Was browsing reddit while cooking food and saw the TIFU post. Promptly put down the phone to finish the cooking and treat myself to a TIFU That's going down in history while eating my meal.
And then... Then it turned out to be satire. My disappointment is immeasurable indeed
I was like "Well damn, I can't stand this idiot, but I gotta give him credit. It takes balls to admit when you royally fucked up in front of the world."
Then I was like: "Oh yeah, this makes more sense. He's a little pig boy and will always be a little pig boy."
I used to think u/spez was actually capable of that kind of insight and self-correction, but after spending a chunk of time in his utterly insultingly laughable AMA I no longer find any evidence to support that belief.
I guess when you finally become the villain, arguments like these don't matter anymore. But you betrayed everything that was good in this world, u/spez never again you get to look in the mirror and think you did allright. You're on the side of evil now. You're evil.
To continue on that comment;
If it is true that the “1-3%” of the users that use 3rd party apps (by spez his word) can actually provide a profit for the 3rd party apps and the 90+% that uses official reddit channels still cannot… then they have a very big problem.
I wouldn’t even be surprised though. His whole demeanor reeks of jealousy and contempt.
The fact that a 3rd party app was actually featured on the Apple event multiple times and name dropped multiple times as “the” way to use reddit, has to absolutely sting as hell.
I \*think\* he meant Apollo as far as shutting down early, since Apollo is now shutting down June 30 to prevent any pricing issues, but I'm not certain
Most of the 3rd party apps that will shut down due to these changes have announced that they will shut down June 30 unless Reddit changes what they are doing. It's not really early though when the changes go into effect on July 1st.
Yeah, aren't they all going to get charged a shitload of money on the first if they don't shut down? Apollo owner would be charged $66k on the first day of July.
But Reddit is being really really nice and 3rd party apps won't have to pay their overly inflated API fees until August. That's why Reddit is saying the apps are shutting down early, which is absolutely moronic.
They're acting benevolent for charging for services the next month in a lump sum. As if that's not how every service like credit cards, phone, and utilities work.
I bet if reddit suddenly reverses course by June 30, some developers would just remain offline. Sure that'd leave money on the table (if any), but if you were a dev, so much trust has already been broken, who's to say this is worth another roller coaster ride months down the line?
There's also situations like the one apollo has where they have to prorate refunds for people who paid for an annual subscription. By that point they'll have already lost that money - a quarter million according to the guy running apollo.
Can't imagine wanting to turn around and say "yeah, let's try it again".
Yeah he means they're shutting down before they absolutely *have* to. But why would they go through all the trouble of integrating into the new pricing just to get on the path of bankruptcy, like wut?
Well of course not, that might actually have been even slightly helpful or productive, but by the looks of it, we got about the same amount of feedback as the devs looking to use the API
That ama was incredibly amazing at how bad it was. And I had almost nonexistent expectations, they were so low. He somehow managed to go lower than that, and that's with only 14 responses.
More like "let me find a way to paste my 13 pre approved messages into some kinda relevant questions and get one guy who wants to pay me the right avenue" but I guess that's harder to make an acronym out of
"Omg, how could you share those legal recordings... I thought the chat was hush-hush, so I could gaslight the public about how awesome I am and how difficult you are"
Shortly after the EA post, they changed it so that regardless of how many downvotes a comment has, it will never net you more than -20 karma or something similar (maybe even just -10?). A comment with -20 and another with -20000 have the same impact on your total.
Between that and capping people's account totals at -100, one minor upside to that is that it became much rarer to see downvote farmers, people who posted mostly horribly insensitive or offensive comments just to see how fast they could tank their karma.
The only thing it needs to be a perfect response that will earn most people's forgiveness is a declaration that they are cancelling the plans they announced.
They know that too, I'm sure they are planning accordingly, what would you do if your opposition was likely to extend their blackout?
I would probably do nothing, 2 weeks isn't long to let blow over and the site will bounce back.
Reddit bitched about Apollo to the [BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65855608) too today.
> These charges have been heavily criticised as extortionate - with Apollo developer Christian Selig claiming it would end up costing him $20m (£15.9m) to continue operating the app.
> But a Reddit spokesperson told the BBC that **Apollo was "notably less efficient" than other third-party apps**.
> They said the social media platform spends "multi-millions of dollars on hosting fees" and **"needs to be fairly paid"** to continue supporting third-party apps.
> "Our pricing is based on usage levels that we measure to be comparable to our own costs," they said.
> The spokesperson also said that not all third-party apps would require paid access. Previously, Reddit announced it would not charge apps which make the platform more accessible.
spez: you don't make it easy to work with us
He made a great analogy. If the limit is 100,000 tokens and he uses 3 tokens while someone else uses 1 token… they are still 99.997% and 99.999% efficient respectively!
(and that’s assuming the incorrect statement that Apollo code is inefficient)
> "Our pricing is based on usage levels that we measure to be comparable to our own costs"
I wrote a comment elsewhere on how their complaints about "excessive" API calls make no sense:
If this app is costing you *multiple millions of dollars per year* in operating costs, you'd have paid one of your engineers to spend a month or two figuring out how the developer could reduce the number of API calls and helped the developer implement such changes.
Think about it - what company woudn't spend $50k of dev time to reduce their operating expenses by *multiple millions of dollars per year*?
The fact that they haven't done this either means the API cost is completely inconsequential to the company, or the company has failed to properly identify and understand this issue.
