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Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted

• tedivm 3y ago
  It absolutely amazes me how badly reddit has handled this whole situation. From the years of broken promises to moderators, the complete lack of accessibility in their own apps, and then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. As much as reddit wants to make these developers into the bad guys, every move they've made in this mess has hurt their reputation while making the third party developers look amazingly reasonable. Even spez complaining about Christian recording the calls seems hollow when those recordings are what proved that spez was lying to the community. Frankly, anyone who does business with any of these execs should see now that they can and will happily lie and mislead. I don't know how you come back from that.
  • 0zemp3c 3y ago
    99.99% of reddit users have no idea who spez is and probably wouldn't care if they learned about his shenanigans 99% of reddit users are aware that moderators do some nice volunteer work but wouldn't cross the street to save them its only Extremely Online people who care about this Insider Baseball stuff
    • mynameisvlad 3y ago
      Considering the amount of media attention this has gotten from even mainstream sources including places like the BBC, I’m going to go out on a limb and say the number is far higher than 99.99%. That doesn’t even count all the people that are visiting their favorite subreddits only to see them closed with a message detailing what’s happened.
      • George83728 3y ago
        > Considering the amount of media attention this has gotten from even mainstream sources including places like the BBC Reddit moderators are uniquely privileged when it comes to making their opinions heard on reddit. The shuttering of subreddits is sensational and splashy enough to get media attention, but in itself says little about how most reddit users feel. A moderator revolt is like a strike of middle managers, revolting against upper management. They can lock the doors and keep all the common workers out, but that isn't evidence that the common workers have much investment in the strike. I think this whole thing probably follows the 90-9-1 rule; the 9 are mods and powerusers flipping out against the 1, while the 90 are probably oblivious or simply indifferent.
        • mynameisvlad 3y ago
          It's impossible to know for sure how the userbase feels, but the attention has certainly made the situation known to a whole lot more than 0.01% of users. And most of the closures come with a lengthy explanation exactly why it's important and generally have comments praising the action. The vocal dissenters certainly seem to be in the minority.
        • ink_13 3y ago
          Some subs held polls, and in every one that I saw, the strike was quite broadly popular. I think characterizing this as a few power mods throwing their toys out of the pram is unfair.
          • Sunspark 3y ago
            I was amused to see yesterday that my comments the day previous that some, but not all, reddit mods are paid had been silently deleted. I didn't get a bot message, they were just.. gone.. So, the corporation is watching, or the mod that is a reddit employee in the sub deleted them. I was also surprised to see yesterday that this same large sub I made them in was blacked out. Virtue-signalling? Throwing a bone to volunteer co-mods in the sub? Against the API changes? Who knows. Big mess now. Tech people don't like change, but when they get mad, wheels start turning.
    • nemo44x 3y ago
      > its only Extremely Online people who care about this Insider Baseball stuff I think this is the case for many things. And I imagine people will/are get wise to it. Elon Musk I think figured this out when he did what he did with Twitter. Some very online people really cared and made a lot of noise and the very online part of the media that cares made a lot of noise. But those people don't really matter and the media side has declining ratings year after year as they become more and more irrelevant. I think the paper tigers are starting to be exposed and they had a good run for the last 10 years by being very online and making a lot of noise. But ultimately, their voices don't matter.
      • watwut 3y ago
        It really does not seem to me that Musk figured anything out. He is loosing both money and users at massive speed.
        • nemo44x 3y ago
          They have a higher user count than they’ve ever had breaking their own MAU records. Advertising will come back. There’s anti-Twitter pressure campaigns and for economic reasons ad spend slowed. It’s all coming back. He controls the worlds largest and most important megaphone. That’s priceless.
          • watwut 3y ago
            > They have a higher user count than they’ve ever had breaking their own MAU records. Yeah, because the bots and spam area largely out of control. There is significantly much more of it them used to be. And no, ads did not went down because of pressure campaigns, but because of serious mismanagement of ad accounts.
          • callalex 3y ago
            It’s easy to make your MAU go up when you fire all the anti-bot teams.
        • FormerBandmate 3y ago
    • tedivm 3y ago
      Sure, but without those moderators there's not much of a site. I don't spent a lot of time thinking about trash collection, but if all the garbage on my street stopped being collected I'd absolutely notice.
      • nightski 3y ago
        You are probably right, but at the same time there are probably plenty of people willing to step in and take their place.
        • ntaylor 3y ago
          The truth is that there are many, many niche communities where this is simply not true. Whole sections of reddit will die off due to lack of moderation and people will be forced to go elsewhere. This may not be a killing blow for reddit, but it will be devastating to the communities that it impacts.
          • deleted 3y ago
            [deleted]
          • edgyquant 3y ago
            Every community you’re talking about has users who would love to replace the mod team.
            • jachee 3y ago
              So that they, too, can get treated like crap by reddit? I don’t buy it.
              • edgyquant 3y ago
                No so that they can be the ones who get to ban people and shape the community.
        • EnragedParrot 3y ago
    • ajmurmann 3y ago
      Worse, in at least one huge sub I follow the mods are widely hated
      • thepasswordis 3y ago
        I think that’s most subs. This is why I’m actually torn between which group I dislike the most. On the one hand, the admins are being absolute children to the mods. But that said: most (all?) if the Reddit mods I have interacted with are also overgrown children. The “mods vs admins” thing seems like two toddlers screaming at each other. It’s at a point where I kind of want both sides to lose. Something in the culture changed 4-5 years ago where being a mod went from a job where you remove spam posts, to a role where you decide what is allowed for discussion. On my city subreddit, for instance, they’ve gotten it to the point where practically anything which isn’t a photo of a sunset is seen as off topic and removed. And then there’s stuff like: mods will decide to “lock” threads they don’t like. There was a discussion on /r/Catholicism talking about an anti-Catholic group being invited, then uninvited, then reinvited to perform at a baseball game. After a few hours of discussion the mods “locked” this, meaning you couldn’t participate in it anymore. It’s extremely annoying.
        • ajmurmann 3y ago
          "On my city subreddit, for instance, they’ve gotten it to the point where practically anything which isn’t a photo of a sunset is seen as off topic and removed." hah, my reference to the one large sub where the mods are widely hated was about my city's sub which from your description might be the same. Edit: In this case, I have some empathy for the mods though, since that sub faced invasions from people outside the city who hate it.
