*** The Official iOS 16 Thread ***

Throrik

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I think realistically from the backlash we have to hope Reddit will back down on the idiotic API charges, but we knew this was coming with their supposed public IPO incoming. Absolute idiocy and it will see them do a full on Twitter. Reddit doing the Digg at the moment.
 

Cromulent

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uvarvu said:
Apollo is shutting down on the 30th.

apple.news

Apollo shutting down due to Reddit's unaffordable API — 9to5Mac

UGH. We’ve been tracking the negative effect that Reddit’s decision to begin charging for access to its API has had on third-party clients including Apollo. Now the developer of the awesome iPhone and iPad app has announced that API change is forcing Apollo to go offline completely.
apple.news apple.news
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Well, that sucks. I only used Reddit on my phone with Apollo, as I hate the official app.
 

Feek

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Absolutely ridiculous. I know it's unlikely but I hope something happens between now and the end of the month to reverse this.

Christian says that Apollo has 50,000 users - If every one of those deletes their reddit account, it's still only a tiny drop in the ocean for them and they'll not even notice it.
 

squerble

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One of my favourite apps for sure. I’ll not be refunding my remaining yearly sub and I’ll chuck a tip Christian’s way - looks like he will have a 6-figure refund bill very soon.
 

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Feek said:
Absolutely ridiculous. I know it's unlikely but I hope something happens between now and the end of the month to reverse this.

Christian says that Apollo has 50,000 users - If every one of those deletes their reddit account, it's still only a tiny drop in the ocean for them and they'll not even notice it.
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He has over a million active monthly users but those 50,000 are the Ultra users (subscribers).
 

ChrisD.

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Another reason to not use reddit. I'm a huge advocate of forums, much like this one, and reddit in particular has been extremely harmful to forum communities. Don't get me started on Facebook.
 

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I understand his logic regarding current subscriptions but surely there's a fairly straightforward solution for this.

Kill the old app and API as planned, Produce a new app, call it Apollo Reborn with a new API which is purely subscription. That way, he won't have the problem of current subscriptions continuing and costing him money.
 

Throrik

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Feek said:
I understand his logic regarding current subscriptions but surely there's a fairly straightforward solution for this.

Kill the old app and API as planned, Produce a new app, call it Apollo Reborn with a new API which is purely subscription. That way, he won't have the problem of current subscriptions continuing and costing him money.
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I don't think the issue is the API charges, the issue is how stringent they are, and the tiny amount of notice the developers were given. I'm all for them shutting down due to this as bowing to these insane fees is not good. Reddit is doing a Twitter.

ChrisD. said:
Another reason to not use reddit. I'm a huge advocate of forums, much like this one, and reddit in particular has been extremely harmful to forum communities. Don't get me started on Facebook.
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God yeah, bring back the old school Forum like this, so many have died that I was on throughout the late 90s and early 00s. Or are empty shells of themselves. I don't mind Reddit personally, although Reddit of old is what I think of. People seem to go to Discord now which is the worst product I have ever seen for discussion.
 

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Throrik said:
I don't think the issue is the API charges, the issue is how stringent they are, and the tiny amount of notice the developers were given. I'm all for them shutting down due to this as bowing to these insane fees is not good. Reddit is doing a Twitter.
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I think it is.

"Why not just increase the price of Apollo?
One option many have suggested is to simply increase the price of Apollo to offset costs. The issue here is that Apollo has approximately 50,000 yearly subscribers at the moment. On average they paid $10/year many months ago, a price I chose based on operating costs I had at the time (server fees, icon design, having a part-time server engineer). Those users are owed service as they already prepaid for a year, but starting July 1st will (in the best case scenario) cost an additional $1/month each in Reddit fees. That's $50,000 in sudden monthly fee that will start incurring in 30 days.
So you see, even if I increase the price for new subscribers, I still have those many users to contend with. If I wait until their subscription expires, slowly month after month there will be less of them. First month $50,000, second month maybe $45,000, then $40,000, etc. until everything has expired, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would be cheaper to simply refund users.
I hope you can recognize how that's an enormous amount of money to suddenly start incurring with 30 days notice. Even if I added 12,000 new subscribers at $5/month (an enormous feat given the short notice), after Apple's fees that would just be enough to break even.
Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days. That's a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it's just not economically feasible. It's much cheaper for me to simply shut down."

If he killed the current app as intended on the 30th and started a new one which is subscription only, the above issue would be negated.
 

Throrik

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Feek said:
I think it is.

"Why not just increase the price of Apollo?
One option many have suggested is to simply increase the price of Apollo to offset costs. The issue here is that Apollo has approximately 50,000 yearly subscribers at the moment. On average they paid $10/year many months ago, a price I chose based on operating costs I had at the time (server fees, icon design, having a part-time server engineer). Those users are owed service as they already prepaid for a year, but starting July 1st will (in the best case scenario) cost an additional $1/month each in Reddit fees. That's $50,000 in sudden monthly fee that will start incurring in 30 days.
So you see, even if I increase the price for new subscribers, I still have those many users to contend with. If I wait until their subscription expires, slowly month after month there will be less of them. First month $50,000, second month maybe $45,000, then $40,000, etc. until everything has expired, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would be cheaper to simply refund users.
I hope you can recognize how that's an enormous amount of money to suddenly start incurring with 30 days notice. Even if I added 12,000 new subscribers at $5/month (an enormous feat given the short notice), after Apple's fees that would just be enough to break even.
Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days. That's a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it's just not economically feasible. It's much cheaper for me to simply shut down."

If he killed the current app as intended on the 30th and started a new one which is subscription only, the above issue would be negated.
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That's just him answering a 'why not just increase the price' query that will 100% be asked. The reality of the situation is that the data provided by Reddit on the API numbers don't add up, the cost increase is laughable and the timing is laughable. Could he do exactly what you're saying yes, of course - but I'm really glad they've all decided not to. People who have purchased yearly and/or lifetime access to Apollo will be eligible for a refund, which will cost him around $250,000 he's mentioned, so it's not just as simple as creating a new app. Imagine if you paid for Internet for a year, and 3 months into that they decided oh yeah we're gonna increase your bill by a thousand percent, you wouldn't accept it.
 

ChrisD.

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Throrik said:
God yeah, bring back the old school Forum like this, so many have died that I was on throughout the late 90s and early 00s. Or are empty shells of themselves. I don't mind Reddit personally, although Reddit of old is what I think of. People seem to go to Discord now which is the worst product I have ever seen for discussion.
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Absolutely. I've probably invested about 20h of my time over the past week moving a forum I run onto a new host. The process itself takes much less time, but proving it all and testing takes time. Sometimes I question why I bother given the very little amount of traffic it gets, but I can't bring myself to give up.
 

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“Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days, he writers. “That’s a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it’s just not economically feasible. It’s much cheaper for me to simply shut down.”

This is very sad that a company can just make someone company down within 30 days. That is pretty ****** of reddit.
 
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