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Call me unsympathetic but this pity party is pathetic. "The refund is out of pocket", is actually a massive lie. A refund is simply returning funds you collected, I do not care that you spent the money. Personally I call it a big scam taking advantage of the "hate on reddit policy" and "kindness of people". Do not fall for it folks, actively tell this developer to go F himself for even asking. Give your money to a real charity, you owe this stranger nothing. He entered into a business and knew the risks getting in! He also likely enjoyed some very nice reward while the going was good, pathetic is my polite word, don't reward stupid.
Mind your own business. This isn't the first time this has happened, and I for one appreciate the years he's put into this. The minimal bit of money out of my pocket is insignificant.
 
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Just FYI: if Apollo's bill is high, look at the bill Reddit is putting up to run the API.

Sorry, but Apollo gets no sympathy from me. And before you even ask, I am an iOS developer and I understand the risks in implementing ANY API.
Reddit is just being greedy. They built their company on people like Apollo's developer and they use volunteer moderators to make their money. So I have zero sympathy for Reddit, and I know it's fashionable these days to be cruel and hateful to people, but many of us choose a different way to vent our spleens.
 
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Yes, I can blame Reddit for being greedy jerks. They do nothing to make their money but run a bunch of servers, and to treat one of the developers that helped them build their company into something useful is a shameful and arrogant way to act. As the developer said, he only asking his fans to consider not taking their refund. This will give him a cushion to continue doing his work and maybe coming up with a great app we can use elsewhere? What's a few bucks to me?

But that's America these days I guess. Kick the people who do the work, and praise the parasites at the top who don't do the work, aren't smart enough to do it themselves, and pretend to be aggrieved if someone below them dares to push back when they ask for blood from the turnip.
 
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Reddit their fee is reasonable if you compare it to Twitter, and Reddit doesn't care what "everybody" thinks. Reddit cares about big companies such as ChatGPT/Open AI and Google's Bard who have been training their AI models for free on Reddit data, and they will have to start paying going forward.

And my statement is accurate, the guy leeched and made millions of an other company for free.
Just goes to to show the extreme ignorance that people in this thread have about real business. Embarrassing that people are defending the developer.
 
Capitalism has absolutely nothing to do with this topic at all. Moderating a subreddit is a hobby. If you disagree, then stop doing it. I guarantee you, someone else will pick up where you left off.
It is very difficult to find anything that has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism these days, and this topic is most certainly not one of them.

 
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If I understand it, he sold for a $5 one time fee, unlimited access to his app. So he just assumed reddit api would be free for ever and that those paying only $5 wouldn’t cost him anything?

He could raise the price for the people paying monthly to easily cover their costs. But up to 50k lifetime power users would not generate him more money to cover new costs they incur.

He’s shutting down because he made a bad business decision. One that depends on free access to someone else’s service.
Well, you don't understand it. Apollo has always been free. He sold a $5 option that provided a few additional features. It was a purely optional paywall for extra stuff. I think there may have been other tiers too. I don't recall all of it, but one thing was an enhancement to the video viewer that allowed easy control over playback that was not available in the first-party app. The free version of Apollo did not offer it either. For $5 you can got that feature. And some other stuff.

His selling that option does not in any way preclude an option to now charge a subscription. But if the numbers posted are accurate, and I can actually do math at this hour, he would need to get everyone who uses the app (free and paid) to subscribe for an amount to cover $20M assuming there is no increase in calls or users or API pricing. That was never going to happen.

I'd venture MOST people using Apollo used the free features only. He's shutting down because Reddit has decided to erect a paywall on the API that has previously been free for all to use. In fact, encouraged to be used. He's shutting down because the powers that be decided to fleece the people who helped make Reddit the platform it is. Reddit had no problem with people using the API to generate traffic and build a following. But now that want that following to pay an exorbitant fee with no time to figure out how to cover, market the changes, or plan for graceful comms for any business decisions made.

Edit: typos
 
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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.
Irrelevant. Your argument was it was wrong for one entity to make money of the work of another without paying them. Except the entity you are defending does EXACTLY that.
 
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Yes they were. Mods are expected to keep communities open, and they were warned to do so. When some switched their subreddits to NSFW as a method of protest, effectively removing advertising for those subreddits, some were removed.


If mods are expected to keep communities open, why are communities able to be made private in the first place? That makes no sense (like the rest of your arguments).

They weren't warned, they were threatened. And you still have yet to provide a single rule they have broken.

"effectively removing advertising for those subreddits" - aha, now you admit the truth, it wasn't about breaking the rules, it was about Reddit losing revenue from the free content the users produce for them.
 
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He actually threw in the towel because (1) he didnt feel he had enough time to make the nescessary changes and (2) he didn't want to give into Reddit's extortionate pricing.

Good on him for having a back bone, unlike some people here.
Kind of like the news I saw about Narwal "surviving" as the lone 3rd party app. Sure, you can keep using the API at a lesser amount, so long as you don't profit in any way. Oh, and start charging ~$7 / month subscription to cover the API fees, too. Nice.
 
