Reddit app 'Apollo' is shutting down over Reddit's prices

Apollo, one of the most popular Reddit apps, is shutting down due to modifications made to Reddit's API that will impose incredibly high costs on developers who create Reddit clients.

Reddit had announced its intention to implement a fee for accessing its API earlier in 2023. The increased costs, which will go into effect on June 19, affect third-party apps built to help people access the Reddit platform.

Developed by Christian Selig, Apollo has emerged as arguably the most widely used app for accessing Reddit. But Selig announced on Thursday that he has no choice to shut down Apollo on June 30 because of the increased expenses associated with API access.

The issue is that Reddit has decided to charge $0.02 per user for accessing its service. As a result, Apollo would face an estimated annual cost of $20 million even before generating any profit from developing the app.

Selig, an independent developer, wrote that the cost is beyond his financial means and claims that Reddit assured him the new pricing would be fair.

"Apollo's price would be approximately $2.50 per month per user, with Reddit's indicated cost being approximately $0.12 per their own numbers," he said. "A 20x increase does not seem "based in reality" to me."

He further wrote that increasing the Apollo subscription cost isn't a viable option given Reddit's 30-day deadline. Approximately 50,000 people have a yearly subscription to Apollo, which means their price is already locked in.

"So you see, even if I increase the price for new subscribers, I still have those many users to contend with," Selig writes. "If I wait until their subscription expires, slowly month after month there will be less of them."

If he removes the Reddit API from Apollo, the app will lose the ability to retrieve Reddit content. As a result, many users will likely ask for a refund on their annual app subscriptions.

Selig anticipates that he could be responsible for a substantial sum of $250,000 if that happens. As a result, it's more affordable for him to shut down.

11 Comments

eightzero 3148 comments · 14 Years

About 1 year ago

AppleInsider said:

If he removes the Reddit API from Apollo, the app will lose the ability to retrieve Reddit content. As a result, many users will likely ask for a refund on their annual app subscriptions.

Selig anticipates that he could be responsible for a substantial sum of $250,000 if that happens. As a result, it's more affordable for him to shut down.

Read on AppleInsider

I'm not following: won't people that paid for an annual subscription be asking for a refund if they shut down too?

And herein is the issue with "subscriptions." As the old saying goes: any warranty is only as good as the company issuing it. When they disappear, so does your warranty.

I would have thought developers escrowed any advance they receive for services for just this situation. Guess that's not the case, hunh?

chutzpah 392 comments · 1 Year

About 1 year ago

eightzero said:

AppleInsider said:

If he removes the Reddit API from Apollo, the app will lose the ability to retrieve Reddit content. As a result, many users will likely ask for a refund on their annual app subscriptions.

Selig anticipates that he could be responsible for a substantial sum of $250,000 if that happens. As a result, it's more affordable for him to shut down.

Read on AppleInsider

I'm not following: won't people that paid for an annual subscription be asking for a refund if they shut down too?

And herein is the issue with "subscriptions." As the old saying goes: any warranty is only as good as the company issuing it. When they disappear, so does your warranty.

I would have thought developers escrowed any advance they receive for services for just this situation. Guess that's not the case, hunh?

That's the point. He's on the hook for $250k of subscription refunds, but that pales in comparison to the $20 million he'd have to pay Reddit in API fees if he were to try and keep going and honour the subscription service. He'd understandly rather give the refunds.

I guess all the Reddit channel black outs achieved diddly squat.

bakerzdosen 185 comments · 16 Years

About 1 year ago

I can't see anyone who has been paying attention that's surprised by this.

Reddit has said they don't want to shut down 3rd party client apps, but they also just want to be paid for the infrastructure they have built and maintain.

I see both sides of this story, but considering how chatty Apollo is with Reddit's API, this was one of only three possible outcomes:

• Reddit caves on their pricing demands
• Apollo shuts down
• Apollo is re-written to be more efficient in its communication.

The protest is supposed to accomplish the first point [narrator: it won't], and the developer has said the third point wasn't really feasible, so... surprise! We get option 2.

So users suffer and Reddit gets a black eye. But the internet has a really short memory

dogpaw 3 comments · 7 Years

About 1 year ago

eightzero said:

I would have thought developers escrowed any advance they receive for services for just this situation. Guess that's not the case, hunh?

I'm not really a fan of the subscription model, but at least if you're paying small amount every month and Reddit pulls the rug out from under you like they did the with API fees, then you cancel and it's over. If you paid a year in advance or a one-time/lifetime purchase then you're out even more.

You're also talking about making developers bridge the gap in the event that an API they use decides to change their ToS. I don't think that's something they should necessarily be responsible for.

tzm41 95 comments · 8 Years

About 1 year ago

bakerzdosen said:

I can't see anyone who has been paying attention that's surprised by this.

Reddit has said they don't want to shut down 3rd party client apps, but they also just want to be paid for the infrastructure they have built and maintain.
I see both sides of this story, but considering how chatty Apollo is with Reddit's API, this was one of only three possible outcomes:

• Reddit caves on their pricing demands
• Apollo shuts down
• Apollo is re-written to be more efficient in its communication.

The protest is supposed to accomplish the first point [narrator: it won't], and the developer has said the third point wasn't really feasible, so... surprise! We get option 2.

So users suffer and Reddit gets a black eye. But the internet has a really short memory

Can you elaborate on the "chatty" point? From reading the dev's reddit post, his app uses about 345 requests per user per day, compared to maybe 100 of some other apps. That does not look wildly inefficient to me. Reddit limits API use to 60 per minute per user, so 345 is a tiny fraction of that limit. Maybe users are just on Apollo longer, maybe Apollo is a tiny bit more inefficient. Nothing outrageous.

The main issue though, is that Reddit gave the dev a month from announcing the new rate before starting to pay at the rate. There's no chance a dev can roll out a significantly more efficient version in a month.

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