Apollo Now Offers Option to Decline Refund Ahead of June 30 Shutdown

[ninethirty]

LOL why the hostility to the dude? Ahhh I get it, you're jealous! So now to make yourself feel ok about your own timid, risk averse approach to life, you have to peddle the idea that what Reddit has done is perfectly reasonable and that the Apollo dev *deserved* to go out of business...which is a staggeringly naive and myopic view of how Reddit and businesses in general function.

I’ve made more than Selig and in less time. I assure you, I’m not jealous. Like everyone else, I’m expressing my opinion. He cashed in and good for him, but ultimately the nature of his business wasn’t sustainable. I’m baffled at the people protesting on behalf of a millionaire who didn’t plan properly.

 

[zach-coleman]

Oh fun, hyperbole! Point is, his business depended entirely on another business who charged nothing for their API. Now they do and his business is forced to close. In most lines of work, if a supplier you work with folds or increases pricing, you could shop elsewhere. Selig doesn’t have that option.

Would you support Microsoft or Apple charging money per system level API call? I mean, all these leeches out here expecting to run a homebrew app on the Mac or PC for free are really getting out of hand…

 

[thadoggfather]

Apollo is such a part of my daily routine, this is gonna be jarring for a while starting Saturday

 

[bgillander]

It's ok not to see it as dicey. I can see it either way. I understand why some interpret his words one way and how it could also be understood another way. Either way, that wasn't the main point of my post ;-)



I think some would interpret what he said as if the money that he is putting out for the refund wasn't money that came initially from the subscribers. That's why some might feel the words aren't exactly revealing. And then, there are those like you who look at it from the perspective that he's already had to provide the commission to Apple from the subscription fees and now he's having to revert that. In a way, the sudden change in business model (the mass reversion) also can cause revenue problems for a developer so the issue is akin to Reddit suddenly reverting course and saying the API that was free for years now requires payment.

Anyhow, that wasn't the main point of my post. I think my main point was simply that it isn't unreasonable for the developer to find that there's no way to pivot so quickly in response to Reddit and suddenly change business model.

Just FYI, I wasn’t disagreeing with you, and actually replied to your post because it was reasonable and I didn’t feel like kicking up the toxicity level on this thread when it is already well past any reasonable level. Cheers!

 

[123]

Quite the case you've made here.

Someone who doesn't understand the difference between a new product and a text popup has already made the case for himself.

 

[akac]

I loved Apollo. Great app. Reddit sucks in what they did. I have no issue with Christian building an app on top of someone else's service that never really meant for him to do that. There are TONS of apps that have done that and are considered some of the best apps out there or invaluable. Tesla apps, Calendar apps, Task apps, Reddit apps, Twitter apps…the list goes on.

Reddit did him dirty. No question.

On the other hand, Christian also talked quite a bit about several major features that were promised being worked on - like the iPad UI, as well as some other significant bug fixes and features - that never made it. Instead he spent the last year on Pixel Pals, broken ads, and other things.

If this had happened a year ago, I would have unequivocally supported him here. Now…it's hard because on one hand over the last year Apollo was ignored and became worse and promised features never materialized; yet, he got screwed over by Reddit and was ironically led on.

Either way - I have no problem with what he's doing, but I don't have a lot of empathy either.

 

[jmho]

I’ve made more than Selig and in less time.

A lot of the replies in this thread just seem to be people who are jealous of Selig's popularity and feel that they should be just as popular as the guy who made a great app and basically gave it away for free.

Was his "business idea" bad? Maybe. But I get the feeling that he didn't make Apollo to make money, and now he's ended up as probably the most famous and well liked iOS developer on the planet at this moment in time so that's got to be pretty nice.

 

[GizmoDVD]

Y’all still crying about a millionaire?

 

[123]

So lifetime subscribers get a refund? You would think that if someone paid for a lifetime, and they are indeed not getting a lifetime of use, that it should be refunded, no?

Lifetime always comes with some risks, e.g. the company going out of business etc. This is know before you buy.

 

[Saladin12]

Have to say I dislike this. I fully support the developers in this fight against Reddit. But this is done in poor taste. I find it hard to believe Mr Selig hasn’t made an absolute killing from Apollo - he’s definitely a millionaire from it. Asking people to decline the refund is terrible.

 

[-BigMac-]

By far the majority doesn't subscribe at all. So where's your simple math?

And if you're going to correct your numbers: it is not 6 years either.

Sorry mate, exactly how many years have past since (and including) 2017 in your head?

2017 (1)
2018(2)
2019(3)
2020(4)
2021(5)
2022(6)
june 2023 (6.5)

HmmMmmMm

 

[bgillander]

CodeWarrior says “hello.”

Apple even warned its users to STOP using CodeWarrior and THEY WOULD BE VERY SORRY IF THEY CONTINUED USING CODEWARRIOR. Apple fundamentally broke CW with an OS release (10.5 maybe? Can’t remember the OS now) and CW folded almost instantly.

ApplicationEnhancer also says hello. Same story. APE folded with MacOS 10.7, almost instantly.

In both cases, and others, Apple simply said “no,” and the company instantly folded.