        • evandale 3y ago
          > Something in the culture changed 4-5 years ago where being a mod went from a job where you remove spam posts, to a role where you decide what is allowed for discussion. > On my city subreddit, for instance, they’ve gotten it to the point where practically anything which isn’t a photo of a sunset is seen as off topic and removed. Yep, this is what needs fixing. My local city subreddit decided there was too much news in the city about crime and banned posting stories about crime in January. It's now June and still a rule. You can only post a story about someone committing a crime or getting arrested if their crime had a city-wide impact. There was a story about teenagers shooting fireworks off on a public bus around Victoria day this year and that post was allowed. People shat on the teenagers and said whatever they wanted about them. It got as nasty as you'd expect. The post announcing their arrest though? It turned out to be a group of POC and so the mods locked the comments within minutes because they anticipated "bad" comments and it was going to be too difficult to moderate. The other annoying thing before that was a small group of powerusers getting annoyed with people asking too many easy-to-Google questions. So a few choice posters would always come in and make the same "I recommend House of Lancaster" (a strip club with a reputation) for every question that got asked. It didn't matter what the question was, there was at least 1 house of Lancaster suggestion. It turned into a meme, the moderators noticed people were hostile to newcomers, and rather than outlawing being hostile to people they banned questions! It’s _extremely_ annoying.
    • badRNG 3y ago
      <1% of Reddit users make the content that provides value to the site. This 1% is disproportionately likely to know who spez is and care about his shenanigans. Even less perform the moderation tasks that keep the site running, and they basically all care about this change.
      • edgyquant 3y ago
        Source for this? I think this is a commonly spouted stat that applied to non-social media websites. I have trouble believing social media sites have the same demographic makeup.
        • badRNG 3y ago
          It's a pretty well-known rule [0]. There's a good post about this in r/dataisbeautiful, but it is currently private. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule
    • AdamN 3y ago
      The proof will be in the pudding. Reddit will survive but unless they back down, alot of people will leave permanently. What surprises me is how lackadaisical the board appears to be - so much money is being left on the table. I would be livid if I was an investor.
    • EnragedParrot 3y ago
      That's a valid point, but on the flip side, Reddit's content is user driven, and 99% of users never post or contribute anything, they're just on the site to consume content posted by that 1% of power users. Those power users are really the "extremely online" people who are angry about this. If you don't have moderators running subreddits and power users posting quality content, reddit doesn't have a product.
    • thomascgalvin 3y ago
      People on Reddit vastly overestimate how closely Reddit's opinion lines up with that of the general public. If the last US Presidential election was held on Reddit, Bernie Sanders would have won in a landslide. He obviously did not. When Netflix announced it was cracking down on password sharing, Reddit declared that this would be the final nail in their coffin. Instead, subscriptions skyrocketed. Reddit power users are angry at spez and claim that this will be the end of the site, but the average Reddit user has maybe heard about all of this, and mostly doesn't care.
    • marricks 3y ago
      > 99.99% of reddit users have no idea who spez is That's why people do things like black outs and protests, so people can learn who people are and what is happening. > probably wouldn't care if they learned about his shenanigans That's information is associated with protests, so people can decide if they care. I can actually understand how most wouldn't care about this. This change isn't that important to me except in that's it's another stepping stone on the death of the free and open web. Twitter API, Reddit API, real ID on Facebook, probably countless other things. What we expected to have in the 2010's is going fast.
  • superfrank 3y ago
    > then on top of their for their CEO to not only get caught in a major lie but for him to then double down on it. > Even spez complaining about Christian recording the calls seems hollow when those recordings are what proved that spez was lying to the community Were the calls ever posted? For the way Reddit has handled this and previous issues I definitely believe Christian over spez, but unless I missed something, right now everyone is just believing what Christian said, right? Edit: I missed it, transcripts and recordings were posted to apollo sub. Thank you to everyone who replied with links
    • tedivm 3y ago
      He posted both a transcript and a recording. You can find them in his post announcing the shutdown. https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_w...
    • flutas 3y ago
      He posted the audio from that part of the call. http://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a http://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-3...
    • Imnimo 3y ago
      https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_w... https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-...
    • mynameisvlad 3y ago
      Transcripts and recordings were posted a few days back by Christian. The transcript is here: https://gist.github.com/christianselig/fda7e8bc5a25aec9824f915e6a5c7014 https://gist.github.com/christianselig/fda7e8bc5a25aec9824f9... The recording itself was posted on Reddit in the apolloapp subreddit.
      • 3y ago
  • neilv 3y ago
    Devil's advocate... From the bits of transcript I saw, a plausible interpretation is that the Reddit person immediately felt like it was a shakedown, then Selig said it wasn't that (maybe true, maybe not), and then the Reddit person said words of apology but it is plausible that they still felt like it was a shakedown, and were only trying to deescalate/steer/negotiate. If they still thought it was a shakedown, it would be honest for them to later say to their team that they thought it was a shakedown. I don't know how much to trust Reddit, and the 30-days notice to showstopper API fees looks very bad. But I see a lot of people just repeating Tweet-sized soundbites, which leads to a dysfunctional and more easily manipulated society.
    • ekanes 3y ago
      If you listen to the audio, it's much clearer. You can hear the dynamic / emotion etc in their voices. Christian's post: https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_w... Audio clip: https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-...
      • neilv 3y ago
        Thanks, the audio clip helps. Selig's initial voice and language signals sounded all over the place (maybe he was nervous, or was speaking very off-the-cuff when broaching an acquisition), but I agree that his correction starting around 2m17s sounds sincere. Devil's advocate still: the perception of a shakedown isn't necessarily dependent on mishearing something literally as "go quietly". What reason does Reddit have to pay $10M, rather than pay $0? Reddit leadership might even feel like it's a shakedown from their perspective, whether or not that's the intention or perception from some app developers. Personally, were I involved, I would indeed be mentally tracking everyone's perspectives and honesty, since that matters a lot (e.g., a mutually better deal might be reached when you understand each other; or you might get a contract, but they might not honor it in good faith, or will screw you at renewal time). But I think Internet pitchforks would do well to keep memetic talking points to the unambiguous (e.g., the proposed API licensing fees, the short time horizon, a party's claims of how that will affect them), and avoid paths that seem more like (ahem) "We did it, Reddit!" loose cannon character assassination.
  • xyst 3y ago
    This is nothing new. You don’t remember the Ellen Pao era? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit (see controversies section)
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • 93po 3y ago
      The era where they banned fatpeoplehate before the jailbait subreddit. Good times.
  • john-radio 3y ago
    > Even spez complaining about Christian recording the calls seems hollow when those recordings are what proved that spez was lying to the community. It's like when a person complains that her husband looked at her phone, when by doing so he discovered she was cheating on him.* Where's the trust? * Genders included for sentence readability, not to imply anything about women or men
    • deaddodo 3y ago
      You're definitely in the wrong for breaking into someone's phone, spouse or not. You're also in the wrong for being unfaithful/operating out of the bounds of an agreed-upon relationship. They aren't mutually exclusive situations.
