5 ms·

It's remarkable that a San Francisco tech company with 2,000+ employees can't seem to produce an app that's half as good as Apollo, an app developed by one guy

by pants2 3y ago

It's remarkable that a San Francisco tech company with 2,000+ employees can't seem to produce an app that's half as good as Apollo, an app developed by one guy in Canada.

mostlysimilar 3y ago
Different incentives. Apollo was made by someone who loved making software and wanting to build something nice for people. Reddit is made by a corporation interested only in extracting as much wealth from the platform as possible, with as little regard for users as they can get away with.
- ryanisnan 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - acureau 3y ago
    Passionless devs exist in droves, but I've never met a dev who didn't enjoy the salary. It's not far fetched at all to say that an individual working on something they care about has different incentives than an employee earning their pay.
    - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
      > Passionless devs exist in droves, but I've never met a dev who didn't enjoy the salary. You haven't worked outside specific areas of the states, eh? Pay here in Canada is nothing extraordinary.
      - dartos 3y ago
        If you can comfortably afford a place to live, some fun event a few times a month, and to eat out more than once a week, that’s pretty extraordinary.
      - acureau 3y ago
        I live and work in Louisiana, my pay is well below even the average entry level software engineer's.
        MisterBastahrd 3y ago
        I once had a job in Louisiana where they gave me a $12 hourly raise because the guy they were hiring to be my subordinate was going to be making $7 more than I was currently earning.
      - dghlsakjg 3y ago
        Dev pay in Canada isn't extraordinary in comparison to US salaries, but the average salary of an associate dev is in the top 25th percentile for all age groups, and the low end of the scale is above the 50th percentile for all age groups. Note that this does not include people with senior in their title. I would say that any career that essentially guarantees above average pay compared to your age cohort for your entire career without the need for a degree is a rather extraordinary industry.
  - EduardoBautista 3y ago
    The devs at Reddit don't get to choose what they work on. They are paid to build what they are told to build. And that's fine. It's just a job.
  - bigyikes 3y ago
    There are many high caliber engineers who just do it for the paycheck. I’m not one of them, but given the crazy compensation, it’s no surprise the field attracts outsiders.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    > I've seldom met a dev who didn't enjoy the profession. When you're an individual dev, if you think ads are bullshit, tracking is bullshit, /r/all is bullshit, non-chronological feeds are bullshit, infinite scroll is bullshit, promoting ragebait/clickbait to boost engagement is bullshit, gold/coins/stickers/premium is bullshit, inline images are bullshit, and anything that negatively impacts responsiveness/performance/stability is bullshit - it's within your power to improve the product - often by simply not implementing them. When you're a dev for a big corporation like reddit, though, if your boss wants some bullshit that makes the product worse but more profitable, it's your job to make the product worse but more profitable.
    - throwaway14356 3y ago
      I like rewriting things again and again. It would be funny to explain why. My gut told me to do it?
  - zoeysmithe 3y ago
    Under capitalism workers dont have autonomy to do what they want. They do what the bosses want who themselves do the dictates of the system, which is to maximize profit above everything else, in one form or another, for capital owners. This is one of the main reasons why solo-dev passion projects vastly exceed quality, usefulness, etc than a commercial product. See also Windows Server vs Linux-based servers.
    - reducesuffering 3y ago
      > Under capitalism workers dont have autonomy to do what they want Curious what you think people under the USSR or hunter-gatherers were doing...
