reddit-call-may-31-transcript-end.md

[This portion of call begins at 25:47]

Me: I could make it really easy on you, if you think Apollo is costing you $20 million per year, cut me a check for $10 million and we can both skip off into the sunset. Six months of use. We're good. That's mostly a joke.

Reddit: Six months of use? What do you mean? I know you said that was mostly a joke, but I want to take everything you're saying seriously just to make sure I'm not - what are you referring to?

Me: Okay, if Apollo's opportunity cost currently is $20 million dollars. At the 7 billion requests and API volume. If that's your yearly opportunity cost for Apollo, cut that in half, say for 6 months. Bob's your uncle.

Reddit: You cut out right at the end. I'm not asking you to repeat yourself for a third time, but you legit cut out right at the end. "If your opportunity cost is $10 million" and then I lost you.

Me: No, no, I'm sorry. Yeah one more time. I was just saying if the opportunity cost of Apollo is currently $20 million a year. And that's a yearly, apparently ongoing cost to you folks. If you want to rip that band-aid off once. And have Apollo quiet down, you know, six months. Beautiful deal. Again this is mostly a joke, I'm just saying if the opportunity cost is that high, and if that is something that could make it easier on you guys, that could happen too. As is, it's quite difficult.

Reddit: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. I think it's… I don't know what you mean by quiet down. I find that to be-

Me: No, no, sorry. I didn't mean that to-

Reddit: I'm going to very straightforward to you too, it sounds like a threat. And I'm just like "Oh interesting". Because one of the things we're trying to do is say "You have been using our API free of cost for many, many years and we have absolutely sanctioned - you have not broken any rules." And now we're changing our perspective for what we're telling you - and I know you disagree with it. That hey, we want to operate on a thing that is financially, you know, footing. And so hopefully you mean something completely different from what I said when you say like "go quietly", I just want to make sure.

Me: How did you take that, sorry? Could you elaborate?

Reddit: Oh, like, because you were like, "Hey, if you want this to go away".

Me: I said "If you want Apollo to go quiet". Like in terms of- I would say it's quite loud in terms of its API usage.

Reddit: Oh, go quiet as in that. Okay, got it. Got it. Sorry.

Me: Like it's a very-

Reddit: Yeah, that's a complete misinterpretation on my end.

Me: Yeah. No, no, it's all good.

Reddit: I apologize. I apologize immediately.

Me: No, no, no, it's all good.

Reddit: Because what we're hearing in some conversations is folks are, you know, like in other- making threats, and we're like "Hey, that's not a conversation that we want to have". So I immediately apologize.

Me: Oh, no, no, it's all good. I'm sorry if it sounded like that.

Reddit: That's why I was asking you to repeat it because I thought I misheard it.

Me: No, no, that's fine. I'm a noisy API user.

Reddit: Right. Great.

Me: Like I said, I want this to be constructive as much as possible. And that would be the opposite.

Reddit: Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, I've taken up enough of your time. Thank you very much. I'm here, please email at any time and looking forward to continuing to chat.

Me: Yeah, likewise! Yep, just shoot me an email as well if you folks want to talk, I'm here.

Reddit: Great, thank you.

Me: Okay, good luck with any additional calls. Take care, bye.

Reddit: Thanks. Bye.

end of call

Christian has every right to "be loud" in terms of protesting this change, as do the other devs, and it's awful to see how Reddit is twisting his words when he refers to a loud API usage. While Reddit apologized for the misunderstanding, apparently they were still calling him an extortionist. They should take a close look in the mirror.

Then you use what he was saying the right way???

No, What I meant was that while Reddit was first referring to the loudness of his protest, Christian was referring to making his API interactions quiet. We can assume that he would stop protesting as loudly as he does once he gets a payout, but this is an obvious side-effect which nobody can hold against him; calling this an extortion would not be fair. You've got to consider that they've placed him and other devs in a difficult position. Suddenly needing to manage a $20m+ budget within this short amount of time comes with a lot of overhead. This could have been prevented by enabling paid 3rd-party API access in Reddit's profile, but then again, this would hurt anonymity, so in retrospect, this seems like a bad idea. Giving devs more time to adjust would have been fair.

I apologize for misusing the terminology in regards to noise vs. traffic; not only wasn't I aware of the difference, it also seemed fitting in the context of "being loud" (as the opposite of his use of "quiet down"). Christian was referring to traffic, since that is what is causing the $20m-problem at Reddit. If we stick to that, it would still be true that most of the API interactions which Apollo is causing are in Reddit's best interest and they'd happily take over that load to monetize it with their own app.

Regarding your apology, it's appreciated, thanks.

@SpencerKaiser

Thanks for the reply. Since you took the time to be cordial and reply to all those bits I'll try to do the same.

It's a gist; it's a simple way to upload text and he's a dev... seems like a pretty logical place. If he were to post on Reddit it'd get lost in the clutter and get buried by recent posts/comments. I get why you aren't a fan of him posting here, but it's not that far out there IMO.

