this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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Apollo - A beautiful app built for power and speed.

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Since many of us are trying to avoid giving reddit any traffic, this space can be used to discuss Apollo, our dreams of seeing it join the Fediverse, and to give our appreciation to @christianselig@mastodon.social for his incredible work.

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Christian squeezing Apollo for its last bit of money (old.reddit.com)
submitted 2 years ago by UgandaSans@reddthat.com to c/apolloapp@reddthat.com
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Christian has decided to squeeze Apollo again for more money, besides the wallpapers and asking people to decline their prorated refund. Christian additionally forced a pop up ad advertising this plushie.

This is just exposing to more people the greediness that Christian has tapped into recently. Recall that previously, Christian forced daily pop up ads to paid pro users to get them to subscribe to ultra, which was originally stated to only be for notifications since it required a server, but now had all new features attached to it, even very simple local features. Reddit did him dirty, but to be honest, he may have had it coming. He previously disabled ultra access to Jailbroken devices as well, even if they were valid paid users. Christian also didn’t provide refunds to lifetime users who bought it before all the API stuff. Speaking of that, does anyone remember how instead of stating the price was increasing (which happened all the time) he instead said it was “going on sale at the old price”? Kinda misleading.

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[–] TeckFire@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I can’t get behind this narrative. Honestly, how else do you market this product? On Twitter? On Facebook? Mastodon maybe?

Look, he’s updating an app that hasn’t been operational in months… nobody who still has that app has any illusions of it coming back. What do they expect when they open that app?

I won’t buy a plushie, since I don’t have a place for it, but I had many fond years using Apollo, and wouldn’t mind buying something like this at all, and I would have never known otherwise (except for people complaining about it online.)

[–] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is where I am. I don’t get the narrative of Darth Christian abusing the populace. He’s an independent gig worker marketing his skills and products.

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

He’s a millionaire who made those millions from using Reddits free API. Now he’s just grifting.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Source on his net worth?

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

He has said that he made millions over the years from Apollo. I don't bookmark every comment he ever makes.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Only time he’s ever said anything close to that was a hypothetical.

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-ceo-app-founders-apollo-riff-made-millions-using-api-2023-6

Apollo's Selig did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment regarding the "millions" Huffman claims he has made. But when reached The Verge reached out to him for comment, he did not deny the claim.

Selig has said that Apollo has around 50,000 yearly subscribers that pay around $10 per year.

Those yearly subscribers alone bring in half a mill a year.

When someone asks you to confirm that you've made millions of dollars and you don't deny it, it's generally because it's true.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Using your logic, if I sell lemonade at a stand for $1 a glass, and sell 1000 glasses, I’ve made $1000. Regardless of how much it costs to make the lemonade, the cost of the stand, the cost of the property the stand is on.

Are you intentionally ignoring the cost of developing and running the app? Or did you assume things like servers, bandwidth, licenses and more were all free?

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone -1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

His servers etc aren't going to cost much because he's not doing any of the heavy lifting. His app just uses reddits API. He's not storing any content from the API. He's not recording upvotes. He's not hosting anything from there. At most he has a server for his paying customers account details. He. Isn't. Serving. The. Reddit. Traffic. Bandwidth doesn't come into it, nor do servers. Licenses? What licenses? There is no cost of "running" the app. You're talking like someone that has absolutely no idea how apps work. None of the traffic from Apollo runs through Christians servers. It's all between the customers phone and reddits servers.

If you're taking in a minimum of $500k a year making a reddit app, you're making minimum $490k profit a year from that.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Tell me you don’t understand what is being talked about without telling me you don’t understand what is being talked about.

Let’s start with an easy one, without using any back end servers how would one serve push notifications using the Reddit API?

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Push notifications aren’t costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year 😂

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So you’ve moved from “zero” to “not hundreds of thousands.”

So, how much does Apple take from those subscriptions? What libraries does he use that cost money? How is he checking for new content from the API when the app is closed?

You came into this with “he made hundreds of thousands because that’s what people paid” and assumed there was literally zero cost to him.

Of course all of that completely ignores a main question: Is he supposed to have done all this work for free? Should he not be paid for his time and development effort? Or are you saying that he should be paid less, simply because you don’t like him? Apollo was his main job for years, you’re saying he should be homeless by now?

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So you’ve moved from “zero” to “not hundreds of thousands.”

I never said zero though, stop making things up.

Of course all of that completely ignores a main question: Is he supposed to have done all this work for free? Should he not be paid for his time and development effort?

No one "ignored" that, nor was that ever a question. He chose to make an app, and he made millions of dollars from reddits content.

Apollo was his main job for years, you’re saying he should be homeless by now?

Where are you getting these insane accusations from?

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

You’re saying he had 500,000 in income. Minus the fact that Apple takes 150,000 of that, he has to pay server costs, licensing costs for libraries, bandwidth costs, and more.

So he’d be lucky if he brought in 200k a year pre tax. A little high, but not at all crazy for the founder and primary developer of an app.

As for “Reddits content” I think it’s been pointed out hundreds of times by now, Reddit didn’t make the content, didn’t pay for the content, didn’t even promote the creation of the content.

How exactly is that “millions”? That’s just a software developer job.

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As for “Reddits content” I think it’s been pointed out hundreds of times by now, Reddit didn’t make the content, didn’t pay for the content, didn’t even promote the creation of the content.

