Popular Reddit App Apollo Shutting Down on June 30

[yalag]

Reddit actively worked with him and had a good relationship. He was encouraged by Reddit to continue development on the app, even getting early word on new features/api changes so that the app could work smoothly all the way up until they pulled the rug out. You’re being disingenuous and I don’t understand why. What do you have to gain here? We’re hurting, let us be angry!

I have nothing to gain. I hate reddit. The discussions there are all echo chamber. The earlier it dies the better for culture in general to be honest.

But why I'm worked up it's because this younger generation has such an entitled opinion vs corporations. Corporations' one and only ONE objective is to maximize profit. There literally is no other objectives written in the rule book. Don't come home crying to find that corporations are doing what they can to make more money.

Users should have no expectations on free service (let alone the fact that the service isn't even pulled, it's simply degraded). Here's another analogy. If you went ahead and gave your neighbour free cookies every weekend (as free taste testing), and then your neighbour went ahead and started selling them to make a living. Then one week, without notice you just told them no more free cookies. Who's in the wrong here? You could say, fck! My income was dependent on the sale of those cookies, you've completely yanked the rug under me!!! Well, yes but is it wrong? No. Those are free cookies FFS.

 

[sjsharksfan12]

Let’s see how things go.

Challenge accepted.

 

[Tubamajuba]

I have nothing to gain. I hate reddit. The discussions there are all echo chamber. The earlier it dies the better for culture in general to be honest.

But why I'm worked up it's because this younger generation has such an entitled opinion vs corporations. Corporations' one and only ONE objective is to maximize profit. There literally is no other objectives written in the rule book. Don't come home crying to find that corporations are doing what they can to make more money.

Users should have no expectations on free service (let alone the fact that the service isn't even pulled, it's simply degraded). Here's another analogy. If you went ahead and gave your neighbour free cookies every weekend (as free taste testing), and then your neighbour went ahead and started selling them to make a living. Then one week, without notice you just told them no more free cookies. Who's in the wrong here? You could say, fck! My income was dependent on the sale of those cookies, you've completely yanked the rug under me!!! Well, yes but is it wrong? No. Those are free cookies FFS.

How's the rubber taste?

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

What a shame, I was starting to actually enjoy using Reddit...

 

[Apleeseed84]

I left Reddit a long time and have not looked back, but to be honest, Reddit deserves this. The Reddit app sucked balls in the first place.

The whole entire likes/awards thing made the entire website a huge echo chamber just for likes.

 

[Shirasaki]

I have nothing to gain. I hate reddit. The discussions there are all echo chamber. The earlier it dies the better for culture in general to be honest.

But why I'm worked up it's because this younger generation has such an entitled opinion vs corporations. Corporations' one and only ONE objective is to maximize profit. There literally is no other objectives written in the rule book. Don't come home crying to find that corporations are doing what they can to make more money.

Users should have no expectations on free service (let alone the fact that the service isn't even pulled, it's simply degraded). Here's another analogy. If you went ahead and gave your neighbour free cookies every weekend (as free taste testing), and then your neighbour went ahead and started selling them to make a living. Then one week, without notice you just told them no more free cookies. Who's in the wrong here? You could say, fck! My income was dependent on the sale of those cookies, you've completely yanked the rug under me!!! Well, yes but is it wrong? No. Those are free cookies FFS.

A sad echo chamber in fact.

Yes, corporation‘s goal is to maximise profit. But, at what cost? What if a company can maximises its profit by destroying a country? Or the Earth for that matter. Would that be the way to go? We are not opposing businesses earning money. We are opposing such d*** move to try to earn money. Would you pay 30x the amount to your grocery just because supermarket wants 30x profit? By your logic you are willing to pay. Yes, you can argue reddit is not necessity. But same principle remains.

Free service? Degraded? Again, Reddit not properly pricing their service is their fault and their decision. It has nothing to do with Apollo. Use your analogy there, your neighbour sells cookies you provide for free, and you CONTINUE to offer those free cookies, presumably knowing what your neighbour is doing all along. One day, you want to charge for those cookies. Fine, neighbour would come with you and discuss. What you are doing in reality, is to charge each cookie $8m, which is exactly what Reddit is doing on API access All of a sudden. Of course, your neighbour will piss off and say **** you, and you are the one to be blamed, not neighbour, since you have all the time to cancel offering free cookie at any point at your will.

