Now Apollo faces the cliff

https://daringfireball.net/2023/07/now_apollo_faces_the_cliff

by MilnerRoute • 3 years ago

34 7 3 years ago

smoldesu• 3 years ago

I can’t recall a situation like this, with an ecosystem of third-party clients collecting subscriptions and then having the first-party service yank the carpet out from under them

It's almost like, a worrying trend or something, man.

Anyways, what's your favorite iPhone app? Comment below!

joeframbach• 3 years ago

Now imagine that the way it worked when you get fired or laid off is that you’re also suddenly on the hook to pay back the last, say, 6 months of your income.

It would be analogous if I were paid my annual salary upfront at the beginning of the year. But it's not.

theogravity• 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing this post. I didn't realize the Apollo dev would be on the refund hook. I only started using Apollo Pro a few months before the shutdown and the dev has shown to be a really stand-up person that I re-downloaded the app to hit the don't refund button.

I hope he'll be able to find another exciting opportunity for himself.

EduardoBautista2• 3 years ago

I don’t understand if the developer will be giving refunds, why doesn’t he just allow Apollo to live as a $3-$5 a month app after processing those refunds?

I would gladly pay that amount.

joshstrange• 3 years ago

First off: Bad blood, Reddit has lied constantly throughout this. They also refused to give him an extension and then turned around and gave it to other apps. I wouldn’t trust them enough to continue building on their platform.

Second: $3-5 is too low. Christian’s estimates of API usage average included free users, paid users have higher costs as they have higher usage (they are power users, normal Reddit users don’t care about 3rd party apps) and there is another tier above that of super-power-users. Since the costs are usage based he’d have to do some kind of “base tier with recharge packs” or multiple tiers and keep close track of your usage. All things that aren’t in existence today (in his stack) and so see my first point about not wanting to build on shifting sands.

We will see if other app devs who got extensions are able to make it work, I think the costs are going to be higher than people think. I say this as someone who had considered paying up to $15/mo for Apollo if he could make it work but as it stands now I’m off Reddit.

sourdoughness• 3 years ago

You should go and read the extremely detailed posts Christian shared in r/apolloapp. The dude really considered everything, but it’s a non-starter: Reddit do not want 3rd-party clients, so it’d be foolish to build further on top of this platform even if it were practical, which it absolutely is not.

EduardoBautista2• 3 years ago

I did read them. I specified $3-$5 a month because he estimated the cost to be $2.50 a month for heavy users.

Now Apollo faces the cliff

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