So, no, Apple isn’t as great and wonderful of a company as you’d think. You can disagree with this all you want but you can’t change history without time travel and you just can’t do that.

So Apple should have not moved to Intel? I seem to recall CodeWarrior growing from the Motorola to PowerPC migration and dying from the PowerPC to Intel migration. You are certainly building a bit more intrigue into the narrative than I recall.

If Reddit had completely changed their APIs instead of the pricing, or developed their own iOS app enough to make Apollo irrelevant, your examples would be more apt.

 

[God of Biscuits]

Can you blame Reddit for saying "yah umm.... you are profiting off our intellectual property, so um like we are stopping that". ? It is entirely legitimate stance & frankly every rationale person in this room would have done the same.

I am genuinely mad this developer "thinks" he deserves some form of charity, which he is going to stuff into his fat pockets. Sounds like he has made a lot of money over the years.

none of what you are saying is what’s going on.

 

[Premium1]

Uhhh… you should have done this long time ago. 🤨

View attachment 2225043

Make sure you also delete any comments/posts you have so that they can't continue using your stuff.

 

[bgillander]

Hilarious that he had enough time to update his app to allow you to not receive a refund, but an update to a new price was just out of the question.

Good lord.

Because everyone knows that every programming task takes the exact same effort. You are obviously a professional project manager.

 

[123]

Sorry mate, exactly how many years have past since (and including) 2017 in your head?

2017 (1)
2018(2)
2019(3)
2020(4)
2021(5)
2022(6)
june 2023 (6.5)

HmmMmmMm

Hahahahhaaaa, try again.

October 2017- October 2018: 1 year
You can do the rest.

In the first year he certainly didn't earn anything at all considering opportunity costs (he was an Apple engineer). Break even was maybe in the third or fourth year.

 

[jonblatho]

the moderators volunteering their time moderating is not free labour

That absolutely is free labor for Reddit. Most social networking sites spend good freaking money doing a terrible job at moderation. Reddit has (overall) decent moderation for free.

If they didn't want to put in the work, don't do it and someone would happily be in control of million+ follower subreddits.

Most people who view moderation primarily as a source of power and not something that benefits their community overall are exactly the people you don’t want moderating.

 

[robbietop]

This is called emotional blackmail and should be rejected without second thought. Do not pay for goods not received. That is foolish.

Yeah, the guy is blackmailing you into keeping your money he was gonna keep anyways if the 4Chan reject had decided not to be a douche and jack up pricing so he can buy more lobster for he and his Wall Street mouth breathing seals.

 

[Radon87000]

Again you add emotions to pepper up your otherwise bland understanding. He is literally begging for "donations" because he is pushing his "sob story". Pretty sure grifter is the appropriate description. I do not care that people are giving him their money, but they should know they are acting foolishly and encouraging bad behavior. Reality is this developer made a lot of money from this business venture, he does not need the help, if he wants to prove me wrong I encourage him to publish his revenue numbers. You people should be helping people who actually need it.

There is a simple point I will make here. He made an app I loved and made browsing Reddit a fun. I have no qualms if he made money from it because he is that skilled and is putting it to good use. As a PC gamer, I even pay $5 a month to a modder patreon to implement DLSS in games because they should be compensated for their skills The amount I spent on this app is a pittance relative to the amazing memories it gave me which the official app didn’t and that is why I am not refunding it and I actually plan on donating $5 every month for the next year to his PayPal. The guy also has cats to feed which he got from a homeless shelter.

I don’t care even if he became a billionaire out of my money. He made a good app enough so that even Apple highlighted it in their WWDC calling it out by name.

If you ask me to choose between a corpo making money and an individual like me I will always choose the human.

 

[ArrayDecay]

Powerful Tech Bro energy in some of these comments. Yeesh.

 

[3xBoom]

Well then if it is so easy why not start your own competitor to reddit?

May be (hopefully) somebody will and do a better job at it. There are numerous lessons to be learned from Reddit's history both a social media and a tech product. To me, Reddit feels dated and I can't see it having bright future. It became a PITA to use and find relevant info.

 

[btrach144]

So why not publish your revenue numbers so we can all feel even more sorry for you? I am sure you took a terrible loss overall . . . . . . .

You’re out of line. Are you the Reddit ceo?!?

 

[ninethirty]

Someone who doesn't understand the difference between a new product and a text popup has already made the case for himself.

That would be you I'm guessing? A new pricing tier is not an entirely new product, and the ability to decline refunds is more than just a text popup, so again, quite the case you've made.

 

[motorazr]

As the developer, I just want to say, I don't think you're a bad person or anything if you take the refund, but I do really appreciate the folks who are kind in declining it.

For reference, 30 days ago Reddit was still being very promising with their claims for the API pricing to be equitable and based in reality, and 4 months before that Reddit told me they had no plans to change the API this year, so this level of refund really hit me out of nowhere.

It's a gut punch, and I loved building Apollo, but the kindness and support people have shown over the last few weeks really means a lot in making this easier to swallow, so I genuinely really do appreciate those folks considering declining the refund.

Good luck with your next venture; whatever it may be.

 

[ninethirty]

none of what you are saying is what’s going on.

Literally exactly what he said is going on.