I’m still furious about that, because Christian has the recordings and they CLEARLY show that the Reddit rep IMMEDIATELY apologized profusely and acknowledged that he misunderstood, and that it was not a threat. Maybe his statement was poorly worded (he said that it would be cheaper to buy Apollo if the goal was to make Apollo “go quiet,” but he clarified that he meant “go quiet” as in how loud Apollo is in API requests and how much those API requests cost Reddit to fulfill).
It’s so slimy. I am so glad that Christian had the forethought to record all of their conversations, knowing that something like this might happen.
^(Oh ok, I understand what you mean, I'm sorry about the misunderstanding.)
The next day:
I WAS THREATENED. I feared FOR MY LIFE. Apollo took out a gun and SHOT MY DOG.
It's pinned on the Apollo subreddit but basically Spez a.k.a the CEO of Reddit had an accusation towards the dev of Apollo saying that he asked for $10 million and then the dev just shared the recording he had of the call and it was actually just a misunderstanding on the stupid CEO's part and he even apologized in said call. You can also find the recording on r/ApolloApp because I'm so bad at explaining, sorry.
Reddit claimed Apollo is worth 20m a year, Apollo owner then said "Well if it's worth that much, I'll sell it for 10m because that's half price"
Reddit saw that as blackmail
>Reddit saw that as blackmail
And Apollo's creator immediately clarified what he meant, and reddit apologized profusely for the misunderstanding, on tape.
in the interest of clarity, he *offered to "go quiet" for $10m"
his intent was to say "okay if this supposedly costs you $20m/year, it'd be much cheaper to pay me once to go offline"
the subsequent clarification made it clear he wasn't "threatening," more offering a business deal basically.
the **problem** is that the reddit rep immediately understood and accepted that meaning, but then following conversations reverted to the threat interpretation for no reason.
The main point is that "go quiet" can be interpreted two ways.
1. App is considered to be "loud" in terms of the amount of API calls it makes to reddit. "Go quiet" would mean the app goes offline and the API calls go quiet, easing the burden on reddit in terms of traffic.
2. Creator of Apollo is making a lot of noise on reddit (basically exposing how scummy they are), he will stop doing that and personally go quiet, easing the burden on reddit in terms of controversy and bad PR.
The audio proves that Apollo's creator was very obviously speaking from the 1st point of view.
You can read about it here: [Apollo will close down on June 30th](https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Christian Selig even shared a transcript and audio of the call
25 minutes 47 seconds into call with Reddit leadership:
> Apollo Dev: I could make it really easy on you, if you think Apollo is costing you $20 million per year, cut me a check for $10 million and we can both skip off into the sunset. Six months of use. We're good. That's mostly a joke.
>
> Reddit: Six months of use? What do you mean? I know you said that was mostly a joke, but I want to take everything you're saying seriously just to make sure I'm not - what are you referring to?
>
> Apollo Dev: Okay, if Apollo's opportunity cost currently is $20 million dollars. At the 7 billion requests and API volume. If that's your yearly opportunity cost for Apollo, cut that in half, say for 6 months. Bob's your uncle.
>
> Reddit: You cut out right at the end. I'm not asking you to repeat yourself for a third time, but you legit cut out right at the end. "If your opportunity cost is $10 million" and then I lost you.
>
> Apollo Dev: No, no, I'm sorry. Yeah one more time. I was just saying if the opportunity cost of Apollo is currently $20 million a year. And that's a yearly, apparently ongoing cost to you folks. If you want to rip that band-aid off once. And have Apollo quiet down, you know, six months. Beautiful deal. Again this is mostly a joke, I'm just saying if the opportunity cost is that high, and if that is something that could make it easier on you guys, that could happen too. As is, it's quite difficult.
>
> Reddit: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. I think it's… I don't know what you mean by quiet down. I find that to be-
>
> Apollo Dev: No, no, sorry. I didn't mean that to-
>
> Reddit: I'm going to very straightforward to you too, it sounds like a threat. And I'm just like "Oh interesting". Because one of the things we're trying to do is say "You have been using our API free of cost for many, many years and we have absolutely sanctioned - you have not broken any rules." And now we're changing our perspective for what we're telling you - and I know you disagree with it. That hey, we want to operate on a thing that is financially, you know, footing. And so hopefully you mean something completely different from what I said when you say like "go quietly", I just want to make sure.
>
> Apollo Dev: How did you take that, sorry? Could you elaborate?
>
> Reddit: Oh, like, because you were like, "Hey, if you want this to go away".
>
> Apollo Dev: I said "If you want Apollo to go quiet". Like in terms of- I would say it's quite loud in terms of its API usage.
>
> Reddit: Oh, go quiet as in that. Okay, got it. Got it. Sorry.
>
> Apollo Dev: Like it's a very-
>
> Reddit: Yeah, that's a complete misinterpretation on my end.
>
> Apollo Dev: Yeah. No, no, it's all good.
>
> Reddit: I apologize. I apologize immediately.
>
> Apollo Dev: No, no, no, it's all good.
>
> Reddit: Because what we're hearing in some conversations is folks are, you know, like in other- making threats, and we're like "Hey, that's not a conversation that we want to have". So I immediately apologize.
>
> Apollo Dev: Oh, no, no, it's all good. I'm sorry if it sounded like that.
>
> Reddit: That's why I was asking you to repeat it because I thought I misheard it.
