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.
And now I’m here after 17 years on Reddit. 🤷♂️
15 for me. No ragrats.
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 :)
Welcome and enjoy your stay!
I am exited about this new community & the potentials that can be created. Let’s conceptualize, design & built the server & application side - organically as our needs evolve over time. !
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.
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).
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
This is a big reason why I’m here as of today. I just can’t in good conscience support what Reddit is doing. I’ve been an Apollo user since it launched out of beta. I jumped at the chance to have paid Christian twice for both the original premium upgrade. And then the Ultra one later down the road. I just adore the app. When I switched to Android I still found myself missing it terribly. Since switching back to iOS. I’ve averaged 15-20 hours per week just using Apollo.
End of an era :(
I’m a more recent Apollo user, having switched to iPhone last year. But I’m in the same boat. The third party apps are the only way to go on any platform.
I’ve also been a paying Reddit gold (now premium) user for, I dunno, maybe 10 years. It’s offensive that after all that, I can’t run the software I want to run to access the site. It’s a sign of enshittification.
And frankly, Apollo or not, Reddit isn’t what it used to be. It’s less friendly and welcoming than the narwhal days when /r/LucidDreaming was the hottest community. It’s more abrasive now, more childish. Like the rest of the internet, I suppose.
Yeah, it is completely different than what it used to be. There would definitely be times when a hivemind mentality would get borderline insane. The first subreddit I discovered was r/atheism. And it was nice seeing other people like me. But I remember asking honestly about a girl I was dating at the time being Lutheran and wondering if it could work. Some were supportive. But some people were vile. It was then I could see how nuts it would get.
The communities are so large it has almost gotten too big for its own good. It’s made the people who run the site into total monsters. I started off lurking the site about 14 years ago. And the finally made an account 3 years after. 11 years down the drain, I remember recommending the site to people all the way back then. Especially when I started discovering a lot of the meme subreddits that I would share with friends.
God, I feel so bad for Christian. What a slap in the face….
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.
F
Going to miss using Apollo. Great design and Christian built it with the user experience first.
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!
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.
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?
Well I’m done.
Warned the mod teams in the various subs I mod that I won’t be back after the 30th. It’s sad because I feel I am letting them down, but the knowledge I’ve gained from various communities and posts there isn’t worth the price now.
Thanks for standing up for what you believe in. I’ve been a part of reddit myself for more than 15 years on different accounts and I just can’t continue to go down the rabbit hole into VC-funded junk. The site seriously started to degrade after the huge venture capitalist investment (from Chinese firms no less) in 2019 and it’s just gotten worse in the five years since then.
Will you close your accounts?
I’m quite torn. The various gaming subs I mod have great teams, and are generally great communities. I legit feel like I am doing them a disservice by stepping down and closing accounts at the end of the month.
But doing the work for a company who has no regard for the reason it is a success stings more than the feeling I’ll be abandoning some teams of passionate individuals.
I love the ‘old’ feeling of the internet on here. What I miss from forums in the '90’s. I feel like this is the best decision.
But actions speak louder than words. They don’t deserve users who they abuse.
I’m waiting to see what the response is from spez about the API changes tomorrow. I expect a shit show that will piss me off enough to begin deleting content from the site, yes.
I’m from the future and I’d like to congratulate you on your prediction! It wasn’t exactly a long shot, but… yeah. You got it exactly right.
I’ve deleted all of my alts. Main account goes June 29. You guys have made a house a home here at Beehaw.