😡I launched this app today and found that not only is he STOPPING refunds, but he Is milking every last drop of this cow by selling you wallpapers on the way out? Are you FOR REAL? 😡😡😡😡😡

honestly forget reddit, at this point I'm just scared of this apollo cult following
 
😡I launched this app today and found that not only is he STOPPING refunds, but he Is milking every last drop of this cow by selling you wallpapers on the way out? Are you FOR REAL? 😡😡😡😡😡

honestly forget reddit, at this point I'm just scared of this apollo cult following
He's not stopping refunds.

You can choose to not get a refund; that's opt-in, I believe. If you do nothing you get a refund.

And if you don't want the wallpapers, don't buy them.
 
They built their company on people like Apollo's developer

No.
Reddit did not gain users because of Apollo.
Apollo gained users because of Reddit.

and they use volunteer moderators to make their money.
If the current volunteer mods left, there would be another to take its place for free. This is a non-argument.

So I have zero sympathy for Reddit,

I have zero sympathy for Apollo
 
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The end of an era. Apollo was far and away the best 3rd party Reddit client and it will be missed. The official Reddit app is poorly designed and frustrating to use. Their mobile web experience is unusable. Their web experience on desktop is okay, but riddled with issues and so. many. ads. I've been an avid user of Reddit since 2008 and with the loss of Apollo I am doubtful I'll continue to use the site. I deleted Apollo from my phone in support of the protest and much to my surprise I didn't Reddit at all.
I install uBlock Origin on all my browsers (except Safari) and never see a single ad. It blocks ads before all YouTube videos as well. Indispensable.
 
CS appears to be an alright dude who made an amazing app. When you care about your users and speak love through your app’s features, they care about you back. I’d say that’s reason enough to understand why people would choose to reject the refund, even if you don’t agree with it or wouldn’t do it yourself.

To the people calling it grifting or stealing, these users are choosing to refuse the refund knowing exactly that they will be getting nothing in return for their money they’ll be giving to CS.

In order for it to be a grift, CS would have to make promises and then not deliver on them, like: “Refuse your refund and I promise I’ll build a backend for Apollo or build another Apollo for one of the Reddit alternatives!”

Those who don’t agree with CS adding the refund refusal are welcome to continue to be entitled to your opinions, but I think y’all need to chill out and accept that other people feel differently than you.
 
Unlike mobile apps that try to sanitize data web browsers are a treasure trove. They want to know exactly what you are accessing where you are accessing it and from what device you are accessing it from.

But if I looked at spicy content in Apollo or the official app, isn't that exactly what they know?

Apple may try their best to protect my privacy, but if I log into a reddit app and tap on content, then no amount of Privacy Relay is going to save me from surveillance.
 
Why simp so hard for a multi millionaire? He is stealing your money for services that he will NOT provide. This is literally STEALING.
Excuse me sir, did you pay to post this comment?

Are you abusing a FREE browser that you didn’t pay for, that isn’t paying the websites whose content it’s LITERALLY STEALING for free? What about the open standards of the internet? Did you pay to use the HTML and JavaScript your browser is using, or are you stealing the work of others?

How are you going to pay for the server space for your post?

Also please show us your tax returns so we can make sure that you aren’t rich at the same time as you’re literally stealing other people’s services and data.

What’s that, those services are provided for free? Just like the Reddit API was? Hmm, still sounds like you’re stealing to me.
 
Why simp so hard for a multi millionaire? He is stealing your money for services that he will NOT provide. This is literally STEALING.
Beyond being obviously incorrect, that is literally slander (and not even in that modern, figuratively sense.)

Offering the option to not take a refund is in no way stealing, any more than a church passing a collection plate is. If people want to be charitable for this guy because they empathize or enjoyed his work, that is a far more normal (and healthy) emotion than the hate some seem to have for his obviously successful bond with his customers. Weird how some would apparently support a corporation with even more cash rather than an individual because he was successful. I guess he should have incorporated, so some of you could support him.
 
Christian sure feels being cheated after becoming a multi-millionaire off of Reddit's userbase and services they built.
Can we assume you also got rich off of Reddit’s user base and services, since Christian’s work apparently had nothing to do with his success?
 
😡I launched this app today and found that not only is he STOPPING refunds, but he Is milking every last drop of this cow by selling you wallpapers on the way out? Are you FOR REAL? 😡😡😡😡😡

honestly forget reddit, at this point I'm just scared of this apollo cult following
This post makes me think that you likely yell at the t-shirt vendors if you ever go to rock concerts. People sell souvenirs. It’s a thing.

And he is not stopping refunds. That’s not a thing.
 
Folks, again, what is rubbing some the wrong way is that Mr. Selig is asking to keep the money under a guise that he will need food stamps without Apollo, which many have and will assume. HE IS WELL OFF even without it. You are not helping him out so he can afford his next meal. You are just helping him out with his disposable income….
 
Folks, again, what is rubbing some the wrong way is that Mr. Selig is asking to keep the money under a guise that he will need food stamps without Apollo, which many have and will assume. HE IS WELL OFF even without it. You are not helping him out so he can afford his next meal. You are just helping him out with his disposable income….
Do you have proof for that statement? Can you show a quote where he says he's going to struggle without Apollo?

Selig is a former Apple dev, so he'd probably be earning like $300-500k if he still worked at Apple. I assume Apollo provided him with a similar wage - maybe better, maybe worse.
 
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