  • chasil 3y ago
    "I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will." --Warren Buffet.
    • thatguy0900 3y ago
      It's probably very easy to run a business if you've never had to worry about making a profit. I'm not sure that's a wonderful business though.
      • chasil 3y ago
        Buffet prefers businesses with "moats" that present high barriers for new competitors to take market share. Coke and IBM were his preferred stocks for some years for these reasons.
• beertoagunfight 3y ago
  Is there a whole Mastodon like movement with Reddit that users seem to be moving to?
  • tedivm 3y ago
    There's kbin and lemmy, which are both fediverse software.
  • izzydata 3y ago
    Lemmy has been growing rather quickly.
    • rjh29 3y ago
      Just signed up and I quite like it. It feels like HN, it's smaller scale so not quite as addictive and I'm not spending as long browsing it. Which is a good thing.
• nocoiner 3y ago
  IMO, he’s doing a pretty good job negotiating this as well. I know there’s a lot of words right now about broken promises and everyone not wanting to do business with anyone else, but from the outside to this uninformed observer it looks to me like this is a high stakes showdown that’s inching toward a commercial resolution. There’s some dollar amount (representing either an exchange of value or avoided losses) where a compromise is going to make sense for everyone, and I think we’re going to see that before 6/30. My naive guess is that reddit acquires Apollo and runs that as a standalone business, but otherwise maintains the eye-wateringly high pricing on API usage.
  • more_corn 3y ago
    That’s not what they (Reddit) are signaling.
    • nocoiner 3y ago
      I know, but as it exists today, there’s real value to Apollo, the app. Doesn’t sound like it’s possible for Christian to continue to capture 100% of that value, but if I’m Reddit, I’m at least considering a low seven-digit acquisition and capturing x% of that value going forward. That said, the Apollo business is a melting ice cube at the moment. It’s quite possible that 6/30 rolls around and Christian shuts it down and all that value is lost, but it would be rational in the meantime for Christian and Reddit to find a way to share it. Just gotta figure out that split, and this whole thing turns into a win-win.
  • kats 3y ago
    It's clear he is blackmailing them and the upset users are his leverage. After posting that "Apollo will close down on June 30th." he now says "Same as always: I love building Apollo, and if Reddit is willing to to talk I'm happy to as well." which of course was not what he always said. He was never joking about asking for 10 million dollars and is still hoping for an offer.
    • ekanes 3y ago
      > Same as always: I love building Apollo, and if Reddit is willing to to talk I'm happy to as well. Got a source for that? He's made it clear that it's too late, and this can't be repaired. How can you trust someone that lied to make you look bad, and you have proof?
• dabluecaboose 3y ago
  I've gotta say, Christian comes across as really naive in this piece. > Well, it’s weird because prior to this, I almost always understood that Reddit as a company understood that they’re very community-focused, and they kind of didn’t do the bullshit corporate speak. And it was weird to kind of see this week, where they engaged in a lot more of that than I have historically ever seen them do. And it just went over… about as well as I thought it would. I can't imagine anyone seeing this as a surprise given the way that reddit has been operating since at least before the redesign. They always make some corporate-PR-language post announcing unpopular changes, pretend to listen to everyone, then make the change anyway.
  • spiderice 3y ago
    It's really easy to call someone naive once you have all the information (like you do now). But it was much less obvious a couple months ago. Especially given that Christian has worked closely with Reddit for years and they've always treated him well, and seemingly like third party apps.
    • nemo44x 3y ago
      I think the OP is just saying that Selig thought he was bro's with Reddit and didn't really consider that they are a for-profit corporation with a board of directors and shareholders that will abandon him the second it makes financial sense to do so because their leadership are fiduciaries, not bro's.
      • SkyPuncher 3y ago
        I was extremely surprised to learn that Apollo did not have any contractual ties with Reddit (beyond the API agreement).
      • dabluecaboose 3y ago
        I'm commenting on the quoted text, about how Christian claimed Reddit leadership was community-focused and not prone to corporate PR-speak. Which they've absolutely been prone to over the last ~5 years.
• redmerchant2 3y ago
  They buried the lede. The article suggests the shutdown was because of free API to paid API. Anyone uninformed who just click off at that point. Even when they ask about costs, it was just saying it’s “<$1 vs $2.50”. But the issue is two fold. (1) all the devs support a paid API, but the rate is absurd according to basic math. It would charge devs over 20x what a user actually cost/were worth. Devs were willing to take on a higher cost (2-3x) but over 20x is impossible. (2) That basic math was very conservative. The actually multiplier is much higher if you look at the calculations. It’s wild but it seems Christian is even willing to accept a 10x bump (albeit with a higher subscription cost). Not really mentioned was all this was changed out the blue with less than 30 days to comply. The interview touches on it but it’s insanity that a tech company think it’s reasonable for indie devs to operate under that constraint.
  • ryanmerket 3y ago
    Basic math? Let's do the math... Let's say Apollo, Relay, or RIF charged $2/mo per user. Would that be enough to cover their expenses? Looking at Reddit's now API pricing, 100 calls per day per average user would cost $0.72 / month. Google/Apple App Stores take a 15% commission on subscriptions so a total per month per customer average cost would be $0.83 cents. That means the devs would make $0.98 cents per month per user on a $2 subscription fee. (30 cents to Google, 73 cents to reddit, 98 cents left to pocket). With this user base, even if only like 20,000 people subscribe the devs stand to make $20,000 every month in profit. The Relay for Reddit dev breaks it down here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RelayForReddit/comments/147152b/update_how_the_current_api_changes_would_impact/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RelayForReddit/comments/147152b/upd... Apollo has 1.5 MILLION monthly active users. With a 50% conversion rate (meaning half of the users decide to subscribe) and charging $2.00 a month, he would make $750,000 / PER MONTH. That's with the new Reddit fees. More: https://www.reddit.com/r/RelayForReddit/comments/147152b/comment/jnt6ies/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/RelayForReddit/comments/147152b/com...
    • tyg13 3y ago
      50% conversion is laughably high. The number of people in that Relay thread saying they wouldn't pay for the app was unsurprising to me. Not to mention that 3rd party apps would still not have access to NSFW content. I'd be surprised if the conversion rate was as high as 10%. The estimate I saw for current subscribers ($1/month) to Apollo was 50k which is a little over 3% of users.
• causi 3y ago
  I would like a breakdown of Reddit's actual costs vs their proposed fees. Why isn't Reddit profitable? Is there a way to make Reddit profitable without charging for API access?
  • bloopernova 3y ago
    They have 2,000 employees.