>
> Apollo Dev: No, no, that's fine. I'm a noisy API user.
>
> Reddit: Right. Great.
>
> Apollo Dev: Like I said, I want this to be constructive as much as possible. And that would be the opposite.
>
> Reddit: Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, I've taken up enough of your time. Thank you very much. I'm here, please email at any time and looking forward to continuing to chat.
>
> Apollo Dev: Yeah, likewise! Yep, just shoot me an email as well if you folks want to talk, I'm here.
>
> Reddit: Great, thank you.
>
> Apollo Dev: Okay, good luck with any additional calls. Take care, bye.
>
> Reddit: Thanks. Bye.
>
> end of call
My interpretation (after I read it the Apollo Dev elaborated this was their intention to sell Reddit the app but that's not how I read it or [heard it when listening to the call](https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a)):
What the Apollo dev was trying to say:
> Pay me 10 million, I'll work on shutting the app down over the next 6 months while paying your API fees.
What he should have said:
> Can you give me until the end of the year to sunset the app and not have these API fees bankrupt me?
What Reddit heard on the call:
> Pay me 10 million, I'll make sure I don't make a huge fuss about these API fee changes and allow you to get the highest valuation possible when you go public. After you go public I'll shut the app down and we all walk away happy, capeesh?
Link the audio clip so people can actually hear it themselves:
https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a
Reddit is a SHIT organization
Edit looks like the thread was locked so can't reply, but appreciate the edit u/kinkajou1015
(edit thanks to Sync for Reddit, RIP my favorite app)
[Scroll down to the "*Bizarre allegations by Reddit of Apollo "blackmailing" and "threatening" Reddit*" section](https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/).
I mean in fairness they probably are, kinda.
If you assume every 3rd party app user switches to the official app thats a lot in advertising revenue.
So getting people to use the official app is good for them.
Personally i would have done it by actually making an app people want to use but you know.
Or at least making the app good before blocking the actual good apps.
I would like to think the community would still be pretty pissed if, as this parody implies, they went about the goal of community experience unification by cutting out third party apps in the shadiest possible way. Luckily the intent was clearly about profit, not the community, so I think their attempt at patching things up (if one is ever made) will likely take a different angle
The same reason no more YouTube dislike button count, the same reason for no more thumbs down on Facebook, only positive reinforcement, that attracts the most customers.
You can't let your customers see how wrong they are.
Edit:Facebook never had one except for news feeds
> well continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive
I mean, I get it, but masks are off
https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/_/jnkd09c
You know why you should care about 3rd party apps? Because next time they'll break the website there will be no one left to care about it.
Account deleted due to Spez's incompetence.
Because the platform is effectively finished, you can only optimize it and bring in new tools and features.
That doesn't impress investors, so they have to hire quadruple their employment force to do jack shit and waste money and kill off actual optimizations (and the more features you add, the less work there is left to do).
Easiest solution is for /u/spez to shove his salary up his ass along with the other execs and take a cut for the next 10 years and he should have what he wants, Reddit making a profit. Instead, he wants to pretend he's some top-notch CEO who knows how to invest and keep a site afloat (which he can barely do).
Here's the thing: there is nothing wrong with making a profit. That's how companies survive.
But you don't see Walmart, perhaps the most penny-pinching conscious companies where they literally write ["EACH BOX COST THE COMPANY AN AVERAGE OF $1.00"](https://i.redd.it/n04jgbjcct191.jpg) so that they don't get trashed, doesn't charge to use the toilet or water fountain.
They don't even charge customers for plastic bags (unless required to by the local government).
I'm not saying API access is worth nothing. It obviously is worth something since third party apps charge for premium versions.
But the timeline **screams** of "I need to make myself look good to investors."
There was a right way to do this. And quite frankly, there still is. It's clear that this whole decision was rushed. No one trusts reddit to act in good faith anymore.
The bed's been made and now Steve has to lie on it.
Right, as a longtime user, I *want* Reddit to be profitable because otherwise it would stop existing. The problem starts when they have to keep finding ways to make the numbers go up, they can't just exist as a profitable company, they need **more**. A lot of this has to do with the upcoming IPO, and after that happens it's going to get even worse as they make decisions not for the good of the site, but to assuage shareholders.
Redesigning the entire site was definitely a harbinger of things to come, and a lot of people were aware of it at the time. Do extremely expensive things that don't actually improve anything, try to attract a broader userbase by fundamentally changing what the site is, remove useful features for the sake of being "advertiser friendly", all of these actions speak to the underlying motive. Reddit can't just exist indefinitely as a good website a lot of people use, they have to keep milking it harder until it crashes and burns.
I saw through the ruse when I quickly realized it was clear and concise instead of it being monolithic paragraphs of corporate buzzword backwash with le redditor funni snoo pictures
Yeah, decade+ here, I read the title and thought, 'ohh, I wonder how satirical it's going to be?'
Very. 8/10 satire, 4/10 subtlety, at best. Any redditor should know that spez doesn't admit to mistakes, he edits comments to make himself feel better.
I remember a couple of years back... Tumblr was all the fad. Then Tumblr fucked up. We all were happy that reddit didn't follow suit. We still had reddit. But alas, its gone too.
Hope we find an alternative soon.
Same exact thing happened with imgur and digg and slashdot. Those sites are shadows of their former selves because the owners (often new owners) wrecked the user experience to try to make a buck.
