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It sounds to me like the conversation went in a way that it could be interpreted as a threat. This is from the Apollo developer's own telling of the story: >

It sounds to me like the conversation went in a way that it could be interpreted as a threat. This is from the Apollo developer's own telling of the story: > As said, a common suggestion across the many threads on this topic was "If third-party apps are costing Reddit so much money, why don't they just buy them out like they did Alien Blue?" That was the point I brought up. If running Apollo as it stands now would cost you $20 million yearly as you quote, I suggested you cut a check to me to end Apollo. I said I'd even do it for half that or six months worth: $10 million, what a deal! If someone said that to me, i.e. "hey, just give me $10 million and I'll stop making things difficult for you," I would interpret that as a threat, even if they denied that it was.

rocky_raccoon 3y ago
You should listen to the audio transcript that was posted in the original link. I believe it will dispel that notion.
- dbbk 3y ago
  It doesn't dispel it
- haberman 3y ago
  I listened and I'm still confused. I would love to see someone state clearly: 1. What was Christian actually offering to do in exchange for $10M? 2. What did the Reddit person think that Christian was offering to do in exchange for $10M? 3. How are (1) and (2) different?
  - aniforprez 3y ago
    I can only surmise from all the posts and interviews that Christian has done post that call but it simply seems like he tried calling their bluff on the $20 million number and/or was fishing for a buyout. He found the number ridiculous, the reddit admin told him that this number wasn't server costs but opportunity costs for lost revenue, Christian decided to poke the bear and ask if instead of him paying them 20 million dollars a year, they could buy him for 6 months of that "lost revenue" and then make that revenue for themselves. He was offering to be acquihired and was simultaneously calling their bluff about the API pricing The reddit person seems to have thought that Christian was threatening them in some way??? I genuinely don't know what Christian could even have threatened them with. It seems to me they didn't understand the power dynamic at all of a small solo app developer talking to a massive corporation. Maybe they thought he was threatening simply shut his app down for that amount without telling anyone which might have avoided this ruckus? I'm sorry but I genuinely cannot fathom what they thought was going on 1 and 2 are different in that clearly the admin thought Christian was making a threat to their business whereas he was merely calling their bluff and possibly opening himself to business negotiations if reddit actually thought his app was worth that much. Through all this it feels like Christian did not communicate what he wanted effectively (though this seems to have been a throwaway line in a much longer call that got misconstrued gravely) and the admin was simply not equipped at all to handle negotiations
    - haberman 3y ago
      That seems like a fair read. Maybe I would restate as: Reddit: If we had all Apollo's users, and showed them ads, we could make $20M/year more than we are making now. What Christian meant to say: Ok, if that's really true, how about you buy my app and all my users for $10M? Then you can show them all the ads you want. If what you say is true, that's quite a deal for you. But my real point is that I don't believe your $20M number. What Reddit heard: If you pay me $10M, you can have my app and all my users and I will stop making a fuss. Otherwise, I will badmouth you to my users and the press, encourage boycotts, and otherwise try to force your hand. This read mostly makes sense to me. The only part I don't get is the part of the call where Christian says: > I said "If you want Apollo to go quiet". Like in terms of- I would say it's quite loud in terms of its API usage. If Christian's intention was to sell the app and all its users to Reddit, then the load on the API wouldn't change, the only thing that would change is that Reddit would own it and the users would also see ads. So Apollo wouldn't "go quiet" under this scenario, and I don't understand the comment.
      - aniforprez 3y ago
        For some reason, in all their communication, the reddit admins have been VERY insistent that his app is one of the largest users of the API and that he needs to "optimise". My read is basically that if he sold the app, the external API calls all become internal API calls, they are free to either let the app work but with their own internal APIs or kill the app completely. It would be out of his hands and the issue of the volume of APIs being invoked would quiet down. Not sure if I'm being too charitable but from all the communication from both sides, this is what I'm surmising
z3c0 3y ago
You might be prone to perceiving threats where there aren't any then. The only threat here was reddit's potential loss in revenue - offering to let himself be bought out for half of what they would supposedly "lose" in a year is extremely generous. Of course, this is all a deliberate reframing by reddit. Reddit wasn't going to "lose" anything so much as "not get".
- roflyear 3y ago
  Right, I think some people are like this. For example, I had a boss once that would interpret everything I said as a threat (I had a friendship with the owners of the company). It's just, stupid, and insulting.
circularfoyers 3y ago
How is he making things difficult for them?
trilobyte 3y ago
Framing it as "give me money and I'll stop making things difficult for you" is disingenuous. The proper framing was "buy the app out and the API usage, and thus the $20mm/year in costs, will stop, or whatever you want to do with the product at that point".
- dbbk 3y ago
  The API usage cost still exists, it doesn't just disappear if it's owned by Reddit instead of the dev
  - calgarymicro 3y ago
    Reddit said the majority of the lost revenue was in opportunity cost (money they could have made from those users if they were using the official app), not the literal cost of maintaining the API. So the idea is that they would buy the app, then could serve ads to those users (or however else they monetize users on the official app) and recoup the opportunity cost.
yankjenets 3y ago
Isn't that an offer, not a threat? Apollo is fully allowed to make things difficult by complaining on social media that he thinks the pricing is unfair. What is illegal or even unethical about that?