    • Aaargh20318 3y ago
      Which is an insane number for an operation like Reddit. I wonder what those people do all day ? I would have estimated Reddit to be 100 people max, and even that seems high.
      • bloopernova 3y ago
        Me too. I was very confused when I heard that number. I was thinking maybe 200 people if they have multiple dev teams and a corporate marketing/sales side for advertising. My employer has slightly fewer people, but we have dozens of clients with sites/apps far more complex than reddit. It just doesn't make sense.
  • mcpeepants 3y ago
    I don't see how this is a play towards profitability, when the (obvious) outcome of their absurd pricing is a massive reduction in API usage. The fact is, advertisements pay better than any amount their users or third-party developers would be willing to bear. This change appears to be more about maximizing that revenue stream (or making it more appealing to advertisers), rather creating a _new_ revenue stream in paid API access.
    • bagels 3y ago
      Isn't maximizing revenue and at the same time reducing costs a step in the direction of profitability?
• mbStavola 3y ago
  I can't say I've missed Reddit too much after I stopped using it. Twitter was a bit harder, but Mastodon filled that niche quite nicely. However, I don't even feel like checking out Lemmy or Kbin as a Reddit replacement, making me question how useful Reddit is for me personally. I wonder if anyone else is feeling the same during the blackout.
  • Domenic_S 3y ago
    I'm looking for rechargeable batteries and monitor shopping right now, and my typical research process involves searching for reviews on Reddit (google: "$item review reddit") because of how many absolute garbage Amazon affiliate link-farms there are these days. It's been tough to stay off Reddit for that research. I've also decided, screw it, I'm taking an Amazon break as well (because they enable the above behavior, the world is worse because Amazon retail exists, CMV) -- boy, shopping for a particular thing is hard without them. Like, I decided to just order more Eneloop batteries, which stores local to me carry them? Goooooood luck finding that out (and I'm in the bay area). I'd love to shift my Amazon spend locally, but ended up ordering from B&H.
    • Larrikin 3y ago
      https://www.rtings.com/monitor https://www.rtings.com/monitor is where you want to look for monitors over random people on Reddit. Rechargable batteries seemed to me to be a complete commodity at this point that they really aren't even worth researching. Anker is my go to for anything USB chargeable related and regular batteries have been totally fine using generic brands in my remotes. I've actually had more problems with brand-name no rechargeable batteries corroding in my remotes.
      • Domenic_S 3y ago
        Yes, I love rtings. I do want the "what's it like to live with this?" input I get from Reddit, although perhaps I'm overindexing on it. Eneloops seem to be the longest-lasting brand, I just pulled out an old eneloop that's been sitting for at least 8 years and it still had it's charge (!!). What I've been looking for is tests like Mooch does for 18650s but for AA/AAA: https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/blog/links-to-all-21700-26650-18350-18500-battery-tests.7436/ https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/blog/links-to-all-21700-26...
• amichail 3y ago
  What would a highly profitable Reddit look like? Why would it be bad for redditors?
  • zerotheliger 3y ago
    user experience has always suffered on social media sites that go public and answer to profits they stop caring about the community. and only try selling us shit or sell the content we create. without us reddit wouldnt exist and they need a reminder of that.
    • bobthepanda 3y ago
      so far, the issue has been engagement results in ad impressions, and the quickest way to engagement is controversy and anger. The death knell for Facebook was when it became people arguing all the time. Toxicity is just generally not pleasant to be around. Ad quality also doesn't help. Major network TV ads are generally higher quality both in terms of the product they're selling and the production quality, but I don't want to see the millionth ad for meal prep startup of the week or questionable unitasker dropshipped off Aliexpress.
    • micv 3y ago
      The user experience of reddit is already poor unless you hide on old.reddit.com. I have no idea how anyone could sign off an interface like the new one, which is just appallingly slow even on relatively high-end hardware.
  • Liquix 3y ago
    It would look like facebook - less and less content, more and more ads. It would be bad for redditors because modern surveillance capitalism/adtech industries are inherently manipulative, deceitful, and will always place profit before the well-being of those consuming the ads.
  • tlholaday 3y ago
    A highly profitable Reddit would be one whose product was reader-paid moderation service. https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/ https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/
• zerotheliger 3y ago
  this is why reddit shouldnt go public either every company that goes public ends up going to shit for the user experience. someones just trying to get rich off our fuckin backs for creating content they profit off.
  • bottlepalm 3y ago
    Is posting a cool link you found 'creating content' ? What percentage of posts are actually the creators themselves? And is it not a fair trade? You're not paying anything to post a link and return the content creator gets massive exposure.
  • dymk 3y ago
    Reddit policy explicitly prohibits more than 10% of a user's submissions from being original content. The site is a link aggregator, not promotional show and tell, despite what people think.
• haunter 3y ago
  >users revolted tbh right now it feels like mods, and especially power-mods (who are moding several high traffic subs), are revolting. I actually enjoy this blackout because a lot of small subs became active refuge for people who doesn't really care about the whole drama. Honestly I'm curious how this will play out but I can see subs just "naturally" replacing themselves with new ones. fyi 92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people https://imgur.com/a/rjE8YuW https://imgur.com/a/rjE8YuW as discussed here too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173018. And it's probably got worse in the last 2 years.
  • bombcar 3y ago
    https://old.reddit.com/r/wholesome/comments/148aw58/radviceanimals_just_had_the_top_mods_permissions/ https://old.reddit.com/r/wholesome/comments/148aw58/radvicea... - https://archive.ph/3qMMA https://archive.ph/3qMMA The worm is turning and the top power-mods are going to get Caesar'd.
    • ahahahahah 3y ago
      Is that case really a "power-mod"? The head mod was inactive for a year and then came back and shutdown a subreddit against the wishes of the active mod team.
      • bombcar 3y ago
        The first test cases are always the strongest ones; watch - it will spread. It's an obviously choreographed play and Reddit is going to win this one.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • johnnyanmac 3y ago
      TBH, this really opens up the discussion of how a "head mod" should work. Even if I agree with the action, I don't like that someone can be inactive for months and then suddenly change course on a large community because they happened to be a mod earlier. But I guess with the way things are going that may not be a problem to consider in the coming years.
• MarkMarine 3y ago
  From what I can tell, it’s not the users that revolted. It’s their unpaid moderator workforce striking in solidarity with the workers that used Apollo to improve their experience. I’m very curious to see what the resolution will be from Reddit’s side, but heading toward IPO while you’ve got a huge chunk of unpaid labor that makes your site work striking can’t be good for the strike price. The workers have the company over a barrel from what I can see.
  • none_to_remain 3y ago
    The users are subject to a lockout as management disputes with the executives.
  • more_corn 3y ago
    Users who use 3rd party apps are part of the equation.
  • VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
    I'm seeing a lot of similarities between Reddit benefiting greatly from their unpaid moderators and Apollo benefiting from them the same. As well as not even having to pay Reddit at all. Did Apollo ever even have to pay for anything whatsoever? Not really that surprising that business went away when the free lunch was over
    • joshstrange 3y ago
      Reddit encouraged building on their API for over a decade. Reddit told Christian in January that there would be no big changes to the API this year if not for multiple years. Reddit told developers it had no plans to charge for it's API. To call it a "free lunch" is pretty disrespectful IMHO, Christian worked hard on Apollo and it blows away the official app. Reddit benefits from 3rd party apps. Period. They don't want to admit that and they might not benefit as much as from 1st party but those users interact, create content, moderate subs, and more. Reddit went from "no charge, use the API" to "pay us a LOT of money and you have <30 days" with zero wiggle room.
    • Atheros 3y ago
• paxys 3y ago
  The part about him already selling 50K annual subscriptions to Apollo is the interesting one in the piece, and explains the decision to discontinue the app. He entered into a contract with users assuming that his API costs would be 0. He can't change that contract and start charging another fee on top, and is obligated to continue to provide the service no matter what Reddit now decides to charge him. So the solution is easy for any laywer to provide - just shut down the business.
  • flutas 3y ago
    > So the solution is easy for any laywer to provide - just shut down the business. I don't really agree with that take. He's already talked about what happens now, and it includes refunds for unused subscription time. > I've been talking to my rep at Apple, and over the next few weeks my plan is to release something similar to what Tweetbot did (Paul has been incredibly helpful in all of this) where folks can decide if they want a pro-rated refund on any existing time left in their subscription as Apollo will not be able to afford to continue it, or they can decline the refund if they're feeling kind and have enjoyed their time with Apollo. > For the curious, refunding all existing subscriptions by my estimates will cost me about $250,000.
    • Sakos 3y ago
      Based on what he said, it's clear that trying to run Apollo while servicing these users would cost him hundreds of thousands more than that with no guarantee that he'd be able to make up the difference over time. So he is just shutting down the business. Even if he's legally obligated to refund the users it's still cheaper than what it would cost in API fees.
      • flutas 3y ago
        Agree, but the parent comment was coming across as it's a "cut and run" situation. For anyone curious about what he said on trying to run everything as a paid sub quickly: > One option many have suggested is to simply increase the price of Apollo to offset costs. The issue here is that Apollo has approximately 50,000 yearly subscribers at the moment. On average they paid $10/year many months ago, a price I chose based on operating costs I had at the time (server fees, icon design, having a part-time server engineer). Those users are owed service as they already prepaid for a year, but starting July 1st will (in the best case scenario) cost an additional $1/month each in Reddit fees. That's $50,000 in sudden monthly fee that will start incurring in 30 days. > So you see, even if I increase the price for new subscribers, I still have those many users to contend with. If I wait until their subscription expires, slowly month after month there will be less of them. First month $50,000, second month maybe $45,000, then $40,000, etc. until everything has expired, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would be cheaper to simply refund users. > I hope you can recognize how that's an enormous amount of money to suddenly start incurring with 30 days notice. Even if I added 12,000 new subscribers at $5/month (an enormous feat given the short notice), after Apple's fees that would just be enough to break even. > Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days. That's a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it's just not economically feasible. It's much cheaper for me to simply shut down.
• 999900000999 3y ago
  I love Reddit, but the constant ads are getting worse. It's like they have no internal controls here. Would someone really be interested in He Gets Us and Seeking Arrangements at the same time. I'm also a bit confused as to why Reddit would target 3rd party apps like this. Most people, myself included don't bother with 3rd party apps. Unless the adds are going to get even worse soon...
  • bottlepalm 3y ago
    You have to watch more ads to make up the the costs incurred by 3rd party api usage as well as the costs incurred by the users of those apps seeing no ads at all. It's kind of a funny protest - poor people who watch lots of ads protesting for the rights of rich people to enjoy an ad free experience.
  • darknavi 3y ago
    > I'm also a bit confused as to why Reddit would target 3rd party apps like this. They are trying to extract as much value before their IPO as possible.
  • djhworld 3y ago
    The ads on old.reddit.com are less intrusive.
    • paxys 3y ago
      Enjoy it while it lasts.
• MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
  Does anything like this exist? A feed of unfiltered, unmoderated content + conversations, fed to a multitude of websites, each with its own moderation filters and content standards. All submissions go to the to the shared feed, but hit moderation and content filters on the website before being displayed. So you can have a reddit-like website with a lot of good content, but if it ever goes south people can quickly flock to a peer.* Is this how Mastodon and Nostr expect things to work? If so, are there any "winning" websites where most Mastodon and Nostr users congregate? For most users the back end philosophy is only there to serve the end result. For any given post or comment you need a simple website link you can share with friends; no thinking required. *Bonus: if people feel like their views are being improperly censored they can, again, jump to a peer with different filtering standards.
  • kingnothing 3y ago
    RSS was basically this. Usenet was good as well.
  • polytely 3y ago
    Mastodon could work like that if you would federate with every instance, except that there are a sizable amount of instances that cut ties with instances that don't do moderation because they tend to be filled with the most unpleasant people you don't want to interact with. I'm in a small-ish instance with a great admin/mod team who's values align with mine and who judiciously eject people with bad vibes. (mostly nazi's and transphobes) I feel no need to share a social network with people who hate my friends for who they are so the whole proposition of uncensored content doesn't appeal to me at all.
  • paxys 3y ago
    The problem with every such design is that the infrastructure layer takes up close to 100% of the development effort, hosting costs, maintenance costs and content liability while getting nothing in return. So why would anyone set up such a service?
    • MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
• nemo44x 3y ago
  If Apollo is so popular, why doesn't Reddit clone the best features for their app? I'm guessing the Apollo founder here is trying to get bought out at this point, which is pretty smart.
  • izzydata 3y ago
    Apollo should clone Reddit's backend instead.
    • ink_13 3y ago
      The value of reddit is not in the backend.
      • tester457 3y ago
        It's in the network. The million dollar idea is how to get the users to move somewhere else.
      • Eumenes 3y ago
        its the domain name
  • spdif899 3y ago
    We saw this before with Alien Blue, which was previously the top iOS app. Reddit bought it, promised to turn it into their official app, killed it, and released a version with fewer features and more bugs. If Reddit buys Apollo, there's zero chance they let it operate independently. Christian gets a nice payout and all his users leave for the next best option. If I'm reddit I don't think I see that as being worth the cost that the app's userbase might be on paper just based on API cost.