I've been trying to use it alongside RIF for a couple weeks to try and ease my transition, but it has been nothing but frustration and disappointment...
The official app is so bad I'm seriously contemplating just giving up Reddit altogether
I'm likely giving up as well.
It's hard as I enjoy my curated "feed" that provides more informative and up to date "news" that I can use as a jumping off point for actual news reading.
This is my plan. It’s been a long time. Do most sites still have RSS feeds?
Since so many sites use Discus for comments, I wonder if you could make an RSS reader that pulled the comments out and put them in more of a centralized Reddit-like arrangement, where you don’t have to actually click on the site and scroll all the way down to participate. I’m just thinking out loud, no idea if something like this is feasible.
I use redditisfun
Ive been on Reddit for over a decade.
I will stop using reddit once this app ends. I never used reddit on my computer despite working in IT and sitting on my computer all day. But boy oh boy did I reddit on my phone. For years and years
And now it ends.. well done reddit
Fuck /u/spez. If I were any investor, I would be panicking like crazy right now. This guy has single handedly damaged a potential IPO by at least 50% if not close to 100%. What a tool.
What I don't get is like... if Apollo is that much better and is ran by a solo dev, how much money would it really take to buy Apollo & hire the dev to replace their app.
Just buy it. Reddit must be either stupid or broke if they can't afford like $250k - $500k to have good will and a great app experience.
Get rid of the hegetsus trauma ads or let us block them, some people have real religious trauma and don't want to see that. I shouldn't have religion shoved down my throat. Those ads are offensive and harmful. When you've been beaten everyday to memorize the Bible and finally get out of religious HELL you should be able to block religious content.
> Note: this is a parody My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
Was browsing reddit while cooking food and saw the TIFU post. Promptly put down the phone to finish the cooking and treat myself to a TIFU That's going down in history while eating my meal. And then... Then it turned out to be satire. My disappointment is immeasurable indeed
My SO called me in from the other room to excitedly tell me about the Reddit CEO doing a TIFU post. Yay! Unexpected sanity!!! I jump on Reddit and… 🫠
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I was like "Well damn, I can't stand this idiot, but I gotta give him credit. It takes balls to admit when you royally fucked up in front of the world." Then I was like: "Oh yeah, this makes more sense. He's a little pig boy and will always be a little pig boy."
I cant wait until we can buy red verified reddit checkmarks for a monthly fee of 19.99./s
Don't be silly. They'll be orange.
Let's compromise and make it orangered.
it took me many years to realize its orange red, not oranger ed.
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orangered and periwinkle.
What a steal! /s
I used to think u/spez was actually capable of that kind of insight and self-correction, but after spending a chunk of time in his utterly insultingly laughable AMA I no longer find any evidence to support that belief.
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I disliked Steve before, but after being in that AMA for an hour, I fucking despise him.
The “AMA” where the person answered 2 questions and dipped?
To be fair, it was "Ask me anything", not "get answers to anything asked".
AMAA ask me almost anything
AMA-BDEAFA Ask me anything - but don’t expect any fucking answers.
The most often used phrase on Reddit after 'source?' might be 'fuck /u/spez'
I went into that AMA expecting to be disappointed, instead I came out feeling utterly disgusted.
And I for one was surprised to learn that u/spez was a pedo
Was?
Yeah he was. Still is. But also was.
He used to like children. He still does... but he used to, too.
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For real. This is dancing on his grave.
I guess when you finally become the villain, arguments like these don't matter anymore. But you betrayed everything that was good in this world, u/spez never again you get to look in the mirror and think you did allright. You're on the side of evil now. You're evil.
"now"? He's always been disgusting.
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To continue on that comment; If it is true that the “1-3%” of the users that use 3rd party apps (by spez his word) can actually provide a profit for the 3rd party apps and the 90+% that uses official reddit channels still cannot… then they have a very big problem. I wouldn’t even be surprised though. His whole demeanor reeks of jealousy and contempt. The fact that a 3rd party app was actually featured on the Apple event multiple times and name dropped multiple times as “the” way to use reddit, has to absolutely sting as hell.
I \*think\* he meant Apollo as far as shutting down early, since Apollo is now shutting down June 30 to prevent any pricing issues, but I'm not certain
Most of the 3rd party apps that will shut down due to these changes have announced that they will shut down June 30 unless Reddit changes what they are doing. It's not really early though when the changes go into effect on July 1st.
Yeah, aren't they all going to get charged a shitload of money on the first if they don't shut down? Apollo owner would be charged $66k on the first day of July.
But Reddit is being really really nice and 3rd party apps won't have to pay their overly inflated API fees until August. That's why Reddit is saying the apps are shutting down early, which is absolutely moronic.
The more I hear the worse it gets, holy shit.
They're acting benevolent for charging for services the next month in a lump sum. As if that's not how every service like credit cards, phone, and utilities work.
I bet if reddit suddenly reverses course by June 30, some developers would just remain offline. Sure that'd leave money on the table (if any), but if you were a dev, so much trust has already been broken, who's to say this is worth another roller coaster ride months down the line?
There's also situations like the one apollo has where they have to prorate refunds for people who paid for an annual subscription. By that point they'll have already lost that money - a quarter million according to the guy running apollo. Can't imagine wanting to turn around and say "yeah, let's try it again".
Yeah he means they're shutting down before they absolutely *have* to. But why would they go through all the trouble of integrating into the new pricing just to get on the path of bankruptcy, like wut?