rocky_raccoon 3y ago

You should listen to the audio transcript that was posted in the original link. I believe it will dispel that notion.

dbbk 3y ago
It doesn't dispel it
haberman 3y ago
I listened and I'm still confused. I would love to see someone state clearly: 1. What was Christian actually offering to do in exchange for $10M? 2. What did the Reddit person think that Christian was offering to do in exchange for $10M? 3. How are (1) and (2) different?
- aniforprez 3y ago
  I can only surmise from all the posts and interviews that Christian has done post that call but it simply seems like he tried calling their bluff on the $20 million number and/or was fishing for a buyout. He found the number ridiculous, the reddit admin told him that this number wasn't server costs but opportunity costs for lost revenue, Christian decided to poke the bear and ask if instead of him paying them 20 million dollars a year, they could buy him for 6 months of that "lost revenue" and then make that revenue for themselves. He was offering to be acquihired and was simultaneously calling their bluff about the API pricing The reddit person seems to have thought that Christian was threatening them in some way??? I genuinely don't know what Christian could even have threatened them with. It seems to me they didn't understand the power dynamic at all of a small solo app developer talking to a massive corporation. Maybe they thought he was threatening simply shut his app down for that amount without telling anyone which might have avoided this ruckus? I'm sorry but I genuinely cannot fathom what they thought was going on 1 and 2 are different in that clearly the admin thought Christian was making a threat to their business whereas he was merely calling their bluff and possibly opening himself to business negotiations if reddit actually thought his app was worth that much. Through all this it feels like Christian did not communicate what he wanted effectively (though this seems to have been a throwaway line in a much longer call that got misconstrued gravely) and the admin was simply not equipped at all to handle negotiations
  - haberman 3y ago
    That seems like a fair read. Maybe I would restate as: Reddit: If we had all Apollo's users, and showed them ads, we could make $20M/year more than we are making now. What Christian meant to say: Ok, if that's really true, how about you buy my app and all my users for $10M? Then you can show them all the ads you want. If what you say is true, that's quite a deal for you. But my real point is that I don't believe your $20M number. What Reddit heard: If you pay me $10M, you can have my app and all my users and I will stop making a fuss. Otherwise, I will badmouth you to my users and the press, encourage boycotts, and otherwise try to force your hand. This read mostly makes sense to me. The only part I don't get is the part of the call where Christian says: > I said "If you want Apollo to go quiet". Like in terms of- I would say it's quite loud in terms of its API usage. If Christian's intention was to sell the app and all its users to Reddit, then the load on the API wouldn't change, the only thing that would change is that Reddit would own it and the users would also see ads. So Apollo wouldn't "go quiet" under this scenario, and I don't understand the comment.
    - aniforprez 3y ago
      For some reason, in all their communication, the reddit admins have been VERY insistent that his app is one of the largest users of the API and that he needs to "optimise". My read is basically that if he sold the app, the external API calls all become internal API calls, they are free to either let the app work but with their own internal APIs or kill the app completely. It would be out of his hands and the issue of the volume of APIs being invoked would quiet down. Not sure if I'm being too charitable but from all the communication from both sides, this is what I'm surmising

z3c0 3y ago

You might be prone to perceiving threats where there aren't any then. The only threat here was reddit's potential loss in revenue - offering to let himself be bought out for half of what they would supposedly "lose" in a year is extremely generous. Of course, this is all a deliberate reframing by reddit. Reddit wasn't going to "lose" anything so much as "not get".

roflyear 3y ago
Right, I think some people are like this. For example, I had a boss once that would interpret everything I said as a threat (I had a friendship with the owners of the company). It's just, stupid, and insulting.

circularfoyers 3y ago

How is he making things difficult for them?

trilobyte 3y ago

Framing it as "give me money and I'll stop making things difficult for you" is disingenuous. The proper framing was "buy the app out and the API usage, and thus the $20mm/year in costs, will stop, or whatever you want to do with the product at that point".

dbbk 3y ago
The API usage cost still exists, it doesn't just disappear if it's owned by Reddit instead of the dev
- calgarymicro 3y ago
  Reddit said the majority of the lost revenue was in opportunity cost (money they could have made from those users if they were using the official app), not the literal cost of maintaining the API. So the idea is that they would buy the app, then could serve ads to those users (or however else they monetize users on the official app) and recoup the opportunity cost.

yankjenets 3y ago

Isn't that an offer, not a threat? Apollo is fully allowed to make things difficult by complaining on social media that he thinks the pricing is unfair. What is illegal or even unethical about that?