whelp, there it is
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FYI, a lemmy iOS app, Mlem, is in active development, and we hope to be at 1.0 by July 1. It’s heavily inspired by Apollo, but, obviously, with changes for lemmy.
Stay tuned and subscribe to c/mlemapp for updates!
Edit: I want to note that, since one of the biggest sticking points with 3rd-party apps has been both accessibility for the blind and deaf and mod tools, they’re both on our minds as we design the interface. Getting both right will, of course, take time, but we want everyone to know that we fully intend to make our app usable for everyone.
It is sad to see an amazing app become rendered useless due to some companies greed. They were not even being reasonable with pricing nor did they really give the dev time to figure out what to do.
I really hope that everyone leaves reddit and comes to the fediverse. Mastodon had a huge boost and it completely replaced twitter for me. I am sure Lemmy can do the same.
I’m hoping Christian ports Apollo to Lemmy. I’m not sure what the feasibility of doing so is but I’d actually pay a monthly subscription for the ability to continue using it
I think he wants the apps to die with its legacy. Maybe he would make another app that does it. I hope he does and I would pay a modest subscription for it.
I hope that on June 30th, when it shuts down, the app doesn’t just give an error message but instead displays some kind of farewell message.
Yeah a farewell would be good. In my dream scenario, he would open source it and the community could port it. That might be unlikely though
Sad news. I use Boost which I love. But won’t be using Reddit anymore once 3rd party apps are cut off.
Same. There was a post on the boost subreddit indicating this place, so I expect there will be an influx (eg, me).
And now I’m here after 17 years on Reddit. 🤷♂️
You and me both… I have seen that place through its ups and downs. From the narwhal bacon’s at midnight to Jolly Rancher, Zoop and the swamps of drogba.
I finally left my account a few days ago and haven’t been back since. The place is a shell of what it used to be and it’s been really very refreshing have a scout about somewhere else.
Fuck greed… It eventually ruins everything!
the swamps of drogba
Ha ha… Nice ! Image didn’t load without a click, it was risky but a lot better than what I braved myself for :)
If you’re here and you have the technical skills, please consider running your own instance. Beehaw and lemmy.ml are getting slammed.
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kbin looks nice, though this is the first I’m hearing of it 🧐
Are there docs or docker containers out there already for this? Anyone with an unraid server could be offloaded to their own instances if it gets published in their community apps store (it just needs a config file to make it work on there IIRC).
There’s actually an Ansible playbook for it, that will deploy Docker containers. It’s pretty easy. Edit some configs, run the playbook and boom!
Going to miss using Apollo. Great design and Christian built it with the user experience first.
Here from the dev himself: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/?sort=confidence
Shows already that the blackout protest will change nothing.
The initial breaking of this story is what drove me to explore some Reddit alternatives, but this is worse than I realized. It’s a bummer to see the enshittification principle on full display.
How do you get to the point where you’re accusing Christian of blackmailing you in this situation? You’re the 500lb gorilla who’s driving all these app developers out of business. Even if you really feel like these app developers have been free riding on your largesse, how do you have so little perspective to be this petty and spiteful?
I listened to the recording, and read the transcript, and I can… I can see it. Not overtly, not intentionally - but the dev did not communicate clearly at all.
Twice the Reddit representative asking him to repeat himself, and still he failed to actually specify his intentions. The wording in the transcript never actually expanded what the dev was saying (‘buy out Apollo’). The evasive language made it sound like a shakedown, ‘pay me $10mil to make this all go away’.
I linked the dev’s own transcript above, but the actual quotes from the 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. [Low voice:] That’s mostly a joke.
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.
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.
Now, we know that what the dev is doing is essentially offering to outright sell Apollo to end the demand it represents to Reddit. He doesn’t expect them to take it, but a lot of users asked if it were possible, and he’s suggesting it anyway.
But the wording of all of this never specifies ‘buying Apollo’. It sounds like he wants Reddit to like… pay him his ‘protection fee’. I’m sure he means ‘go quiet’ as in like, ‘go quietly into that good night’ (shut down) or ‘stop being so demanding’ (be retooled), in fact he later clarifies he means the latter and the Reddit representative apologises profusely.