Reddit owns any content posted on reddit. It's reddits content.

How exactly is that “millions”? That’s just a software developer job.

It's millions in revenue, and he has absolutely pocketed millions from it. Again - he refused to deny it when questioned.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So the crux of your argument, is that he made normal amounts of money, over an extended time, which added up to at least a million dollars. And that’s… bad? And somehow the fact that Reddit “owns” the content because it’s a skeevy middle man matters… just because?

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

“Normal amounts of money” 😂

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah, pretty normal for a developer to make well over 100k salary a year. Take a look at some positions available, and you see many that offer over $200k plus benefits. Add in the fact that he was the main developer, paying his own benefits, and doing work developers don’t normally do… and he’s well within the expected range.

Just because you don’t know what a software developer is worth, doesn’t mean it isn’t “normal amounts of money.”

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

A normal developer doesn't take in 500k of subscription revenue a year + god knows however much from one off purchases + donations and merch etc.

I'm a senior developer btw. I know there's lots of money in it, but this guy made millions piggybacking off reddits API + reddits content and then cried poor and threw his toys out of his cot. All he had to do was make a $5/month subscription option for people that still wanted to use his app and he'd still make money from that - just not the millions that he wants.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago

Right, “just” charge $5 a month per user. How’s that working out for all the other Reddit alternative front ends? I only know of one, and they only recently started charging so there’s a good chance they are going to need to adjust their pricing.

Did you miss the part where Reddit was essentially asking for over $1 million a month with the (at the time) current api usage?

And why are you still talking about revenue? It’s a meaningless number in this discussion, as I already went into. The reason most developers don’t make revenue from subscriptions is because they make a salary and a company does all the work of dealing with the higher level stuff.

Look at it this way, if this was a company with a CEO, an HR employee, a developer, a back end guy (yeah, you completely ignored that he paid another developer to help) and infrastructure, you wouldn’t be saying anything about $500k profit a year, in fact you’d be wondering how the hell they managed to stay in business without selling personal information. But because this is one individual (plus the developer he paid) suddenly it’s an unreasonable amount of money? lol

[–] UgandaSans@reddthat.com 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I would also like to add on that this pop up was shown to all sideloaded Apollo users as well.

[–] TeckFire@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Ah… so unofficial installations of an old app got a notification that was only intended for people who had a non-functional version of the app, because that’s what the official update was set as? The audacity!

In all seriousness, that’s like saying someone with a pirated copy of a game having a bug and complaining about it to the one who runs the server is justified. Actually, not even a bug, just a regular notification… that only notifies you after you open the app…..

You see how thin this argument is, surely?

[–] UgandaSans@reddthat.com 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The “product” is an attempt to get people who feel sad to give him more money. What other app tries sells plushies of its logo?

[–] JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Many sell merch. For example, I play an idle game called Melvor Idle that routinely sells plushies of in game pets.

[–] UgandaSans@reddthat.com 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That’s a game, not a (defunct) social media app

[–] JaymesRS@literature.cafe 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You asked “what other app sells plushies of its logo?”

Melvor Idle has featured those pets in its logos and and meets your question. Your only response to that was to double down and drag those goalposts further down the field by changing the criteria.

I get that you’re super butthurt over this, but maybe you need to step back, take a breath, get some perspective and figure out why others actions that have no impact on your life bother you so much. How does this change your life? How would your life be different if this happened without your knowledge or never happened?

I bet your life wouldn’t be significantly different other than the amount of energy you’re exerting letting this anger you.

[–] UgandaSans@reddthat.com 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No “goalposts” were moved. I was perhaps not specific enough when I said app, which is why I clarified more.

There’s no reason to be passive aggressive about this. You make it sound like I dedicate my life to this, when all I did was make one post here, and outlined some of my concerns with some of the developers behavior.

[–] JaymesRS@literature.cafe 1 points 2 years ago

Asking for an example, then “clarifying” so that the criteria changes in order that the example — which answers the prior questions but now — doesn’t meet the later change is literally “shifting the goalposts”. You might look up the definition.

And your multiple replies to comments to different people that disagree all over this post are a bit more than making “one post”.

[–] TeckFire@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

And you’re saying that that’s unethical because…?

I mean think about it. Why does any company sell merch? Is it unethical for them to sell it? Why or why not?

[–] UgandaSans@reddthat.com -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It’s not inherently unethical to sell merch. It’s however apparent to me that this seems to be a cash grab. The app died months ago. This is further apparent to me when acknowledging the greediness Christian has shown before. It is unethical to try and use your already dead app to try and gain even more money by selling a low-effort plushie.

[–] TeckFire@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Again I ask… what makes this a “cash grab” and other merch not? Is it because this service is no longer active? What if there was a new plush released for Phantasy Star Online, a now defunct but beloved game?

[–] UgandaSans@reddthat.com -1 points 2 years ago

I’m not sure what Phantasy Star Online is, but yes it is because he is releasing merch for his defunct app months after the fact while also being radio silence towards the Apollo community. Christian says he wants to move on, but I guess that doesn’t apply to money making ventures.

I’m also more critical on this because of his previous more greedy behavior, which I outlined in my main post as well.

[–] skeezix@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Spez sucks.

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Reddit did him dirty

Did they? He literally made millions of dollars from Reddits product and Reddit didn’t see a cent from him.

[–] Cqrd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago

Reddit makes millions of dollars from other people's content without them seeing a cent of it