is a very significant expense.
- jdminhbg 3y ago
  That's fine. If you can't or don't want to pay, you can look at Reddit's ads. I do not use Reddit very much, so it's not worth $5/month to me. But why would I expect to get a third-party ad-free client for free?
- benced 3y ago
  For the world? Yes it is. For the average HN user? Lol, no it’s not. I would wager the majority of HN users can point to several dumb >=$5 expenses in any given month. If you don’t value Apollo enough to pay for it, fine. Just don’t pretend that $60 a year is a morally outrageous amount for software.
  - generichuman 3y ago
    > For the average HN user? Lol, no it’s not. Depends on who you think an average HN user is.
  - witchesindublin 3y ago
    $5 per month for Reddit is silly though. Expensiveness is based on the value/return of whatever you are buying.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Again, compare to the price for streaming services. Hulu charges $8/month an still makes you watch ads.
cool_dude85 3y ago
What percent of the app's current customer base do you think would stick around at paying $5 a month to browse r/funny on the phone?
- Alupis 3y ago
  Who cares? It doesn't matter one bit. OP built a profitable business off free API access. That is the mistake here... assuming it would always be free.
  - cool_dude85 3y ago
    It matters a lot if most of the userbase relies on these separate businesses to either read or moderate the site, as seems to be the case.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      And just like the Twitterocolypse that never was... people will just use the official client - or subscribe to their favorite reader app. Complaining you don't get free stuff anymore is really unbecoming of an entrepreneur.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        > Complaining you don't get free stuff anymore is really unbecoming of an entrepreneur. He wasn't complaining about that. He was led to believe that the price would be reasonable, and he was willing to pay a reasonable price, as he already pays Imgur.
        Alupis 3y ago
        Imgur does not generate content and interest on the same level of Reddit/Twitter, etc. It would not be reasonable to assume similar API pricing. It seems the OP has a very distorted impression of what "reasonable" means to another for-profit company.
        3y ago
sorenjan 3y ago
I'm guessing that you work in the tech industry in the US and makes $100k+ per year? $5 is not an insignificant amount to a lot of people all over the world, including Europe and maybe the US. Especially when every single app and service wants you to subscribe to them now, I've heard plenty of people saying they're going to cancel their Netflix subscription when password sharing stops working. 344 requests per day is not worth $5 per month for the average user.
- jdminhbg 3y ago
  There’s no reason for $5/month to be what the average user pays. It’s for power users who spend way more time on the app. Netflix has introduced ad-supported tiers where you pay less. That’s the same here, those users can use the website or first-party app.
  - sorenjan 3y ago
    My comment was mostly about the comment about developers underpricing their apps. If all apps would charge a minimum of $5 there would be a lot fewer app users. According to Apollo's developer 80% of the users make less than 500 requests per day, so I'm guessing the proportion of power users making a lot of requests are in the single digits. I doubt enough of them want's to pay enough to subsidize the others. There's also the point that using Reddit is a two way street. Reddit is made up of user created (or user stolen) content, and moderators are working for free. Reddit's whole value is made up of user interactions, allowing users to make those interactions is not just a cost. Why should the app developer pay anything at all? The users are also Reddit's users, they authenticate and can use Reddit's resources in a number of ways, why not charge them directly? Will Reddit be sending a bill to Mozilla for my page loads?
    - raydev 3y ago
      > Why should the app developer pay anything at all? Because Reddit makes money off the ads. They can't guarantee third parties will always show the ads in the way they've designed. So now they are charging third parties the cost of losing ad views.
albertopv 3y ago
I spend 5€/month for my mobile phone plan, 40GB data cap. 5€/month for a service extending reddit is quite a lot
- lofaszvanitt 3y ago
  Where in the hell you live where that generous mobile plan exists?
  - albertopv 3y ago
    Italy. WindTre plan.
jccalhoun 3y ago
I use Apollo and like it but I don't like it so much that using it is worth $5 a month
joegibbs 3y ago
I doubt that people would be paying for Disney+ or Netflix if there was an free alternative that had slightly worse UX, that was officially sanctioned and available at the top of the app store if you searched for them. The appeal of those two is access to the content - Reddit has an official website and app where the content can be accessed for free.

denimnerd42 3y ago

well the problem with mobile apps is the alternatives are free. It's a bad business and why I didn't take my passion for mobile apps as a career.

sebzim4500 3y ago
The reddit ones won't be though, unless they scrape instead of use the api. I doubt that's viable for a consumer app though, Reddit will probably break your app constantly.
- denimnerd42 3y ago
  the official app isn't going to remain free?
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    Ok but the official app is basically unusable. It's better to use the browser instead and ignore the annoying message telling you to use the app.
    - denimnerd42 3y ago
      agreed but that’s what your up against as an app developer. free and shit or good and not free. people will deal with shit sadly.
  - stjohnswarts 3y ago
    It will but it is also ad supported.

sosodev 3y ago

I suspect that a fraction of users would convert and many others would trash the developer/app for the switch to subscription. Users of free apps like this have a seriously warped view of software costs. It seems like Reddit is pushing these changes because that's exactly what they want to happen. They want all users to be using the free first-party Reddit app.

kdkdowp 3y ago

LMAO can you imagine paying monthly to use Reddit? That'd be like paying monthly to browse this site or 4chan. I think I'd reevaluate my life if I considered paying monthly to access that cesspool. Reddit is already nearly entirely astroturfed advertisements, and you pay for the site by reading the shill posts that fill its pages. The fact that anyone pays Apollo or Reddit for a subscription is already just sad. Like paying for cable.

