Apollo should make a reddit clone, I know many people would would jump ship to their platform. Let Reddit go the way of Digg for being greedy!
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Apollo Now Offers Option to Decline Refund Ahead of June 30 Shutdown
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I don't know this developer personally, but he doesn't sound like the "laying on a beach somewhere" type based on interviews he's given. I could make uninformed generalizations and projections based on the story, but then I could also profile you based on your posts here. Some things are better left unsaid.
BTW next time you might take half a second before posting a ******** argument.
Twitter no longer allows 3rd party clients so it’s API pricing is irrelevant anyway, plus Elons handling of the API is equally egregious.
Meanwhile Facebooks API is completely free.
And no, Reddits pricing is ridiculous.
Please make an Apollo reddit clone, I know many people would would jump ship to your platform. Let Reddit go the way of Digg for being greedy!
I'm not defending the CEO per se, I know relatively little about him, but from a business standpoint I understand why reddit is doing what they're doing. Could have been handled better, but it is what it is.
That would require him to have to use his millions to develop and launch a platform, and then he has to actually be successful in order to make his money back. Life was so much easier when you could just leech off reddit I guess!
Found Steve Huffman's MacRumors account...
LOL, they are saying that NOW yes. They’ve also been caught lying. They didn’t say anything for years as apps like Apollo helped Reddit grow. You can not claim this is not what it was intended for when Apollo has been using that API exactly for this for over five years.
Strike one.
Again no, Apollo used the API Reddit provided according to the rules Reddit set forth for FIVE YEARS. You can not claim they were leeching when Reddit gave them full access and permission to use those APIs. Well you can but it shows you don’t know what the word leeching means.
Strike two.
Twitter is a terrible example since they pulled similar ******** by suddenly shutting down their APIs and Elon Musk is busy driving the platform into the ground. Meanwhile even if Twitter was a valid example (it’s not since it’s banned 3rd party clients anyway) your argument still fails because Twitter is not “the market”. You’d have to look at multiple services API costs, and when you do, *gasp* you’d find that Reddits are dramatically higher.
Strike three, you’re out.
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Yes they lied. The CEO openly admitted that the pricing was designed to kill 3rd party apps like Apollo. You can’t simultaneously claim the pricing will be reasonable AND you’re pricing it so high to put apps out of business.
And no, the pricing is not in line with “other major social media companies”. Hell, Facebooks API is still free!
No one is saying that Reddit shouldn't be able to change a reasonable amount for API usage. This is called negotiation as the post you quoted said.
What Reddit is asking for is not a reasonable amount.
The CEO literally admitted to lying and you are going to continue arguing they did nothing wrong?
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One thing that I don’t understand is that Reddit, like most other services, generates the majority of its revenue through advertising, yet their API doesn’t include pushing advertisements (or so I understand). So, if they’re not going to generate any revenue from their API, why even have it? It is not logical nor financially responsible to do it this way.
The mods weren’t breaking any rules. Nice try.
If I’m wrong prove it. Cite the rules they were breaking. Or are you saying making private subreddits, a feature Reddit has included for years now is somehow against the rules?
I mean we know they lied. That alones mean they are wrong about something. Unless you think lying isn’t wrong.
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Reddit has been profiting off the hard work of Redditors and Mods without paying any of us a dime.
Perhaps Reddit should add a pay the users button to their own paychecks.
A combination of free market zealots who worship ant the feet of billionaires dreaming of the day they will join their ranks (hint: never) and Reddit employees is my guess. A number of the most pro-Reddit commenters are pretty new accounts.
ChatGPT is now able to browse the web to get answers using data that was made available after September, 2021. That ability is going to take a lot of the “bite” out of Reddit’s API charges.
Also, while it’s possible that ChatGPT used Reddit APIs to gather data from its site, and perhaps even probable, ChatGPT has not disclosed the direct methods that they’ve used to obtain its data. I view any statement beyond that to be just mere conjecture at this time.
logged in just to +1 on this.
To be clear, I think reddit could've handled this better, but the Apollo developer just seems sketchy to me. The dude made a good app, off the data of ANOTHER BUSINESS. He should've understood the risk all along.
If he didn't want those risks, he could've have developed his own business that goes beyond a reskinning of another service. Now that the risk have materialized, I just don't see how it justifies him as such a huge victim.
Again, reddit could've handled it better, but the fact that the Apollo developer is making a profit while reddit is not just says to me reddit should've done this a LONG time ago.
Do you live in some sort of fantasy world lol? What alternative are you suggesting here? Reddit was able to do this due to free money from the low interest rate tech scene. Now that money is no longer free, reddit need to actually slowly turn itself into a profitable business or die.
Do you suggest they let this continue and just close doors one day, then no one, including Apollo will be able to use / access reddit, and the service just shut down all together?
At end of the day, reddit is providing a value to its millions of users and moderators. They (the users) need to give something in return. That's the value exchange between a business and a customer. However due to poor business decisions in the past, reddit allowed third party apps to harvest the return in this exchange, while they provided most of the service. What you are proposing seems to be some imaginary world where people got services and value for free without having to put out anything in return. Good luck with that world of yours.
Cheated? Exactly how was he cheated? He made a buttload off of Reddit for free other than his time. Reddit may be asking way too much but no one was cheated. He road the gravy train and the gravy train has stopped. Now he wants you to donate your money so he won’t have to pay out of pocket? It’s not out of his pocket. It’s out of your pocket!
If mods didn't like doing it for free, they would stop doing it and a new mod who loves control takes over for free. Very simple.
*were*
So now they're charging for it. Don't feel sorry for Apollo if it has to shut down.
And if it was so bad, that subreddit would die, someone else will start another, cleaner one, and mod it for free.
I still don't understand what the guy is paying out of pocket with 250k. He charged his users the 250k, he should just refund them now that service is no longer available. If the dude spent the 250k already on a brand new Porsche, that's his problem for not calculating in the risk of his business and setting aside some money to cover himself when the risk materializes one day.
Based on this 250k figure, the dude clearly profited off the whole reddit business handsomely, yet he's asking for MORE MONEY to cover himself now that his business is no longer viable. And people are defending him on a forum lol. Instead of declining the refund blindly, maybe people should ask - hey what did you spend that 250k we gave you on already that it needs to be covered. As far as I know it's mostly a 1 man shop. He might have spent some of that money on paying himself for a few months of development time already, but THATS IT.
Capitalism only works when people behaves rationally, and based on what im seeing these days it may not function going forward as intelligence of the general public is clearly deteriorating over time.
It's actually a fair price if you're an AI startup. So no, not really "anyone".