But man, that was worded so poorly, and he was given two opportunities to clarify, and he just… didn’t. Only when the Reddit stand-in asked if he was suggesting Reddit buy his silence and compliance did he clarify that wasn’t at all what he was saying.
It was completely unintentional, no doubt. But it was miscommunication of the highest order, and it damaged the lines of communication so irrevocably it probably incentivised Reddit to cease negotiations completely.
I agree. When I read and listened to the conversation, it’s mostly clear that it isn’t what he meant but it could definitely be construed in a different way. I think it was a pretty poor choice of words to demonstrate how much of the userbase uses third party apps and how much sway they actually have.
That said, it is what it is. Reddit’s PR team is definitely going to try to spin this as negatively as possible even if the Apollo dev is only trying to make a point. At least there were recordings so we can come to our own conclusions.
I imagine his intend was to imply - or at least put pressure on - the idea of Apollo actually costing them $20mil was an inflated number. The idea that it was a real and on-going cost, and had been for a decade, and he’s basically daring them to buy Apollo. Because if that number was real, they should leap at the chance:
If you want to rip that band-aid off once. […] Beautiful deal.
I believe that’s why it was ‘mostly a joke’ - he never expected them to take it, he doesn’t believe it actually costs them that much. It’s not what he’s taking from them - it’s what they feel entitled to take from the users, and they blame him for being in the way.
Personally I agree it doesn’t cost that much - I believe they believe it does, but only because they look at Apollo’s userbase and activity, and decided “oh boy, if we could sell ads to those users and sell their data at those rates, this is how much we would make” and decided that means Apollo is somehow costing them that. I don’t think ‘opportunity cost’ is an appropriate concept to price on, because it relies on obviously false assumptions.
Apollo is definitely costing them server bandwidth, as are the other apps. And it seems all the devs were ready and willing to cover the costs, even negotiate how their users could still be a revenue stream. But Reddit believes they were owed the same profit of Apollo’s users that they would make off of their own, and I think that’s nonsense.
After all, if somebody pirates Photoshop, it’s stupidly naïve to think that every single one of those users would be willing to pay Adobe $80 a month (in some countries that’s more than they make in 3+ months). And if somebody goes to a friend’s house and watches a Blu-Ray with them, it’s absurd to expect they mail a check for $20 to their local theatre.
The expectation that somebody using something convenient/free would use it just as much if it was demanding/unaffordable is… like, they’re not stupid, right? They can’t possibly be that stupid to think that was even attainable profit for them. I just don’t understand why they think that ‘opportunity cost’ is real.
F
God, I feel so bad for Christian. What a slap in the face….
Why do people keep mentioning apollo? It sucks. There are actually good 3rd party reddit apps
It’s not my favorite but I can see the passion of the dev in my app. It’s not fair to discount the whole thing because you think it sucks.
The changes of the api affects every 3rd party reddit app. Apollo is one of the least good ones. Focusing on the bad app is shitting on everyone who puts all of their passion into the good apps
Curious as to why you think Christian doesn’t put passion into Apollo?
What things about Apollo don’t you like?
Making foss is driven by passion. Making proprietary software is driven by passion for making money. One of these passions are not driven by greed. Guess which one. Also, guess which kind of software I prefer. I will never understand itoddlers
So if it’s rude when others call you names, how would you categorize what you just did?
Signed up to Lemmy today, but held off to see if the Reddit situation was going to get any better. Seems like it won’t, so one big hearty fuck you to them.
I’ll try and contribute as much as I can to this community.Yup. After reading about Apollo going the way of the dino I took a quick glance over the Boost for Reddit subreddit, and while it doesn’t look like they’ve announced their shutdown it’s realistically gonna happen unless Reddit backs out last second.
I saw a thread there where someone recommended Lemmy so here I am. Gotta say so far it feels just like Reddit did, in a good way.
Even if they back out. Screw them
Yep, fool me once
That’s about where I am. Spez making up a blackmail/extortion accusation against the Apollo dev is just so completely damning. I have no faith left in anything the Reddit admins say at this point, and it’s hard to imagine what they can do to change that.
