4 ms·

To me “boycott breaker” is a much more self-important framing than this deserves. It’s framing it with picket line crossers or scabs. Happy to boycott, protest,

To me “boycott breaker” is a much more self-important framing than this deserves. It’s framing it with picket line crossers or scabs. Happy to boycott, protest, and use my resources for things that are acutely important to humanity: human rights issues, unionization and pay issues, environmental issues, among others — and I have done so, including physically standing in solidarity. Third-party API access to a private company doesn’t merit a blip on the radar in my opinion. However while I’m not happy about the access being shut down, nor am I happy that Apollo dev took his ball and went home, I am fully supportive in spirit of the unintended consequences. Notably: lots more diversity on the front page (meaning less reporting dreck from the same oversized subreddits over and over), and maybe even a clamp down on the self-perceived sway of mods, a position that tends to attract the worst, most power-hungry people, and their “moderating” of literally hundreds of subreddits simultaneously. My guess is that, as I’ve previously posted, this will go something like the last boycott of the chat feature. Main subreddits will shutter, new subreddits with similar names will pop up to fill the void with identical content. In any case, Reddit is under the VC gun at this point and I doubt they have a choice here, in my experience with large VC-backed companies.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
orev 3y ago
> nor am I happy that Apollo dev took his ball and went home That’s a very unfair characterization. It’s more like he was happy to allow everyone to keep playing with his ball, but suddenly the owner of the field wanted $20 million to allow it. That phrase is mostly used when someone is being petty, which is absolutely not the case in this situation.
- constantly 3y ago
  Sorry just seeing this, HN of course isn’t designed for back and forth discussion. I used the phrase intentionally because looking at the developer’s side of what happened, my takeaway is that while yes it would cost a lot to continue operating, out of the many options available to them they chose to just shut down. That’s “taking their ball and going home” in my opinion. Of course they’re free to do so, but it was far from the only option to take and they’re basically leaving a lot of Apollo fans in a lurch because they didn’t feel like putting in the effort to make a workable solution. Reddit also handled the rollout of fees poorly. All this is of course just my opinion and I don’t expect everyone to agree.
  - IggleSniggle 3y ago
    I’m curious what you think they could have done differently. They made a pretty strong case that they explored the alternatives with good intentions and open communication, and that Reddit backed them into a corner. Unless you expect someone to go bankrupt just so their app can continue for one more month? They could either shut down now and refund everyone, or shut down in 2 months and go bankrupt trying pay the bill.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

orev 3y ago

> nor am I happy that Apollo dev took his ball and went home That’s a very unfair characterization. It’s more like he was happy to allow everyone to keep playing with his ball, but suddenly the owner of the field wanted $20 million to allow it. That phrase is mostly used when someone is being petty, which is absolutely not the case in this situation.

constantly 3y ago
Sorry just seeing this, HN of course isn’t designed for back and forth discussion. I used the phrase intentionally because looking at the developer’s side of what happened, my takeaway is that while yes it would cost a lot to continue operating, out of the many options available to them they chose to just shut down. That’s “taking their ball and going home” in my opinion. Of course they’re free to do so, but it was far from the only option to take and they’re basically leaving a lot of Apollo fans in a lurch because they didn’t feel like putting in the effort to make a workable solution. Reddit also handled the rollout of fees poorly. All this is of course just my opinion and I don’t expect everyone to agree.
- IggleSniggle 3y ago
  I’m curious what you think they could have done differently. They made a pretty strong case that they explored the alternatives with good intentions and open communication, and that Reddit backed them into a corner. Unless you expect someone to go bankrupt just so their app can continue for one more month? They could either shut down now and refund everyone, or shut down in 2 months and go bankrupt trying pay the bill.