• seydor 3y ago
  This thing has been blown way out of proportion. Few people use those apps
  • darknavi 3y ago
    The power users (content posters) and moderators use 3rd party tools and apps extensively.
  • wvenable 3y ago
    I've been using 3rd party apps for over 15 years -- it doesn't feel blown out of proportion to me.
• runnr_az 3y ago
  Why doesn't he get his users to get their own API keys?
  • tantalor 3y ago
    It's too much of a hassle for ordinary users, and probably requires to set up billing. Reddit could easily change their terms in the future to prohibit.
  • pixelatedindex 3y ago
    Reddit's APIs are not user-based from what I can tell.
  • seanalltogether 3y ago
    I've actually asked the baconreader guys to go that direction, not sure if they will. It's a bit of a hassle to the user, but it's pretty straightforward on https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps
    • joshstrange 3y ago
      If you click through that you actually have to go over here [0] eventually to ask for access, it's not automated AFAICT: From your link: > By creating an app, you agree to Reddit's Developer Terms and Data Api Terms. You must also register to use the API [1]. Which takes you to a page that says: > When you are ready, you must register [0] in order to use the Reddit API. Select “I’m a Developer” and “I want to register to use the Reddit API.” [0] https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=14868593862164 https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_... [1] https://www.reddit.com/wiki/api#wiki_read_the_full_api_terms_and_sign_up_for_usage https://www.reddit.com/wiki/api#wiki_read_the_full_api_terms...
  • Timon3 3y ago
    Reddit made the process for registering an application more complicated. In the comments of the AMA there were a number of developers who said that they contacted Reddit many times about API access, and never got a response. It's unlikely that they would engage thousands of users in a better way.
• programmarchy 3y ago
  Here’s some tinfoil. Maybe OpenAI (or some other data hungry org) made a deal with Reddit to build up their data/training moat. Announcing this would have an even bigger backlash than what we’re currently seeing, and could explain why Reddit would shut down API access in such a hamfisted but plausibly deniable matter. To substantiate this a bit, Microsoft already had a pre-existing relationship with Reddit since 2017 [1] to augment their capabilities with Bing and their “BI” tools. They could be leveraging that relationship to boost their investment in OpenAI. [1] https://www.redditinc.com/blog/reddit-microsoft-power-bi-bing https://www.redditinc.com/blog/reddit-microsoft-power-bi-bin...
• redkinght99 3y ago
  Redditors I've seen: 1. They don't know what's going on with their favorite subreddit being taken offline. 2. They agree with the protest but couldn't care less if some person doesn't get free / cheap API. 3. They are actively angry that a Reddit neckbeard took their business, show, hobby page offline, unilaterally. I could see this backfiring and spez preventing subreddits with a certain following from going private in the future.
• mardifoufs 3y ago
  It's so weird that this revenue generating app is the poster child for Reddit admins abusing third parties or whatever. They literally made money for years, almost completely unbothered by Reddit inc, with their own ads and subscription model. I just don't get it, this is not some open source app getting mauled by a corporate behemoth. Apollo probably made more profit from Reddit than Reddit itself. And yes I know, Reddit could have rolled their own ads in the API but... Literally no one does that. Reddit ads are already extremely cheap (read, worthless to advertisers) as it is. No one would trust an ad network that has no control over how it displays and tracks said apps. I run Adblock everywhere so I'm not particularly sad about ads being worthless, but it still matters for Reddit inc. Now obviously apollo was well within its rights to profit from their app but you can't have your cake and eat it too: you can't expect to generate profit from another business unilaterally forever and be shocked that they won't allow it. Now before someone calls me a shill, I will literally never use Reddit after the API change since for me Reddit is just Reddit Is Fun. Without it, the whole website is unusable. And I'm extremely critical of Reddit in general. But this is just weird, this is a business deal that has turned into some sort of martyrdom. As people have said countless times in other situations where people had issues with reddit; just use another platform. (Or at least advocate for open source apps API access. For me the ideal solution would be apps with a bring your own API key model. And I really think there are two discussions that have been getting mixed up: commercial use for the API like Apollo's and general access for third parties. One I don't care about, the other is crucial to me using Reddit.)
  • graphe 3y ago
    This sounds like every apple product, like Watson getting Sherlocked. Except reddit didn't even make Sherlock.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • ink_13 3y ago
    The choices are not just "third party apps get a free lunch" or "third-party apps pay $millions". Even Selig admits there's a middle ground where API pricing is reasonable. Or maybe just restricted to Reddit Gold accounts. Or Reddit inserts must-show ads into API responses. Et cetera. The point is there's a middle ground to be had, but rather than negotiating for an outcome both sides can live with, Reddit is just choking third-party apps (many of which provide tooling for moderating at scale or enable accessibility) to death.
• xyst 3y ago
  If anybody does create a “Reddit” clone, I think it should be federated. All “subreddits” or communities are just phpBB or vBulletin forums of the past. Instead of “someinterestingtopic.com/forum” it’s now “Reddit.com/r/someinterestingtopic” There’s some differences in organization but otherwise the same thing.
• cache_hit 3y ago
  I don't really get the perspective some people seem to have in here that because Reddit can't turn a profit, that's somehow something that should come into the equation when it comes to justifying or explaining away the way that these sorts of moves are being implemented. Reddit's bad business model is their problem, not mine or anyone else's other than their gambling investors. What is my problem is the abrupt and unprofessional way in which they do things, and the improper way they conduct themselves when dealing with users or third parties. The scheduling alone for the third party API switch would be inexcusable for any business vendor that I or anyone I do business with would ever deal with, yet in HN it seems to be handwaved away with statements like "I agree the timing is tight." Add to that the misrepresented communication with the Apollo dev in particular, I struggle to see how any of this is admissable from a platform or partner who is now in the business of selling access to their API at premium rates. Reddit has no intrinsic right to exist, and the fact that it can't turn a profit and that their product is now selling access to user-generated content that is being produced despite their shoddy engineering speaks volumes. If I was one of these devs (and it's hardly just the Apollo guy) I would not come back no matter what Reddit does. This sort of behaviour cannot be tolerated or made to be the new yardstick for VC sweethearts.
• penguin_booze 3y ago
  Maybe I'm missing something: why can't Apollo--or any other app--pass the API burden to the user? I get that this means the user experience via the app would effetively turn out to be paid service. But then, to match, Reddit could have also relaxed their policy to the effect that, up to n API access would be free; beyond that, Reddit would charge the user. Microsoft, for example, already do this for many of their Azure services. Thus, if you're a moderate user on the free plan, you get essentially a free ride.
  • darknavi 3y ago
    Probably possible but that would likely take their app's user base down significantly as most average users wouldn't go through the steps to register their own API keys and setup billing.