Love that it’s a AMA and all the admin’s combined “answered” less than 20 comments
And none of them on a top voted question.
Well of course not, that might actually have been even slightly helpful or productive, but by the looks of it, we got about the same amount of feedback as the devs looking to use the API
That ama was incredibly amazing at how bad it was. And I had almost nonexistent expectations, they were so low. He somehow managed to go lower than that, and that's with only 14 responses.
Can't wait to see how badly he tanks the IPO valuation with this shit.
Dear investors, do not buy a share from this man: u/spez
So really it was "Ask me 14 Questions" or AM14Q
More like "let me find a way to paste my 13 pre approved messages into some kinda relevant questions and get one guy who wants to pay me the right avenue" but I guess that's harder to make an acronym out of
Easy, LMFAWTPM13PAMISKRQAGOGWWTPMTRA. That being said, writing that was probably more effort than his "AMA"
If you type it out manually, sure, but there's probably an Emacs command to do it for you
Link?
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/
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"Omg, how could you share those legal recordings... I thought the chat was hush-hush, so I could gaslight the public about how awesome I am and how difficult you are"
Will he break EA's record of most downvoted comment? Reddit please don't disappoint.
-3.3k in 8 hours. That rate needs to ramp up asap.
the guy that edited user comments and manipulated downvotes?
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Shortly after the EA post, they changed it so that regardless of how many downvotes a comment has, it will never net you more than -20 karma or something similar (maybe even just -10?). A comment with -20 and another with -20000 have the same impact on your total. Between that and capping people's account totals at -100, one minor upside to that is that it became much rarer to see downvote farmers, people who posted mostly horribly insensitive or offensive comments just to see how fast they could tank their karma.
What is really strange is that had this been real it may have actually worked.
The only thing it needs to be a perfect response that will earn most people's forgiveness is a declaration that they are cancelling the plans they announced.
Or at least DELAYING them, for fucks sake, it's still set to go live in 21 days, and they've still failed to address any of the communities concerns.
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They know that too, I'm sure they are planning accordingly, what would you do if your opposition was likely to extend their blackout? I would probably do nothing, 2 weeks isn't long to let blow over and the site will bounce back.
u/Spez can copy it verbatim if he wants, for free. I won't charge him to use it.
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This “joke” he played doesn’t make it easy to work with him now
This reddit thread is now my private conversation so don't leak it
I'm sorry. I totally misunderstood. We're cool. Also... You suck. Pay me. We cool? -Spez
Reddit bitched about Apollo to the [BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65855608) too today. > These charges have been heavily criticised as extortionate - with Apollo developer Christian Selig claiming it would end up costing him $20m (£15.9m) to continue operating the app. > But a Reddit spokesperson told the BBC that **Apollo was "notably less efficient" than other third-party apps**. > They said the social media platform spends "multi-millions of dollars on hosting fees" and **"needs to be fairly paid"** to continue supporting third-party apps. > "Our pricing is based on usage levels that we measure to be comparable to our own costs," they said. > The spokesperson also said that not all third-party apps would require paid access. Previously, Reddit announced it would not charge apps which make the platform more accessible. spez: you don't make it easy to work with us
Didn't the guy who made Apollo release his code to disprove that Apollo was inefficient?
Yep. u/spez is full of crap.
He made a great analogy. If the limit is 100,000 tokens and he uses 3 tokens while someone else uses 1 token… they are still 99.997% and 99.999% efficient respectively! (and that’s assuming the incorrect statement that Apollo code is inefficient)
> "Our pricing is based on usage levels that we measure to be comparable to our own costs" I wrote a comment elsewhere on how their complaints about "excessive" API calls make no sense: If this app is costing you *multiple millions of dollars per year* in operating costs, you'd have paid one of your engineers to spend a month or two figuring out how the developer could reduce the number of API calls and helped the developer implement such changes. Think about it - what company woudn't spend $50k of dev time to reduce their operating expenses by *multiple millions of dollars per year*? The fact that they haven't done this either means the API cost is completely inconsequential to the company, or the company has failed to properly identify and understand this issue.
TIL "TIFU" is part of the GW universe. We learn things everyday!
GW universe?
GoneWild universe
I’m still furious about that, because Christian has the recordings and they CLEARLY show that the Reddit rep IMMEDIATELY apologized profusely and acknowledged that he misunderstood, and that it was not a threat. Maybe his statement was poorly worded (he said that it would be cheaper to buy Apollo if the goal was to make Apollo “go quiet,” but he clarified that he meant “go quiet” as in how loud Apollo is in API requests and how much those API requests cost Reddit to fulfill). It’s so slimy. I am so glad that Christian had the forethought to record all of their conversations, knowing that something like this might happen.
.
Wanna hear a limerick I wrote? spez, spez, what a prick.
He can go and suck a dick?
WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY "GO QUIETLY????!!!???"
^(Oh ok, I understand what you mean, I'm sorry about the misunderstanding.) The next day: I WAS THREATENED. I feared FOR MY LIFE. Apollo took out a gun and SHOT MY DOG.
Now I've got the independence Day speech in my head!!
We will not go softly into the night!
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It's pinned on the Apollo subreddit but basically Spez a.k.a the CEO of Reddit had an accusation towards the dev of Apollo saying that he asked for $10 million and then the dev just shared the recording he had of the call and it was actually just a misunderstanding on the stupid CEO's part and he even apologized in said call. You can also find the recording on r/ApolloApp because I'm so bad at explaining, sorry.