Alupis 3y ago

I agree. The OP makes the case that it will cost him on average $2.50 per month per user - so... charge $3 per month - no blog post needed. Same with Twitter. So many businesses were built upon basically free API access and are now shocked the company responsible for their app's customer appeal wants some of that action. It's not Reddit's responsibility to float OP's business and make it profitable. OP's billions of monthly requests have a real cost for Reddit - and now that Reddit's API is so coveted, they can charge whatever they want for it's access. No Twitter - no Twitter App. No Reddit - no Reddit App. It's really simple...

lapcat 3y ago
> The OP makes the case that it will cost him on average $2.50 per month per user - so... charge $3 per month Apple takes at least 15% of that, or 30% depending on the developer's revenue, leaving $2.55 or $2.10.
- Alupis 3y ago
  The point was - figure out what you need to charge instead of complaining you can't profit off someone else's resources. Reddit, Twitter et all don't owe you anything. They do not make money via read-access API calls - they lose money. It's super simple... Only a fool would build a business around a free service with no escape plan.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > Reddit, Twitter et all don't owe you anything. They do not make money via read-access API calls - they lose money. It's super simple... Twitter eliminated 3rd party clients, and now Twitter is estimated to be worth 1/3 of its acquisition price.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      Seeing how all the numbers are private, I don't know how anyone can reasonably estimate it's value. Seeing how unaffected Twitter has been in public discourse, and media, it seems these estimates are grossly underinflated. Lastly - Twitter's market price has nothing to do with it's profitability. That seems obvious, but apparently needs to be said here.

infofarmer 3y ago

You also don't understand how 95% of the world or 80% of HN lives. $5/month is a very significant expense.

jdminhbg 3y ago
That's fine. If you can't or don't want to pay, you can look at Reddit's ads. I do not use Reddit very much, so it's not worth $5/month to me. But why would I expect to get a third-party ad-free client for free?
benced 3y ago
For the world? Yes it is. For the average HN user? Lol, no it’s not. I would wager the majority of HN users can point to several dumb >=$5 expenses in any given month. If you don’t value Apollo enough to pay for it, fine. Just don’t pretend that $60 a year is a morally outrageous amount for software.
- generichuman 3y ago
  > For the average HN user? Lol, no it’s not. Depends on who you think an average HN user is.
- witchesindublin 3y ago
  $5 per month for Reddit is silly though. Expensiveness is based on the value/return of whatever you are buying.
paulddraper 3y ago
Again, compare to the price for streaming services. Hulu charges $8/month an still makes you watch ads.

cool_dude85 3y ago

What percent of the app's current customer base do you think would stick around at paying $5 a month to browse r/funny on the phone?

Alupis 3y ago
Who cares? It doesn't matter one bit. OP built a profitable business off free API access. That is the mistake here... assuming it would always be free.
- cool_dude85 3y ago
  It matters a lot if most of the userbase relies on these separate businesses to either read or moderate the site, as seems to be the case.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    And just like the Twitterocolypse that never was... people will just use the official client - or subscribe to their favorite reader app. Complaining you don't get free stuff anymore is really unbecoming of an entrepreneur.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > Complaining you don't get free stuff anymore is really unbecoming of an entrepreneur. He wasn't complaining about that. He was led to believe that the price would be reasonable, and he was willing to pay a reasonable price, as he already pays Imgur.
      - Alupis 3y ago
        Imgur does not generate content and interest on the same level of Reddit/Twitter, etc. It would not be reasonable to assume similar API pricing. It seems the OP has a very distorted impression of what "reasonable" means to another for-profit company.
      - 3y ago

sorenjan 3y ago

I'm guessing that you work in the tech industry in the US and makes $100k+ per year? $5 is not an insignificant amount to a lot of people all over the world, including Europe and maybe the US. Especially when every single app and service wants you to subscribe to them now, I've heard plenty of people saying they're going to cancel their Netflix subscription when password sharing stops working. 344 requests per day is not worth $5 per month for the average user.

jdminhbg 3y ago
There’s no reason for $5/month to be what the average user pays. It’s for power users who spend way more time on the app. Netflix has introduced ad-supported tiers where you pay less. That’s the same here, those users can use the website or first-party app.
- sorenjan 3y ago
  My comment was mostly about the comment about developers underpricing their apps. If all apps would charge a minimum of $5 there would be a lot fewer app users. According to Apollo's developer 80% of the users make less than 500 requests per day, so I'm guessing the proportion of power users making a lot of requests are in the single digits. I doubt enough of them want's to pay enough to subsidize the others. There's also the point that using Reddit is a two way street. Reddit is made up of user created (or user stolen) content, and moderators are working for free. Reddit's whole value is made up of user interactions, allowing users to make those interactions is not just a cost. Why should the app developer pay anything at all? The users are also Reddit's users, they authenticate and can use Reddit's resources in a number of ways, why not charge them directly? Will Reddit be sending a bill to Mozilla for my page loads?
  - raydev 3y ago
    > Why should the app developer pay anything at all? Because Reddit makes money off the ads. They can't guarantee third parties will always show the ads in the way they've designed. So now they are charging third parties the cost of losing ad views.

albertopv 3y ago

I spend 5€/month for my mobile phone plan, 40GB data cap. 5€/month for a service extending reddit is quite a lot

lofaszvanitt 3y ago
Where in the hell you live where that generous mobile plan exists?
- albertopv 3y ago
  Italy. WindTre plan.

jccalhoun 3y ago

I use Apollo and like it but I don't like it so much that using it is worth $5 a month

joegibbs 3y ago

I doubt that people would be paying for Disney+ or Netflix if there was an free alternative that had slightly worse UX, that was officially sanctioned and available at the top of the app store if you searched for them. The appeal of those two is access to the content - Reddit has an official website and app where the content can be accessed for free.