Freeloader apps like Apollo charge customers to use the Apollo app, don't pay Reddit money for their usage of Reddit's infrastructure and then strip out the ads so that customers who use these apps don't create any revenue for Reddit to pay for their costs.
They don't "strip out the ads." Reddit's API does not send ads in response to API-driven queries for that content. That was Reddit's decision to not monetize content being sent from API queries, not Christian's.
Christian expressed throughout the entire conversation he had with Reddit that he was open to an arrangement where he could pay for access -- he simply said it required more time to make the transition and the costs had to be within reason. This is all provable in the emails and conversations Christian published.
It is obvious from the beginning that Reddit did not act or negotiate in good faith, and that this was only a veiled effort to terminate third-party apps without outright admitting it. But in the process, they dragged former partners through the mud, and literally accused them of attempting blackmail simply for trying to sway Reddit's management toward a more amicable and sustainable third party API access model.
They told Christian that they had no intention to modify the API in 2023, then did so anyway. They told him that they were willing to work with him to make it possible to sustain his app; then refused to consider any proposed alternative API access pricing models or transition-to-pay time frames, nor did Reddit propose any alternatives of its own. They claimed that they wanted to achieve an arrangement that would work for all parties, but their behavior was essentially an attitude of "my way or the highway" no matter what. And Christian also demonstrated through numerous emails that they were not particularly responsive to his requests and questions while simultaneously communicating publicly that the quickly approaching cutoff for the API would not be delayed.
And before everybody jumps on the "but that's their right!!1!1!" bandwagon -- you're right. It is their right. Just because you legally
can do something, doesn't mean it's morally or ethically right. In fact, it doesn't even mean that it's a good business decision. And when you're in a business like social media, where reputation and public relations matter, your communications and the way you go about it makes a difference, too. Regardless of the success or profitability of a third party developer whose app relies on this API, it is Reddit who was misleading since the moment they announced this change and it was Reddit who was unwilling to negotiate in good faith. Christian took the only practical action that he could after imploring Reddit to reconsider, or work with him to provide more time to transition his business model and arrive at a sustainable solution.
Again, it is not unreasonable that Reddit wanted to change its API access to a paid model. But if they were genuinely interested in sustaining third party access while using API revenues to help pay costs, they would not have acted the way they did. That's why so many people view Reddit as "in the wrong" here. It's because they misled third parties who relied on a status quo, accused at least one of blackmail, then pulled the rug out from under them. Reddit knew that the API changes they enacted would make third party apps unsustainable, and they proceeded with it despite warnings from just about every other interested party
because that was the intention all along. It's the deception and bad faith negotiation that Reddit was responsible for that is the reason for this sentiment.