- jorvi 3y ago
  For a while, until he made sure every holiday stuffed the app with a repeating pop-up (think 5+ times over the holiday) that asked users to subscribe. Even users that already paid for the “Pro” version. I forgot what he did when Apollo closed down but it was another big moneygrab. The app itself always stayed pretty great, but the steady ramp up in monetization got increasingly annoying over the years.
  - mostlysimilar 3y ago
    I remember the reports in r/apollo but I never experienced those issues myself. I don't know the guy personally so I can't make a judgement on if he was lying about that being a bug or not, but whatever the case it certainly wasn't something every user experienced.
  - callalex 3y ago
    Interesting, I used Apollo literally every day from launch to shutdown and did not have the same experience as you at all.
jonny_eh 3y ago
It's bizarre to me that they didn't acquire Apollo. It would have generated so much goodwill.
- randomdata 3y ago
  They already acquired Alien Blue, the (once) most popular and beloved mobile Reddit client. How much more goodwill does the company need?
  - mhh__ 3y ago
    My analysts are suggesting approximately 3.2 Goodwills
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
Well the core purpose of the official app is to slurp up as much user data as possible and deliver targeted ads.
cornholio 3y ago
These are all good arguments in favor of Paul's assertion that "Reddit is unkillable". I mean, people still use it despite a complete cluster-bombed design, intense push towards monetization at the cost of user experience, atrocious management and clear dictatorial tendencies from the top muffin, etc. It seems not even Reddit itself can kill Reddit despite their best tries. It's in the nature of their moat: millions of tightly focused small forums, each easy to duplicate on their own, but together making the Reddit account a gateway to an enormous chunk of the user-generated internet. You open a Reddit, and not, say, a Telegram channel, because that's where the users are, ready to form a coherent community around your topic. What might finally do Reddit in, or at least open vast markets for copycats, is its intense need to fit inside the narrow Overton window of American politics, in order to be palatable as a publicly traded company. This has already led to extremely heavy handed bans of major reddits and things can only get worse. If it reaches the breaking point, you will see a mass migration of not only the ideology driven communities, but also the neutral ones like fandoms, hobbyists etc., because they will move to where the users are.
- beryilma 3y ago
  > It's in the nature of their moat On a tangent, what is the deal with the word moat and why is everybody using it all of a sudden? What does it mean?
  - crq-yml 3y ago
    "Competitive moat." It's a term Warren Buffett has used often to describe businesses that have an advantage that blocks competitors, like a moat around the wall of a castle. Control over intellectual property rights is an example of such a moat.
  - mikestew 3y ago
    "All of a sudden"? I've heard that term used for probably twenty years now, if not more, originating (IIRC) with Warren Buffet. What does the moat of a castle do? Keeps the baddies out. What does the "moat" of a business do? Keeps the competitors out. To take a recent example, what would Nvidia's moat be? A strong argument could be made that it's CUDA. For the sake of argument, let's say anyone could throw a bunch of silicon on a PCB and make a GPU equivalent to Nvidia's. Doesn't matter, because your cheapo GPU won't run the CUDA software that makes Nvidia's dominance possible. To offer one more example out of my butt, take Apple. The Apple brand makes up at least some of their moat. You could build an exact clone of an iPhone that even runs latest iOS (assume for the sake of argument that there's a way to get the OS on your hardware). Doesn't matter, unless you're ready to infringe on trademarks by putting an Apple logo on there, few will buy it because they want Apple, not a functional work-alike.