I mean you're right it's not the biggest deal or anything like that. But GitHub gists are for code related things not business. It's not proper to release a call without approval from another company let alone post its transcript on GitHub of all places. Regarding the subject material this could even be against the TOS. I'm not going to check the TOS so don't quote me on that. Microsoft probably doesn't want something like this to be up regardless.

The gist on it's own is not ridiculous; he provided it after the leaders at Reddit literally lied and gaslit us all into thinking what he said was blackmail... him providing evidence is not objectively ridiculous in any way, shape, or form.

To be fair to the Apollo dev what was said in the call was more coercion than anything like blackmail or extortion. I said extortion myself earlier but I don't think that was the best word to use since there are legal implications to it. I wouldn't say what was said is explicitly illegal like blackmail due to vague wording and the 'joke' coverage.

Saying Reddit lied or gaslit us is imo a bit of a stretch. What they said did happen. You are also off on their wording a bit iirc (I know you aren't quoting blackmail verbatim necessarily). I can see why a 'joke' like this would be perceived as a threat in the current climate. The Apollo developer could have asked for a redaction to what they said and tried to handle it internally before leaking a portion of the private phone call as well.

"Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million." So no blackmail just a threat.

A huge part of the issue was the timeline... that's a LOT of dev work to accomplish in order to get everyone over to paid plans and then he still has to deal with refunding those who paid but don't want to pay on a recurring basis going forward. Kind of a messy situation IMO.

I agree on the timeline issue. Always have. They said they will be extending time on a case-by-case basis in the AMA so hopefully that helps some of the others. There is already paid plan monthly infrastructure setup though. For that you just start there.

On the latter. The pay once get it forever is tricky you are totally right. You just shouldn't offer something like that for a product built on another companies API in the first place. That is definitely a headache scenario. I do think the money to refund those users is available for the shutdown anyways but I could be wrong.

but there is definitely a technical complexity issue in regards to timeline. He'd have to make an absurd amount of changes in a very short period and he's just a single dev, even if he's a badass one 😬

There are actually two devs though iirc. Apollo might have had Reddit users pick up subs at an increased price if they made the attempt. They didn't even try. You never know till you try. Since payment infrastructure for accounts is already there it's not too complex imo.

I'm confident that blocking the routing of any unpaid users is easy enough to do in a short amount of time for experienced developers as well.

What manic behavior?? Honestly I'm looking for a source... down to have my opinion changed, but from what I've seen he's come across as being very level headed despite all this nonsense.

Honestly this is subjective. The phone call itself, the wall of text post for the release of the call transcript, his reply to Spez when he said he wasn't sure how they could continue doing business after everything, his general bad decision making in all this - it comes off to me as slightly manic behavior. It all seemed pointlessly destructive.

This isn't his responsibility dude... the internet is gonna internet. He's not the CEO of a corporation, he's an app dev.

Again, he has no responsibility to try and calm down supporters; internet gonna internet.

Reddit most likely expects some degree of professionalism from people who use their data. Other businesses see this too. Even if he's going to shutdown - it makes no sense to completely burn your bridges publicly and let all your supporters spam "pigface this pigface that" in your apps sub.. At the very least making the attempt would be a better look for yourself professionally. That's all I meant. If you're planning on shutting down 100% and don't care how other businesses perceive all this.., I suppose it wouldn't matter. Let the internet do its thing.

perspective here is a little aggressive

You know what if I seemed aggressive towards the Apollo developer I apologize. I can see that my own wording could have been better at times. I do admit I got heated about everyone calling API traffic noise over and over again too.

he's doing what he can to adapt and hang in there despite his entire world getting turned upside down; try to cut him a little bit of slack and try to give him some extra empathy as a fellow dev.

It's a stressful situation for sure. I get that.

Look we all make mistakes. The Apollo developer, the Reddit CEO, me, you. The guy with the weird estrogen insult. We're human. It's important to be able to admit to these mistakes. Mistakes were made on both sides. Reddit itself did create the scenario sure. So I get it. I get where you guys are coming from with the support. I'm just trying to be objective about the falling out from what was said in this call. It can be unhealthy to only get only positive reinforcement if you've made a mistake. That's the only reason I even said anything and took the time.

@danielfaust

calling this an extortion would not be fair

You're right and I was just correcting myself on that. The correct word I should have used was coercion; or coercive.

You've got to consider that they've placed him and other devs in a difficult position.

I do but I don't think Apollo really even put in the effort to try. They had so many users and so much support. Something was salvageable. If you read the back and forth with me and @SpencerKaiser I talk about that a bit.

I apologize for misusing the terminology in regards to noise vs. traffic; not only wasn't I aware of the difference, it also seemed fitting in the context of "being loud" (as the opposite of his use of "quiet down"). Christian was referring to traffic, since that is what is causing the $20m-problem at Reddit.