 

[canyonblue737]

I'm a conservative, Republican (non-MAGA). Come at me with the pitch forks. I absolutely support corporations and yes a lot of young people wear rose colored glasses when it comes to the real world, corporations, and yes some are entitled. That does NOT mean corporations don't have a responsibility to behave ethically. There are even potential economic consequences when they don't... obviously some number of reddit's users care about Apollo and enjoy using it and some percentage of them care about the developer of Apollo who they have developed a relationship with because of his excellent customer service and responsiveness. I'd argue while this percentage may be small it represents many "power users" who use Reddit more and advocate to others to use the platform. These are some of the most valuable users to Reddit. Now, all of these sudden and unethical changes to API policy that provide just 30 days before making running a 3rd party reddit app untenable will result in reddit users who lose their app of choice and are upset to see the developers out of a job and on the hook to return significant money to their users (in Apollo's case up to $250k). That can cause Reddit loss of users, negative feelings toward the platform, distrust of people in the tech industry toward Reddit (meaning they may choose not to work there or partner with them on future endeavors etc.)

I get it... this is probably a blip on the radar and Reddit will continue on, just like Twitter did when Tweetbot and others were forced to shutdown. The leadership of Reddit has made this calculation and placed their bets. That doesn't mean it is ethical, right, or there won't be some consequences. Users of their product don't have to blindly accept the decision of the corporation because it is legal, and to think otherwise is the only ridiculously entitled thing here.

 

[yalag]

A sad echo chamber in fact.

Yes, corporation‘s goal is to maximise profit. But, at what cost? What if a company can maximises its profit by destroying a country? Or the Earth for that matter. Would that be the way to go? We are not opposing businesses earning money. We are opposing such d*** move to try to earn money. Would you pay 30x the amount to your grocery just because supermarket wants 30x profit? By your logic you are willing to pay. Yes, you can argue reddit is not necessity. But same principle remains.

Free service? Degraded? Again, Reddit not properly pricing their service is their fault and their decision. It has nothing to do with Apollo. Use your analogy there, your neighbour sells cookies you provide for free, and you CONTINUE to offer those free cookies, presumably knowing what your neighbour is doing all along. One day, you want to charge for those cookies. Fine, neighbour would come with you and discuss. What you are doing in reality, is to charge each cookie $8m, which is exactly what Reddit is doing on API access All of a sudden. Of course, your neighbour will piss off and say **** you, and you are the one to be blamed, not neighbour, since you have all the time to cancel offering free cookie at any point at your will.

This is the part where you are confused. You politely saying "I want to charge 8m for each cookie please *wink wink*" is reddit's way of saying, no more 3rd party apps. The part is over.

Thus, now you see how ridiculous your position is using this analogy. Your neighbour is telling you, no more free cookies. None. Zip. And you are blaming him that he didn't tell you months ahead of time that freebies is going to stop. Um...didn't we forget that you are getting free food in the first place?

 

[yalag]

I'm a conservative, Republican (non-MAGA). Come at me with the pitch forks. I absolutely support corporations and yes a lot of young people wear rose colored glasses when it comes to the real world, corporations, and yes some are entitled. That does NOT mean corporations don't have a responsibility to behave ethically. There are even potential economic consequences when they don't... obviously some number of reddit's users care about Apollo and enjoy using it and some percentage of them care about the developer of Apollo who they have developed a relationship with because of his excellent customer service and responsiveness. I'd argue while this percentage may be small it represents many "power users" who use Reddit more and advocate to others to use the platform. These are some of the most valuable users to Reddit. Now, all of these sudden and unethical changes to API policy that provide just 30 days before making running a 3rd party reddit app untenable will result in reddit users who lose their app of choice and are upset to see the developers out of a job and on the hook to return significant money to their users (in Apollo's case up to $250k). That can cause Reddit loss of users, negative feelings toward the platform, distrust of people in the tech industry toward Reddit (meaning they may choose not to work there or partner with future endeavors etc.)

I get it... this is probably a blip on the radar and Reddit will continue on, just like Twitter did when Tweetbot and others were forced to shutdown. The leadership of Reddit has made this calculation and placed their bets. That doesn't mean it is ethical, right, or there won't be some consequences. Users of their product don't have to blindly accept the decision of the corporation because it is legal, and to think otherwise is the only ridiculously entitled thing here.

