zlacker

Can someone give me a couple reasons why it does not make sense to buy Apollo out, and make it the default iOS app?

It is currently maintained by one excellent developer, is featured by the Apple App Store for design... what's the downside?

>>consum+(OP)
Why spend millions when you can just shut off their api access?

>>consum+(OP)
The downside is the developer has pride and cares about building a good product. Not about whatever insanity the Reddit "leadership" wants done to their platform.

>>consum+(OP)
Sunk costs.

They've worked really hard on making sure their official app is an actual piece of garbage. I am truly impressed at the amount of work it takes to make something that is that bad. People being paid for the existence of that app make me feel good in that no matter how bad I can get, no matter how senile and incompetent I'll become, there'll be a job for me somewhere. Paid absurdly well, too.

>>consum+(OP)
I'm having trouble remembering right now but I think that's how they got a prior app. Or maybe Twitter. Or Gmail getting an iOS app with amazing search...

These firms hirebuy (like acquihire but more money) a single dev with an amazing tool, and not long after the tool is terrible and the dev is out of there.

>>consum+(OP)
It is insane how absolutely shit the Reddit app is and how great Apollo is. It's bizarre as hell that reddit doesn't just offer to acquihire him for like $10M cash and $1M/yr salary and be done with it.

>>Terret+w2
Alien Blue. I was a user back when I had an iPhone and it was wonderful.

>>Terret+w2
Reddit bought Alien Blue, which functionally was the Apollo equivalent in 2014, with the intention of using it as their new official app.

Instead they jerked around the developer, ditched all the code, and shut down the app in 2016.

>>consum+(OP)
First, they will kill Apollo by squeezing it out of API costs. Once it's dead, they will buy it for cheap.

>>consum+(OP)
They already did that once. They bought Alien Blue which was the top iOS client for reddit.

Proceeded to shut it down and basically fire the developer. They don't want anything but their reddit mobile app they have had top minds figuring out how to data mine you harder and show you ads. That's it. That's their goal.

>>joshjo+63
They bought Alien Blue and its dev, then fired him and shut down the app.

I think the key problem with all the theorycrafting in this thread about how Reddit could approach this in a better way is that these better strategies are fundamentally incompatible with whatever is broken in Reddit's management.

>>consum+(OP)
The downside is what makes Apollo great, is the time to content for the consumer. It is in Reddit's best interest in their current business model to have the user spend as much time on a page as possible, in a format that has advertising. Apollo does not have advertising. The official Reddit app does.

>>busymo+25
After I hit the add comment button to post the question, this was one of my thoughts. Giving an API price like that is an instant devaluation of every 3rd party Reddit app.

>>consum+ed
I wouldn't call it "devaluation" because what Reddit is basically saying is that Apollo is worth $20 million at least. Won't be surprised if they first squeeze the third party apps out of business, then buy them for super cheap.

>>consum+(OP)
The downside is that the reason Apollo is great is reddit employees have little control over it. Were they to acquire it I'm sure the enshittification would start shortly after.

>>dablue+J3
Yes, loved it. They destroyed it. Each of these firms took something and destroyed it, or if not destroyed it, replatformed onto a different ethos (see Brian Acton and WhatsApp, and him walking away from a final billion dollar check).

I think it's fair for the authors of these tools to do well. I encourage creators to monetize when they can. Just get the check up front so you can go create the next thing, because no matter what the acquirer says, you are unlikely to remain aligned.

>>joshjo+63
Reddit doesn't make money directly from providing a good clean user experience, they make money by putting ads in front of retinas, and they can drive up the value of said ads by mining user data (which can also be sold).

People gravitate towards third party apps because they have less ads, and because since they don't mine for data as much as the official app the user experience is more like "classic" Reddit and less like an algorithmic content pipe alla TikTok.

Most of the things that make the official app shit are the things that make it profitable - it just needs to avoid being so shitty as to alienate too many users.