  • danpalmer 3y ago
    This sort of stuff tends to be against the terms of service – it is with Twitter at least and Reddit are following their playbook here. This would have the same effect though, almost no one would use it, and that kills the business case for Apollo, and Apollo ceases to exist. Maybe an open source volunteer run client might limp on, but that's it. It's also super easy to detect these sorts of things and just ban that usage.
  • Rebelgecko 3y ago
    Do you mean letting users provide their own API key? Most people would probably stay within the free API limits-but I believe this is also a violation of the reddit TOS which strongly discourages using multiple oauth client IDs.
  • eric-hu 3y ago
    Apollo sold subscriptions for up to a year, and they would’ve had to burn money to honor those subscriptions. The cost was in the millions. They did ask for more time for the changes than the given 30 days, and Reddit refused.
  • ibero 3y ago
    they could but not in under 30 days.
• photochemsyn 3y ago
  You have to wonder if Reddit's profit model is based on selling advertising or selling the ability to control information distribution. The really poor search capability points to the latter being a big issue. If you can just write a good search query that retrieves relevant comments from posts, as well as the posts, then you can bypass the moderators and administrators, who tend to want to control the visibility of content according to their own agenda. Closing down the API would align with the latter agenda; look up the whole pushshift camas saga for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/134tjpe/reddit_data_api_update_changes_to_pushshift_access/ https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/134tjpe/reddit_dat...
• CivBase 3y ago
  It's not about price. It's about implementation and lies. 30 days is not enough time for Christian (or any third party app fev) to build, test, and release a solution to collect payments on behalf of all his app's users for API access. Not to mention making things right with users who already payed for an extendes subscription for his app. There are a few things Reddit could have done here. 1. Let third party app devs know about the upcoming change much earlier so they could prepare. 2. Extend the deadline. 3. Implement a BYOK system where users buy individual API keys directly from Reddit, then provide the keys to the third party apps for API access. Instead Reddit lied to the devs about their API plans up until almost the last minute. Then they rolled out a plan they knew no major third party app could comply with in time. Then u/spez lied about Christian in a poor attempt to discredit him. Reddit could have made their API work even at that huge price tag. But they didn't want to. They just wanted to drag everyone kicking and screaming to the official app.
• N_A_T_E 3y ago
  I'm assuming 90% of these API requests are reads. Is there a reason Apollo couldn't develop an intermediate proxy server and cache all the responses for a short period of time? I assume that would cut the API usage significantly and potentially the cost.
  • xii23 3y ago
    I didn't check, but I think their back-end already cached stuff somewhat; the dev open sourced it so you can take a look* * https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend
  • darknavi 3y ago
    Honestly sounds like a headache for outdated cache bugs. Reddit data is very fluid.
  • Havoc 3y ago
    Reddit API reads are all going to be pretty unique unfortunately. They're all logged in & have their own mix of subs selections etc
  • shagie 3y ago
    They are mostly reads. They are done every few seconds for each user to get the mailbox status for push notifications for monthly subscribers. https://youtu.be/Ypwgu1BpaO0?t=1772 https://youtu.be/Ypwgu1BpaO0?t=1772 > I guess there's an analogy um the way Reddit notifications work just for your inbox like you got a message or something um they work in so far as if I the developer of the app want to um say make sure that you get that notification within 10 seconds I have to be checking Reddit every 10 seconds to go like is there anything new is there anything new? is there anything new? is there anything new? okay. There is okay I'll tell is there anything new and then just repeating that at nauseam so you can imagine if you get a message once a week I'm checking every 10 seconds and then once during that whole week I get that message and then I can send it to you um so 99.99 of those API calls were wasted so we've talked to Reddit like that my friend who works on my server um and myself and I've said like what would be so much better is if we could just kind of keep like a port open with Reddit and say like you just tell us when there's a notification ready and we'll beam it off we don't have to bug you all the time and it's logical right and that's how a lot of services do it it's like an event-based API and um that's just not something reddit's ever uh given us Note that it does a request every 10 seconds for each user. At the API rate that would be about $0.25 every 3 hours (for each user) to support it.
• Decabytes 3y ago
  I'm not a webdev so I understand if this point is naive. The Apollo dev said the cost will be about 20x what Reddit pays for its user. Obviously Reddit needs and can maintain a competitive advantage by having a native app. So charging more per user for a 3rd party app is not unreasonable. For the sake of simplicity let's say that reddit makes $1.00 per user per month that uses their app. Currently they make no money on third party apps. All third party app devs seem fine paying a price to use the API as that is standard practice for different websites. It seems like Reddit could have just charged them 3.00 Per user per month, so they get a healthy margin off of the third party apps. They would actually be making money off of third party apps, and if everyone used the third party app over the native one, then they would be making 3x what they would with users using the native one. 3x seems like a healthy enough margin for me, and they win whether we use their app or not. Devs like Apollo would have a lot more options for monetizing it's users at 3x Reddit's price per user than at 20x. Everyone seems to win. Instead they went with the move that is obviously intended to kill third party apps, and face major backlash from its most devoted users in a self own. The path seems simple to me but maybe that's why I'm not a CEO.
  • john-radio 3y ago
    > Instead they went with the move that is obviously intended to kill third party apps, and face major backlash from its most devoted users in a self own It seems that the Reddit executive team has decided that killing third-party apps is in its best interest regardless of the probably-to-some-degree-expected backlash. I think Christian's and your conclusion, that Reddit intends for the new pricing to be prohibitive, which indicates that it "is obviously intended to kill third party apps," is fair.
  • donmcronald 3y ago
    > It seems like Reddit could have just charged them 3.00 Per user per month, so they get a healthy margin off of the third party apps. That's not the way things work anymore. If they think they can charge $10 a user and get away with it they will, regardless of how unethical or deceitful they need to be. And it's not just Reddit, it's our entire world of business "leaders" that have adopted that attitude. The problem is that you're looking at it from the perspective of what makes a good product, and view 3P apps as part of a good product. However, the only question getting asked by the executives, board members, investors, etc. is "what makes a ton of money?" Bring back the product focused people IMO.
• hax0ron3 3y ago
  I hope that Reddit just purges the mods who are behind the protest and replaces them with new ones. It might cause those mods to engage in an activity that many of them seem to not have done in years: having conversations in spaces where they cannot just shut everyone else up by pushing a button. I dislike the Reddit redesign and still use old.reddit.com, so I should be all in favor of free API access. However, there is almost nothing that could possibly get me to side with the mods, the people who have done more than anyone else to turn Reddit into the banal and censorious echo chamber that it is today. In a war between Reddit and Reddit's mods, the Internet of actual open discussion wins.