To borrow my analogy, do you think it's unethical that your neighbour all of a sudden stopped giving you free cookies. With literally 0 day notice. And now your potential source of income is also lost?

 

[canyonblue737]

To borrow my analogy, do you think it's unethical that your neighbour all of a sudden stopped giving you free cookies. With literally 0 day notice. And now your potential source of income is also lost?

I can't do anything with that analogy because it in no way represents the relationship between Reddit and 3rd party Reddit app developers. I know you THINK it does but I'm done trying to convince you otherwise.

 

[xraydoc]

I hope the Apollo author has huge success on his future endeavors. And one day makes enough to buy Reddit in its entirety. And shuts it down out of spite.

 

[yalag]

I can't do anything with that analogy because it in no way represents the relationship between Reddit and 3rd party Reddit app developers. I know you THINK it does but I'm done trying to convince you otherwise.

Would love to know the difference in a civil collected debate (btw unlikely to happen on reddit)

 

[Dydegu]

I know people love Apollo but I use the Reddit App and have never had any issues or found myself wanting more. To me, Reddit is very simple to navigate and interact with so I’ve been happy with the default app.

 

[btrach144]

I used a script to delete all my Reddit comments. Will be deleting my entire profile here this weekend. Goodbye Reddit. You were fun before you only cared about money.

 

[brofkand]

My Reddit days are done on that date. I use the Apollo app exclusively with paid sub. No, I will not be asking for money back either. I know many cheapskates will though sadly. We can offset some of that by loading his tip jar. Donate!

I’m not in the habit of paying for goods not received. Are the contributions tax deductible or something?

 

[Shirasaki]

This is the part where you are confused. You politely saying "I want to charge 8m for each cookie please *wink wink*" is reddit's way of saying, no more 3rd party apps. The part is over.

Thus, now you see how ridiculous your position is using this analogy. Your neighbour is telling you, no more free cookies. None. Zip. And you are blaming him that he didn't tell you months ahead of time that freebies is going to stop. Um...didn't we forget that you are getting free food in the first place?

Ok, lets kindly ignore the basic that in YOUR analogy, YOU are the one offering free cookie in the first place.

Yes, you are providing free cookies and your neighbour sells them for profit. It’s YOUR decision on both occasions. You telling your neighbour ahead of time or not isn’t even hugely relevant. You have every right to stop providing free cookie to your neighbour or charge money as soon as you are aware of the situation. Instead of charging an amount both parties agree on, you decide to unilaterally end the relationship by charging $8m per cookie.

I am not confused. You are confused about the true issue here: Reddit charging exorbitant money without proper due consideration of the contribution Apollo has brought to Reddit in the past few years. Instead, you support Reddit‘s behavior of destroying used-to-be-healthy relationships for their own likely Short term gain.

Remember, YOU are the one offering FREE COOKIE in the first place, not your neighbour taking advantage of the free food. You are the one to blame for all the drama caused to your neighbour, not your neighbour. If you want the world to burn (just like Reddit), then the world shall do your favor.

 

[Johnny Steps]

I just don’t get why there’s never a damn compromise. It’s always the extreme of maximum profit when most of the people investing are already wealthy.

But really none of this is surprising. It’s already been established that a good majority of people at that level of power have those personality traits that border on unethical. It’s what also makes them successful because most people aren’t willing to be that detached.

I love Apollo as an app and totally understand where he’s coming from. I definitely won’t use the official client at all because I hate ads, but I’m not quite sure if I would stop using Reddit completely.

 

[yalag]

Ok, lets kindly ignore the basic that in YOUR analogy, YOU are the one offering free cookie in the first place.

Yes, you are providing free cookies and your neighbour sells them for profit. It’s YOUR decision on both occasions. You telling your neighbour ahead of time or not isn’t even hugely relevant. You have every right to stop providing free cookie to your neighbour or charge money as soon as you are aware of the situation. Instead of charging an amount both parties agree on, you decide to unilaterally end the relationship by charging $8m per cookie.

I am not confused. You are confused about the true issue here: Reddit charging exorbitant money without proper due consideration of the contribution Apollo has brought to Reddit in the past few years. Instead, you support Reddit‘s behavior of destroying used-to-be-healthy relationships for their own likely Short term gain.

