Technology

You and me both.... I have seen that place through its ups and downs. From the narwhal bacon's at midnight to Jolly Rancher, Zoop and the swamps of drogba.

I finally left my account a few days ago and haven't been back since. The place is a shell of what it used to be and it's been really very refreshing have a scout about somewhere else.

Fuck greed..... It eventually ruins everything!

15 for me. No ragrats.

I'm still not clear what the alleged threat was, that the app would... make API calls? earning reddit money? That Christian would say unfriendly things about the company that screwed him? What threat is an app developer to a corporation? It's just patently absurd.

I listened to the recording, and read the transcript, and I can... I can see it. Not overtly, not intentionally - but the dev did not communicate clearly at all.

Twice the Reddit representative asking him to repeat himself, and still he failed to actually specify his intentions. The wording in the transcript never actually expanded what the dev was saying ('buy out Apollo'). The evasive language made it sound like a shakedown, 'pay me $10mil to make this all go away'.

I linked the dev's own transcript above, but the actual quotes from the dev:

I could make it really easy on you, if you think Apollo is costing you $20 million per year, cut me a check for $10 million and we can both skip off into the sunset. Six months of use. We're good. [Low voice:] That's mostly a joke.

Okay, if Apollo's opportunity cost currently is $20 million dollars. At the 7 billion requests and API volume. If that's your yearly opportunity cost for Apollo, cut that in half, say for 6 months. Bob's your uncle.

I was just saying if the opportunity cost of Apollo is currently $20 million a year. And that's a yearly, apparently ongoing cost to you folks. If you want to rip that band-aid off once. And have Apollo quiet down, you know, six months. Beautiful deal. Again this is mostly a joke, I'm just saying if the opportunity cost is that high, and if that is something that could make it easier on you guys, that could happen too. As is, it's quite difficult.

Now, we know that what the dev is doing is essentially offering to outright sell Apollo to end the demand it represents to Reddit. He doesn't expect them to take it, but a lot of users asked if it were possible, and he's suggesting it anyway.

But the wording of all of this never specifies 'buying Apollo'. It sounds like he wants Reddit to like... pay him his 'protection fee'. I'm sure he means 'go quiet' as in like, 'go quietly into that good night' (shut down) or 'stop being so demanding' (be retooled), in fact he later clarifies he means the latter and the Reddit representative apologises profusely.

But man, that was worded so poorly, and he was given two opportunities to clarify, and he just... didn't. Only when the Reddit stand-in asked if he was suggesting Reddit buy his silence and compliance did he clarify that wasn't at all what he was saying.

It was completely unintentional, no doubt. But it was miscommunication of the highest order, and it damaged the lines of communication so irrevocably it probably incentivised Reddit to cease negotiations completely.

I’m a more recent Apollo user, having switched to iPhone last year. But I’m in the same boat. The third party apps are the only way to go on any platform.

I’ve also been a paying Reddit gold (now premium) user for, I dunno, maybe 10 years. It’s offensive that after all that, I can’t run the software I want to run to access the site. It’s a sign of enshittification.

And frankly, Apollo or not, Reddit isn’t what it used to be. It’s less friendly and welcoming than the narwhal days when /r/LucidDreaming was the hottest community. It’s more abrasive now, more childish. Like the rest of the internet, I suppose.

I'm hoping Christian ports Apollo to Lemmy. I'm not sure what the feasibility of doing so is but I'd actually pay a monthly subscription for the ability to continue using it

I live in South Korea where it's also legal to record only with single party consent. It's not that long ago that I found out that it's not a universal thing. It should be.

Hoping Lemmy is able to re-create the feeling and community of early reddit. The reddit we're all refugees from felt vastly different ten years ago. All of the venture capital funding has ruined something that used to be a replacement for fragmented forum communities. Maybe a mass exodus to federated Lemmy instances can help re-create that early feeling.

Yup, Christian's latest post about Apollo sealed the deal for me leaving. It's a bummer, but hopefully it leads to something new and exciting starting here! I'm guessing there's been a pretty big influx of Reddit refugees.

I read a comment that said the admins are holding an AMA soon to "address the concerns of the community". Can't wait to see that turn into a mega-shitshow.

Yup. After reading about Apollo going the way of the sink I took a quick glance over the Boost for Reddit subreddit, and while it doesn't look like they've announced their shutdown it's realistically gonna happen unless Reddit backs out last second.

I saw a thread there where someone recommended Lemmy so here I am. Gotta say so far it feels just like Reddit did, in a good way.

Recreate the communities here. Let other redditors know.

Thanks for standing up for what you believe in. I've been a part of reddit myself for more than 15 years on different accounts and I just can't continue to go down the rabbit hole into VC-funded junk. The site seriously started to degrade after the huge venture capitalist investment (from Chinese firms no less) in 2019 and it's just gotten worse in the five years since then.

Same. There was a post on the boost subreddit indicating this place, so I expect there will be an influx (eg, me).