• hartator 3y ago
  Appollo main dev said he wanted 10M to “keep the app quiet”. I wouldn’t want to negotiate after that as well.
  • Sunspark 3y ago
    He was making a joke. If Reddit took a stressed joke attempting to defuse the situation a bit as a threat, it really makes the statement that their management or outreach team really does consist of mentally slow people who should experience a Musk-style firing. Some people make jokes when they are stressed or anxious.
    • hartator 3y ago
      Maybe or maybe not and he was dead serious. In both cases, when you are making threats, it’s reasonable for the other side to walk away.
      • azemetre 3y ago
        What threat is there? Reddit had, and still has, all the power dynamics in these conversations. It's their product, Christian can't really coerce them to do anything whereas Reddit can and is.
  • hbn 3y ago
    He was referring to working with reddit to optimize the API requests so it's less stress on the servers. I'm not sure where this thing about it being a "joke" came from. Reddit accused him of making too many requests (even though he was insanely below the threshold they themselves allotted), and he said he was willing to fit within whatever they wanted as a new threshold, or "keep the app quiet"
• 2-718-281-828 3y ago
  on a side note: the current ceo steven huffman founded reddit together with aaron swartz ... sad irony.
• abhijat 3y ago
  Interestingly (though perhaps a bit off topic) I received a survey from reddit today in my inbox of my 11 year old account. This is the first of any communication reddit has had with me. It had questions like how comfortable are you with the information on reddit etc. At first I thought it was because of the possible IPO but I did recently ask for my data so that might have been the trigger.
• rifty 3y ago
  If Reddit really wanted to make this work they could've worked something out. They know the apps developer keys and could have specially given them a longer runway to transition similar to how they are giving accessibility exemptions[1]. To speculate... I get the sense in part that Reddit hung the big apps out to dry for being publicly vocal and interacting with the press. Apollo probably was already lacking in sympathy with executives for being the reddit app getting air time at an Apple event. It would be petty if true but it is unfortunately no less then what I expect from Reddit. Reddit came out looking dysfunctional[2] and sleazy throughout this. There was no good reason for this to blowup in the way it did. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/DystopiaForReddit/comments/145e9sk/update_dystopia_will_continue_operating_for_free/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DystopiaForReddit/comments/145e9sk/... [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/jnk2q0e/ https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_...
• aniforprez 3y ago
  Is anyone else really curious what's going on at Reddit HQ right now? At the end of January they were confident that the API would never be priced and within 4 months they completely changed their minds. But what truly baffles me is that this honestly does not seem like a move to price out third party apps. They genuinely thought he would pay out. How exactly did they think that was happening? Even if the pricing was reasonable, all communication with third party devs was through phone calls and pricing was discussed verbally. The RedReader app developer mentioned that he had to make rough calculations on paper to conclude that he'd have to pay close to a million dollars annually in fees[1]. There's no dashboard to show billing and API usage per client? How do they expect that will go when you're asking users to pay for your API? And especially in such a short time frame? There's also the whole business of NSFW content on the API being not allowed for "law enforcement" reasons but reddit JUST recently pushed an update that allows uploading NSFW content on the website[2]. These moves make me feel that reddit might be trying to cash in on the porn and capture the OF market that's brewing within the site and keep it to their official apps and this might require age verification. I'm not sure but it seems like the folks at reddit are actually floundering and not just making malicious moves. Their communication reeks of more than hostility. It seems to me more like desperation and a last ditch effort to do... something? Did their revenue numbers suddenly tank? Did they make some bad decisions and lost a lot of money? Did their ad buyers pull out suddenly? It's very possible we are watching the death throes of a website here [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/RedReader/comments/13ylk42/update_3_reddit_effectively_kills_off_third_party/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedReader/comments/13ylk42/update_3... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13evueo/bringing_image_uploads_to_parity/ https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13evueo/bringing_i...
  • johnnyanmac 3y ago
    TBH I think it's relatively simple. Reddit had this planned for a while, and they didn't want to go on public record with this until the 11th hour. I highly doubt any accountant looked at Apollo and thought "yes, this app makes $20 million/year". Let alone thought "okay, let's ask for literally all that money ourselves. 100% platform rate". You may be right that something huge happened internally, but I don't think $20m would have solved it. Apparently most of their money is made off ads, and instead of working with 3p's, they thought it easiest to force more ads on users. So it's easier to turn off the API switch than to slowly integrate something with 3P's. as for NSFW: that's an issue every company with NSFW content has struggled with. It's a paradox where it's very lucrative and companies want that money, but also a huge pain in the neck to compromise with in a legal sense. when you need to pay some employees full time to fight these fights, you have to start wondering if that cash cow is even worth it? When credit card companies start to deny you based on that, that answer becomes very clear.
• fisherjeff 3y ago
  Okay, maybe Reddit should just buy Apollo and make Selig CEO. Just incredible how much better of a communicator he is than Huffman. Low bar, but still.
  • Kye 3y ago
    Whatever business objective is driving this nonsense is probably already too deep in investor expectations/planning (and maybe contracts) for a new CEO to stop.
    • fisherjeff 3y ago
      I don’t mean to imply I think he could - or even necessarily should - stop the changes. Just, if you’re going to be CEO and make a big change you need to be a great communicator and… well yeah.
• sitkack 3y ago
  Really thinking about canceling the New Yorker because of this. Sorry New Yorker.
  • darknavi 3y ago
    What does the New Yorker have to do with this?
    • sitkack 3y ago
      Same parent company.
• choas 3y ago
  if an investor comes up with the same questions, spez should be gone as CEO: - Have they just now realized that AI might pay millions of dollars after reddit was founded 18 years ago? - Do they know that Reddit data has value because it is structured and rated and third-party tools help to do this? - They know that even their annoying ads don’t make them profitable, but do they know that these ads reduce the chance that the user might produce new valuable data for all these AI millions of dollars?
• AceJohnny2 3y ago
  Reddit's sudden API intransigence can be explained solely by the shock of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Steve Hoffman, Reddit's CEO, has expressed outrage that Reddit's data was mined to train ChatGPT (and other LLMs) without any benefit to Reddit. (I absolutely do not support their drastic measures, but it's useful to understand where it comes from)
  • AceJohnny2 3y ago
    <conspiracy theory hat on> And since both Sam Altman (OpenAI's CEO) and Steve Hoffman are from the Y Combinator gang (nervously looks around), I wouldn't even be surprised if there's some form of rivalry here.
• rurban 3y ago
  > CEO Steve Huffman wrote during an AMA session over the weekend. “Unlike some of the [third-party] apps, we are not profitable.” If even reddit itself is not profitable, how on earth can they plan an IPO at all?