zlacker

>>robbie+(OP)
I'm looking forward to this outcome. Reddit and Apollo both need to get paid, on a recurring basis, for their recurring services that require recurring maintenance and updates.

Reddit gets paid either through ad revenue displayed to non-paying visitors to the website, or through API calls for access to their dataset. Apps that enable user access via the API will need to pass along this charge to their users.

Apollo must become a paid-subscriptions-only app, as Reddit now charges for usage. This is fine. Apollo needs to constantly be updated to keep up with Reddit API changes over time anyways, so neither 'free' nor 'one-time purchase' are acceptable ways to provide a continuous living wage for keeping up with reddit API (and mobile OS) updates.

There's a third (paid) option, which is that Apollo sells the app to Brave or Firefox, where it's integrated into a paid "Reader Mode" subscription — because a team of developers will need recurring revenue for living wages in order to maintain the website rendering overlay and overcome Reddit's attempts to block or break it, and will need a team of lawyers to defend against the eventual lawsuit Reddit will bring against them (even if they'll lose due to the LinkedIn precedent from a few months ago — but, I am not their lawyer, this is not legal advice).

There are no good free outcomes that are not advertising-supported, and the API is incompatible with advertising, which is why so many people use it. I'm glad to see that Reddit has realized this, and I'm glad they are still offering the free ad-supported website rather than a paywall. I hope that Apollo is willing to charge me for their app, and isn't demoralized by their users complaining about this. We'll see.

>>altair+7N
The pricing seems to be aimed at killing 3rd party apps, rather than making them partners. Reddit seems to be entering it's late-stage period. I wonder what will replace it.

>>UberFl+951
Certainly, this will kill free usage of 3rd party Reddit apps. How much revenue will be lost for Apollo when non-paying users cease using it? Will the Apollo developer be affected in any significant way when those non-paying users go away?

$2.50/user/month for Apollo usage is considerably less than the $6/user/month charged by Reddit to users directly for an ad-free website experience.

Is $2.50/month an unreasonable price for an ad-free Reddit experience? If that’s how much Reddit is being paid for advertising per Reddit user, then how many Reddit users will voluntarily pay that to use ad-free third-party apps?

This is more likely to kill Reddit Premium, than to kill paid third-party apps. Apollo is a better experience than Reddit Premium, and at a theoretical $2.50/month versus the known $6/month, would save me $42/year over Reddit premium. Sign me up.