Remember, YOU are the one offering FREE COOKIE in the first place, not your neighbour taking advantage of the free food. You are the one to blame for all the drama caused to your neighbour, not your neighbour. If you want the world to burn (just like Reddit), then the world shall do your favor.

lol I wish others (in the real world) can read what you are proposing. You are literally blaming the guy giving away free cookies lol. Seriously, try asking people in real life how they would feel about this scenario. I'd be hard pressed to find anyone siding with the neighbour.

 

[canyonblue737]

Would love to know the difference in a civil collected debate (btw unlikely to happen on reddit)

oh god, why am I going down the rabbit hole lol...

your neighbor giving you cookies for free daily is a gift that gets nothing in return for them. you are also unlikely to need the cookies to survive (its a cookie after all) so if you stop getting them it doesn't have a material impact on you aside from wondering if your neighbor suddenly hates you now or something...

the better analogy is this...

you own a giant theme park like Disney World and have built a highway to it. in addition you offer up your free and un-used park land to anyone willing to build additional highways to the park to bring more customers, but they have to bear the expense of building these additional roads. in exchange they can charge tolls on their roads but because these road developers know their roads are better and more convenient for many of the parks visitors those same visitors will happily pay the tolls to avoid the crowded and less desirable main road. then one day Disney World says "in 30 days we are closing and destroying all the extra roads and everyone has to go back to using the one single one we built. if its less convenient to our customers who have spent the last 10 years driving other roads, we don't care. if you built those additional roads, sorry but you have to destroy your investment in their construction and make a new plan for your lives." legal... but very anti-consumer and a terrible way to treat your partners who HELPED your business become what it is.

 

[Shirasaki]

I hope the Apollo author has huge success on his future endeavors. And one day makes enough to buy Reddit in its entirety. And shuts it down out of spite.

That’ll be the BEST MOMENT EVER in his life if such cycle actually happens. Sweet sweet revenge.

 

[kalafalas]

Apple social media network when?

I would LOVE a basic feed or stories type function in iMessage. No ads. No influencers. Just life updates from people you actually know, like it should be.

 

[Shirasaki]

lol I wish others (in the real world) can read what you are proposing. You are literally blaming the guy giving away free cookies lol. Seriously, try asking people in real life how they would feel about this scenario. I'd be hard pressed to find anyone siding with the neighbour.

I’d also be pressed to find anyone siding with you either. In fact, more likely they just choose to move on and don’t bother. That doesn’t change the fact that You have provided free cookie to your neighbour, somehow endorse that behavior, and one day just shuts the practice down just because.

 

[swajames]

But why I'm worked up it's because this younger generation has such an entitled opinion vs corporations. Corporations' one and only ONE objective is to maximize profit. There literally is no other objectives written in the rule book. Don't come home crying to find that corporations are doing what they can to make more money.

A corporation is generally obligated to act in the best interests of its shareholders. That may or may not be maximizing profit, but there's no requirement for it to be maximizing profit to the exclusion of everything else. The pursuit of maximized profit may in fact, in the judgment of a reasonable management board, not necessarily be in the shareholder's best interests for various reasons.This may well be one of those cases.

 

[Shirasaki]

I just don’t get why there’s never a damn compromise. It’s always the extreme of maximum profit when most of the people investing are already wealthy.

But really none of this is surprising. It’s already been established that a good majority of people at that level of power have those personality traits that border on unethical. It’s what also makes them successful because most people aren’t willing to be that detached.

I love Apollo as an app and totally understand where he’s coming from. I definitely won’t use the official client at all because I hate ads, but I’m not quite sure if I would stop using Reddit completely.

Those people are ruthless, and by definition, they take advantage of the population to reap massive profit. In business world, there’s no sympathy. There’s no ethic. There’s no sustainability. Money or die. Plain, simple and brutal.

 

[Shirasaki]

A corporation is generally obligated to act in the best interests of its shareholders. That may or may not be maximizing profit, but there's no requirement for it to be maximizing profit to the exclusion of everything else. The pursuit of maximized profit may in fact, in the judgment of a reasonable management board, not necessarily be in the shareholder's best interests for various reasons.This may well be one of those cases.

Will Reddit reverse the decision at all? Privately or otherwise? I think the decision has been made some time ago, and they somehow just decide to push the button today. Of course, I’m not insider or anything so I really have no idea. Maybe this shutdown will not shake company’s position at all, if yalag’s series of comments is anything to go by, just like Elon Musk fanatics And what Twitter has become today.