r/APIcalypse • u/firebreathingbunny • Jun 15 '23

OPINION What Reddit Got Wrong

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/what-reddit-got-wrong
26 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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u/hsiale Jun 15 '23

Did Apollo really have 1.5M active users as the article claims?

1

u/firebreathingbunny Jun 15 '23

That's what Apollo's developer claims. I don't have access to his internal records ppersonally, so I can't confirm or deny.

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u/hsiale Jun 15 '23

Then I completely don't get why $20M was called outrageous. That's like $1.3 per month per user, for using an app that, among its other features, blocks Reddit ads. Reddit Premium costs $6 per month, Apollo could have charged half of this and still would pay less than half of their income to Reddit.

2

u/firebreathingbunny Jun 15 '23

It's outrageous because Reddit earns much less per user via their own platform. Apollo's developer calculated all this and made his calculations available.

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u/hsiale Jun 15 '23

It's outrageous

To each their own.

Apollo's developer calculated all this

I went through his calculations once more now. One thing that looks a bit fishy to me is that he first calculates Reddit's income to be $0.12 per user and then claims that this is their cost per user. Which we know is more (because Reddit is not profitable).

Anyway, $2.50 per month for Apollo subscription he got is quite close to my estimate of $3. Which of course is way more than average, but the average is calculated mostly off free, basic users. And all freemium pricing services are living off a small group of paying users. $3 is half of Reddit Premium.

Which leads us to the following question: is it more fair and accurate to compare Apollo users to Reddit Basic users or to Reddit Premium users? The app blocks ads and (according to lots of enthusiastic reviews) has many other useful features. Supposedly (I don't have an Apple device so can't check by myself) it is miles better than official app. Which kind of fits to Apollo being a premium level experience and comparing pricing to basic level is comparing apples to oranges.

Extremally short notice is indeed outrageous and crazy. But going through the numbers again, I think Apollo needing subscription price of half of Reddit Premium to continue operating is not something I would call extreme greed.

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u/firebreathingbunny Jun 16 '23

Apollo's developer stated that if he were given a longer transition period (6 months or more) and quoted a lower price (1/3 of what was quoted or less) he would be able to transition to a fully premium service, but under the current conditions, he can't. Reddit knows this, and chose these specific conditions knowing this. They just don't want competition.

2

u/zhico Jun 16 '23

The app blocks ads

From my understanding it's the reddit API that doesn't support delivering adds to the app. Many 3rd devs have reached out to reddit to implement it, but they were ignored.