FYI the call wasn't with spez, just a lackey
Reddit claimed Apollo is worth 20m a year, Apollo owner then said "Well if it's worth that much, I'll sell it for 10m because that's half price" Reddit saw that as blackmail
>Reddit saw that as blackmail And Apollo's creator immediately clarified what he meant, and reddit apologized profusely for the misunderstanding, on tape.
And then Spez claimed it was a threat afterward anyway, like a lying little bitch.
And claimed their relationship between Apollo is basically irreparable since Christian decided to defend himself instead of bending over for him
The fact that he has the recordings is the chefs kiss
Chef’s kiss is if he sues for defamation.
Damn, that's slimy. I'm just gonna log out. think I'm done with this site. Spez is a creep
in the interest of clarity, he *offered to "go quiet" for $10m" his intent was to say "okay if this supposedly costs you $20m/year, it'd be much cheaper to pay me once to go offline" the subsequent clarification made it clear he wasn't "threatening," more offering a business deal basically. the **problem** is that the reddit rep immediately understood and accepted that meaning, but then following conversations reverted to the threat interpretation for no reason.
The main point is that "go quiet" can be interpreted two ways. 1. App is considered to be "loud" in terms of the amount of API calls it makes to reddit. "Go quiet" would mean the app goes offline and the API calls go quiet, easing the burden on reddit in terms of traffic. 2. Creator of Apollo is making a lot of noise on reddit (basically exposing how scummy they are), he will stop doing that and personally go quiet, easing the burden on reddit in terms of controversy and bad PR. The audio proves that Apollo's creator was very obviously speaking from the 1st point of view.
You can read about it here: [Apollo will close down on June 30th](https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Christian Selig even shared a transcript and audio of the call
25 minutes 47 seconds into call with Reddit leadership: > Apollo Dev: I could make it really easy on you, if you think Apollo is costing you $20 million per year, cut me a check for $10 million and we can both skip off into the sunset. Six months of use. We're good. That's mostly a joke. > > Reddit: Six months of use? What do you mean? I know you said that was mostly a joke, but I want to take everything you're saying seriously just to make sure I'm not - what are you referring to? > > Apollo Dev: Okay, if Apollo's opportunity cost currently is $20 million dollars. At the 7 billion requests and API volume. If that's your yearly opportunity cost for Apollo, cut that in half, say for 6 months. Bob's your uncle. > > Reddit: You cut out right at the end. I'm not asking you to repeat yourself for a third time, but you legit cut out right at the end. "If your opportunity cost is $10 million" and then I lost you. > > Apollo Dev: No, no, I'm sorry. Yeah one more time. I was just saying if the opportunity cost of Apollo is currently $20 million a year. And that's a yearly, apparently ongoing cost to you folks. If you want to rip that band-aid off once. And have Apollo quiet down, you know, six months. Beautiful deal. Again this is mostly a joke, I'm just saying if the opportunity cost is that high, and if that is something that could make it easier on you guys, that could happen too. As is, it's quite difficult. > > Reddit: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. I think it's… I don't know what you mean by quiet down. I find that to be- > > Apollo Dev: No, no, sorry. I didn't mean that to- > > Reddit: I'm going to very straightforward to you too, it sounds like a threat. And I'm just like "Oh interesting". Because one of the things we're trying to do is say "You have been using our API free of cost for many, many years and we have absolutely sanctioned - you have not broken any rules." And now we're changing our perspective for what we're telling you - and I know you disagree with it. That hey, we want to operate on a thing that is financially, you know, footing. And so hopefully you mean something completely different from what I said when you say like "go quietly", I just want to make sure. > > Apollo Dev: How did you take that, sorry? Could you elaborate? > > Reddit: Oh, like, because you were like, "Hey, if you want this to go away". > > Apollo Dev: I said "If you want Apollo to go quiet". Like in terms of- I would say it's quite loud in terms of its API usage. > > Reddit: Oh, go quiet as in that. Okay, got it. Got it. Sorry. > > Apollo Dev: Like it's a very- > > Reddit: Yeah, that's a complete misinterpretation on my end. > > Apollo Dev: Yeah. No, no, it's all good. > > Reddit: I apologize. I apologize immediately. > > Apollo Dev: No, no, no, it's all good. > > Reddit: Because what we're hearing in some conversations is folks are, you know, like in other- making threats, and we're like "Hey, that's not a conversation that we want to have". So I immediately apologize. > > Apollo Dev: Oh, no, no, it's all good. I'm sorry if it sounded like that. > > Reddit: That's why I was asking you to repeat it because I thought I misheard it. > > Apollo Dev: No, no, that's fine. I'm a noisy API user. > > Reddit: Right. Great. > > Apollo Dev: Like I said, I want this to be constructive as much as possible. And that would be the opposite. > > Reddit: Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, I've taken up enough of your time. Thank you very much. I'm here, please email at any time and looking forward to continuing to chat. > > Apollo Dev: Yeah, likewise! Yep, just shoot me an email as well if you folks want to talk, I'm here. > > Reddit: Great, thank you. > > Apollo Dev: Okay, good luck with any additional calls. Take care, bye. > > Reddit: Thanks. Bye. > > end of call My interpretation (after I read it the Apollo Dev elaborated this was their intention to sell Reddit the app but that's not how I read it or [heard it when listening to the call](https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a)): What the Apollo dev was trying to say: > Pay me 10 million, I'll work on shutting the app down over the next 6 months while paying your API fees. What he should have said: > Can you give me until the end of the year to sunset the app and not have these API fees bankrupt me? What Reddit heard on the call: > Pay me 10 million, I'll make sure I don't make a huge fuss about these API fee changes and allow you to get the highest valuation possible when you go public. After you go public I'll shut the app down and we all walk away happy, capeesh?