by pants2 3y ago

It's remarkable that a San Francisco tech company with 2,000+ employees can't seem to produce an app that's half as good as Apollo, an app developed by one guy in Canada.

mostlysimilar 3y ago

Different incentives. Apollo was made by someone who loved making software and wanting to build something nice for people. Reddit is made by a corporation interested only in extracting as much wealth from the platform as possible, with as little regard for users as they can get away with.

ryanisnan 3y ago
[flagged]
- acureau 3y ago
  Passionless devs exist in droves, but I've never met a dev who didn't enjoy the salary. It's not far fetched at all to say that an individual working on something they care about has different incentives than an employee earning their pay.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    > Passionless devs exist in droves, but I've never met a dev who didn't enjoy the salary. You haven't worked outside specific areas of the states, eh? Pay here in Canada is nothing extraordinary.
    - dartos 3y ago
      If you can comfortably afford a place to live, some fun event a few times a month, and to eat out more than once a week, that’s pretty extraordinary.
    - acureau 3y ago
      I live and work in Louisiana, my pay is well below even the average entry level software engineer's.
      - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
        I once had a job in Louisiana where they gave me a $12 hourly raise because the guy they were hiring to be my subordinate was going to be making $7 more than I was currently earning.
    - dghlsakjg 3y ago
      Dev pay in Canada isn't extraordinary in comparison to US salaries, but the average salary of an associate dev is in the top 25th percentile for all age groups, and the low end of the scale is above the 50th percentile for all age groups. Note that this does not include people with senior in their title. I would say that any career that essentially guarantees above average pay compared to your age cohort for your entire career without the need for a degree is a rather extraordinary industry.
- EduardoBautista 3y ago
  The devs at Reddit don't get to choose what they work on. They are paid to build what they are told to build. And that's fine. It's just a job.
- bigyikes 3y ago
  There are many high caliber engineers who just do it for the paycheck. I’m not one of them, but given the crazy compensation, it’s no surprise the field attracts outsiders.
- michaelt 3y ago
  > I've seldom met a dev who didn't enjoy the profession. When you're an individual dev, if you think ads are bullshit, tracking is bullshit, /r/all is bullshit, non-chronological feeds are bullshit, infinite scroll is bullshit, promoting ragebait/clickbait to boost engagement is bullshit, gold/coins/stickers/premium is bullshit, inline images are bullshit, and anything that negatively impacts responsiveness/performance/stability is bullshit - it's within your power to improve the product - often by simply not implementing them. When you're a dev for a big corporation like reddit, though, if your boss wants some bullshit that makes the product worse but more profitable, it's your job to make the product worse but more profitable.
  - throwaway14356 3y ago
    I like rewriting things again and again. It would be funny to explain why. My gut told me to do it?
- zoeysmithe 3y ago
  Under capitalism workers dont have autonomy to do what they want. They do what the bosses want who themselves do the dictates of the system, which is to maximize profit above everything else, in one form or another, for capital owners. This is one of the main reasons why solo-dev passion projects vastly exceed quality, usefulness, etc than a commercial product. See also Windows Server vs Linux-based servers.
  - reducesuffering 3y ago
    > Under capitalism workers dont have autonomy to do what they want Curious what you think people under the USSR or hunter-gatherers were doing...
jorvi 3y ago
For a while, until he made sure every holiday stuffed the app with a repeating pop-up (think 5+ times over the holiday) that asked users to subscribe. Even users that already paid for the “Pro” version. I forgot what he did when Apollo closed down but it was another big moneygrab. The app itself always stayed pretty great, but the steady ramp up in monetization got increasingly annoying over the years.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  I remember the reports in r/apollo but I never experienced those issues myself. I don't know the guy personally so I can't make a judgement on if he was lying about that being a bug or not, but whatever the case it certainly wasn't something every user experienced.
- callalex 3y ago
  Interesting, I used Apollo literally every day from launch to shutdown and did not have the same experience as you at all.

jonny_eh 3y ago

It's bizarre to me that they didn't acquire Apollo. It would have generated so much goodwill.

randomdata 3y ago
They already acquired Alien Blue, the (once) most popular and beloved mobile Reddit client. How much more goodwill does the company need?
- mhh__ 3y ago
  My analysts are suggesting approximately 3.2 Goodwills

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago

Well the core purpose of the official app is to slurp up as much user data as possible and deliver targeted ads.

cornholio 3y ago

These are all good arguments in favor of Paul's assertion that "Reddit is unkillable". I mean, people still use it despite a complete cluster-bombed design, intense push towards monetization at the cost of user experience, atrocious management and clear dictatorial tendencies from the top muffin, etc. It seems not even Reddit itself can kill Reddit despite their best tries. It's in the nature of their moat: millions of tightly focused small forums, each easy to duplicate on their own, but together making the Reddit account a gateway to an enormous chunk of the user-generated internet. You open a Reddit, and not, say, a Telegram channel, because that's where the users are, ready to form a coherent community around your topic. What might finally do Reddit in, or at least open vast markets for copycats, is its intense need to fit inside the narrow Overton window of American politics, in order to be palatable as a publicly traded company. This has already led to extremely heavy handed bans of major reddits and things can only get worse. If it reaches the breaking point, you will see a mass migration of not only the ideology driven communities, but also the neutral ones like fandoms, hobbyists etc., because they will move to where the users are.

beryilma 3y ago
> It's in the nature of their moat On a tangent, what is the deal with the word moat and why is everybody using it all of a sudden? What does it mean?
- crq-yml 3y ago
  "Competitive moat." It's a term Warren Buffett has used often to describe businesses that have an advantage that blocks competitors, like a moat around the wall of a castle. Control over intellectual property rights is an example of such a moat.
- mikestew 3y ago
  "All of a sudden"? I've heard that term used for probably twenty years now, if not more, originating (IIRC) with Warren Buffet. What does the moat of a castle do? Keeps the baddies out. What does the "moat" of a business do? Keeps the competitors out. To take a recent example, what would Nvidia's moat be? A strong argument could be made that it's CUDA. For the sake of argument, let's say anyone could throw a bunch of silicon on a PCB and make a GPU equivalent to Nvidia's. Doesn't matter, because your cheapo GPU won't run the CUDA software that makes Nvidia's dominance possible. To offer one more example out of my butt, take Apple. The Apple brand makes up at least some of their moat. You could build an exact clone of an iPhone that even runs latest iOS (assume for the sake of argument that there's a way to get the OS on your hardware). Doesn't matter, unless you're ready to infringe on trademarks by putting an Apple logo on there, few will buy it because they want Apple, not a functional work-alike.