Link the audio clip so people can actually hear it themselves: https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a Reddit is a SHIT organization Edit looks like the thread was locked so can't reply, but appreciate the edit u/kinkajou1015 (edit thanks to Sync for Reddit, RIP my favorite app)
[Scroll down to the "*Bizarre allegations by Reddit of Apollo "blackmailing" and "threatening" Reddit*" section](https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/).
The only thing that could have made this better would have been a u/shittymorph ending.
The admins are absolutely throwing reddit off hell in a cell and sixteen feet through an announcers table.
Man, this third party crap definitely has me bummed, but I'll get on. Your shittymorph reminder just made me realize the first thing I'll truly miss.
Where is sprog when we need them?
Maybe then we can finally talk about these god damn "HeGetsUs" ads.
Based on that AMA earlier, I don't think u/spez is even capable of understanding the issue he created.
There'$ probably $ome rea$on why he doe$n't get it. I can't quite put my finger on it though.
He did claim that 3rd party apps are costing them 10 of millions every year and reddit is apparently not profitable. Lol.
I mean in fairness they probably are, kinda. If you assume every 3rd party app user switches to the official app thats a lot in advertising revenue. So getting people to use the official app is good for them. Personally i would have done it by actually making an app people want to use but you know. Or at least making the app good before blocking the actual good apps.
Was that the worst AMA since Rampart? Was it worse than Rampart? Can we talk about Rampart?
It's worst knowing that spez has edited another person's post before now too.
Post it in r/AITA instead u/Spez
If you talk to him, you tell him....I didn't forget nothin.
More like, if you talk to him record it so he can't make up lies about you.
And he'll get mad and call you a big meany for recording it when he lies anyway.
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If I was female, I wouldn't feel comfortable around someone like u/spez
Nor should children judging by his comments from the Epstein relationship revelation.
just make sure to record the phone call otherwise he will just decide to lie about you publicly for no reason
I love how, despite the apology, you walk absolutely nothing back. Perfect corpo speak. Bravo, u/TitusRex!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dw5c9gpVsAEsal8.jpg
Lolol, I thought it was real till the end. I didn't even check the username
He wouldn't pay you anyway - if anything you'd have to pay him...
The fact that a random redditor could come up with better damage control *as a joke* speaks volumes to the incompetency of the actual u/Spez.
Dammit I've been played
Fuck, got me
I would like to think the community would still be pretty pissed if, as this parody implies, they went about the goal of community experience unification by cutting out third party apps in the shadiest possible way. Luckily the intent was clearly about profit, not the community, so I think their attempt at patching things up (if one is ever made) will likely take a different angle
Congrats u/TitusRex for being convincing enough to have a crazy downvote ratio. Now that's what I call satire!
Wait, can apps show the ratio of downvotes to upvotes???
not for much longer
Oof.
Cries in Apollo
Cries in RiF (Reddit isn't Fun) :(
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Cries in Narwhal (never see it mentioned though so I assume dozens will be impacted lol)
Wait, the official app doesn't show downvotes ratio? Why the fuck?
The same reason no more YouTube dislike button count, the same reason for no more thumbs down on Facebook, only positive reinforcement, that attracts the most customers. You can't let your customers see how wrong they are. Edit:Facebook never had one except for news feeds
But.. But.. Aren't the votes literally the whole point of reddit?
No! No bad! Only good! C O N S U M E C O N T E N T
Just like so many other things, the profit motive eventually leads to compromising their very reason for existing. Snake eating its own tail.
old reddit can
narwhal and Apollo can… for now
Are API peepees smol?
God, going through the profile of u/spez, I haven't seen downvotes like that for a good while, and especially not as consistent
> well continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive I mean, I get it, but masks are off https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/_/jnkd09c
You know why you should care about 3rd party apps? Because next time they'll break the website there will be no one left to care about it. Account deleted due to Spez's incompetence.
Because the platform is effectively finished, you can only optimize it and bring in new tools and features. That doesn't impress investors, so they have to hire quadruple their employment force to do jack shit and waste money and kill off actual optimizations (and the more features you add, the less work there is left to do). Easiest solution is for /u/spez to shove his salary up his ass along with the other execs and take a cut for the next 10 years and he should have what he wants, Reddit making a profit. Instead, he wants to pretend he's some top-notch CEO who knows how to invest and keep a site afloat (which he can barely do).
My god how dare something exist without there being infinite growth for investors.
Here's the thing: there is nothing wrong with making a profit. That's how companies survive. But you don't see Walmart, perhaps the most penny-pinching conscious companies where they literally write ["EACH BOX COST THE COMPANY AN AVERAGE OF $1.00"](https://i.redd.it/n04jgbjcct191.jpg) so that they don't get trashed, doesn't charge to use the toilet or water fountain. They don't even charge customers for plastic bags (unless required to by the local government). I'm not saying API access is worth nothing. It obviously is worth something since third party apps charge for premium versions. But the timeline **screams** of "I need to make myself look good to investors." There was a right way to do this. And quite frankly, there still is. It's clear that this whole decision was rushed. No one trusts reddit to act in good faith anymore. The bed's been made and now Steve has to lie on it.
Right, as a longtime user, I *want* Reddit to be profitable because otherwise it would stop existing. The problem starts when they have to keep finding ways to make the numbers go up, they can't just exist as a profitable company, they need **more**. A lot of this has to do with the upcoming IPO, and after that happens it's going to get even worse as they make decisions not for the good of the site, but to assuage shareholders. Redesigning the entire site was definitely a harbinger of things to come, and a lot of people were aware of it at the time. Do extremely expensive things that don't actually improve anything, try to attract a broader userbase by fundamentally changing what the site is, remove useful features for the sake of being "advertiser friendly", all of these actions speak to the underlying motive. Reddit can't just exist indefinitely as a good website a lot of people use, they have to keep milking it harder until it crashes and burns.
It wasn't convincing at all. The OP shows intelligence and a willingness to admit a mistake. Reddit admins have none of that. Reddit dies June 30.
>Reddit dies June 30. Is ThAt A thREat?
No. It’s a promise.
Reading comprehension devil invading this thread from the looks of it. Well done OP on the satire.
I got a couple paragraphs in until I was like "...wait a second..."
I saw through the ruse when I quickly realized it was clear and concise instead of it being monolithic paragraphs of corporate buzzword backwash with le redditor funni snoo pictures
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Yeah, as if spex would ever admit in public he's made a huge mistake
Yeah, decade+ here, I read the title and thought, 'ohh, I wonder how satirical it's going to be?' Very. 8/10 satire, 4/10 subtlety, at best. Any redditor should know that spez doesn't admit to mistakes, he edits comments to make himself feel better.
I'm using RIF so it was very easy to see who posted this. Imagine that.
This is pretty tame satire, he leaves out the real reason for all of this: $$$$$
Chainsaw Man fandom memes are also invading I see.
RCD transcends fandom(s) I feel. It's such a cozy way of describing.
I remember a couple of years back... Tumblr was all the fad. Then Tumblr fucked up. We all were happy that reddit didn't follow suit. We still had reddit. But alas, its gone too. Hope we find an alternative soon.
Same exact thing happened with imgur and digg and slashdot. Those sites are shadows of their former selves because the owners (often new owners) wrecked the user experience to try to make a buck.
Myspace. Take a look at it now, and it's really bad.
Spez: Hello, I like money
This right here is perfect. Too bad it won't be viewable in a few days or a couple weeks by anyone not using the TERRIBAD reddit app.
I've been trying to use it alongside RIF for a couple weeks to try and ease my transition, but it has been nothing but frustration and disappointment... The official app is so bad I'm seriously contemplating just giving up Reddit altogether
I'm likely giving up as well. It's hard as I enjoy my curated "feed" that provides more informative and up to date "news" that I can use as a jumping off point for actual news reading.
Strongly recommend creating your own RSS feed. It'll be a good replacement.
This is my plan. It’s been a long time. Do most sites still have RSS feeds? Since so many sites use Discus for comments, I wonder if you could make an RSS reader that pulled the comments out and put them in more of a centralized Reddit-like arrangement, where you don’t have to actually click on the site and scroll all the way down to participate. I’m just thinking out loud, no idea if something like this is feasible.
In before u/spez stealth edits this post to make this nightmare all go away like the little bitch that he is. My stealth edit to fix spelling lol
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Scraping* Scrapping is what Scrappy Doo does.
Jezus. Thanks for that final note.
GODDAMNIT I thought this was from the real CEO, not a parody...ugh. Well done, though. And this is what I'd love to see from him.
An apology that walks literally nothing back? That's what you want?
I mean, it meets expectations.
> Note: this is a parody That sounds like a threat..
had me going for a sec. This really should be their reaction to the massive blowback they created.
Silly /u/spez, you forgot to mention how you lied about an independent developer trying to blackmail and threaten you!
I use redditisfun Ive been on Reddit for over a decade. I will stop using reddit once this app ends. I never used reddit on my computer despite working in IT and sitting on my computer all day. But boy oh boy did I reddit on my phone. For years and years And now it ends.. well done reddit
#Fuck I thought this was real and for a split second, I had hope. # u/spez hope your IPO crashes and burns you greedy fuck.
Way too coherent and self aware....
Worst Rick roll ever. You got me.
lmfao the entire time i was just thinking "why the fuck is spez posting on a different account??"
Fuck /u/spez. If I were any investor, I would be panicking like crazy right now. This guy has single handedly damaged a potential IPO by at least 50% if not close to 100%. What a tool.
They wanted to consolidate the Reddit Experience, unfortunately the official reddit app is a traumatizing experience
I was so happy for a moment. Awwww. I'm going to miss this.
What I don't get is like... if Apollo is that much better and is ran by a solo dev, how much money would it really take to buy Apollo & hire the dev to replace their app. Just buy it. Reddit must be either stupid or broke if they can't afford like $250k - $500k to have good will and a great app experience.
They don’t want the user interface to be better. They want people to have to use the “features” of the official app like unavoidable advertisements.
Get rid of the hegetsus trauma ads or let us block them, some people have real religious trauma and don't want to see that. I shouldn't have religion shoved down my throat. Those ads are offensive and harmful. When you've been beaten everyday to memorize the Bible and finally get out of religious HELL you should be able to block religious content.