Don't even worry about it man. It's my bad for being hard of you over the confusion that's brought.

I wouldn't be surprised if the terminology he used is the reason Reddit still considered it a threat after the fact. The phrasing just doesn't add up. 'Quiet down' as opposed to just saying eliminate traffic is an odd choice of words.

'A noisy API user' is too. It the equivalent of saying "I make unneeded/spam calls when using the API".

There is a chance with him being Canadian that this is an unfortunate ESL mistake. Or just a mixup if he's mainly front-end and picked that up from the term noisy neighbor and ran with it. A noisy neighbor can be caused by their API usage so I suppose that's possible too.

Regarding your apology, it's appreciated, thanks.

Cheers bro

@lpg42 I appreciate the reply!

Re: gists - fair points, I agree it’s a loose fit at best and the potential TOS violation perspective is valid as well.

Re: dev work - I’m still not convinced it’d be doable and the extension is something I’m skeptical about given their stance towards a lot of things. It’s possible that could have played out well, but who knows what that extension period would have been and whether it would have been granted. Also keep in mind he may have zero intention of being a $20M payment processor… that’s a LOT to figure out.

in your apps sub

Oof… so yea I agree with you here; being a moderator of that sub I think he actually should have said something or at least stickied a comment to be respectful. Very fair point.

Good convo and I appreciate the candor!

Re: gists
Markdown documents on GH are used by even ECMA International(a standards organization) for documenting meeting notes/transcripts (example), they are also used by orgs like "Rust Foundation" for RFCs (example).
Creating a Gist for a one-off document (instead of a repo like ECMA, RF, et al) is absolutely valid.
I can't think of a possible reason why someone would take issue with that, unless you don't use GitHub that often.

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Re: ToS violation
It would be a ToS violation if there was something like both-party consent laws in Canada (where Christian is based), but there isn't so there likely isn't a ToS violation.

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It's not proper to release a call without approval from another company let alone post its transcript on GitHub of all places.

The company was comfortable publicly shaming the developer, so I don't see why the developer defending himself by releasing the relevant transcript is "not proper". The order things went down matters, reddit started by accusing Apollo of being inefficient (pointing to RiF as an example of a "good app", which happens to be also shutting down due to api costs), apollo asks for clarification and gets none. Then reddit said apollo was threatening them, and now the apollo dev releases a part of their conversation with reddit.

---

I'm confident that blocking the routing of any unpaid users is easy enough to do in a short amount of time for experienced developers as well.

That's a nightmare for any product person. Taking away people's free access is the quickest way to get your app review-bombed to oblivion. So yes, Apollo might still be alive but at what cost?

@fa7ad all fair points! The last one about app impact is a very good one... I think the updated to the app are a can of worms; once you start thinking about things that need to be changed and/or the impact from those changes, you start realizing the sheer magnitude of the problem.

how can you blackmail a giant company? I'm confused. The new pricing is too much for people. Change it. It is that simple.

Any repect i have of reddit left after the AMA on Friday, truely a company that doesn't care about third party apps

So funny that they responded to "buy my company for what you say are a few months of its operational costs" (whether a joke or serious) with accusations of blackmail. That would be a shockingly cheap offer that any corporation actually interested in profit would leap at while drooling. But they gave themselves away by saying that a generous buyout offer is some kind of felony (that doesn't even fit the definitely loosely). This only makes sense as a response if they know their bloated prices are grossly, outrageously inflated beyond all reason—and hence anyone responding to them as real must be up to something. They are lucky not to be in court for libel.

For the people who seem to think a billion-dollar company needs to be defended at all costs, like a battered child: this is another in a long, long string of incidents in which this company was caught in totally unnecessary lies, manipulation, and contempt for its users. Do you really need to nitpick this feeble "extortion" claim to the minutest objection, like being mean to a corporation is the worst crime (even if it wasn't a demonstrable lie in the first place)? All this petty social media invective on someone's personal github? Whose company was just ruined? Like they aren't right here? Way to kick someone when they're down. Yeesh.

And just blocking unpaid users won't work—see Christian's explanation about current subscription prices suddenly being a massive loss. (I mean it was the entire crux of the reddit post, and why he has to close). Meaning he VERY suddenly either owes subscribers hundreds of thousands, or Reddit millions. Even if he blocked all free users, he would still need massive numbers of new ones paying inflated prices that are meant as a slap in the face to developers. For someone who isn't a billionaire, that sole fact makes EVERY other consideration entirely academic. Reddit is doing that, knowingly and blithely, after telling him specifically and emphatically that they wouldn't. That is not some mistake like saying something off-color in a heated comments section; it's calculated policy, with real material human cost, a contemptuous gesture using corporate power to lash out at business allies, to satisfy spez's butthurt about his own actions.

Just insanely clumsy bungling by Reddit—outdone by someone who took them at their word, politely objected to being jerked around, and then explained it transparently. Who could have predicted that? No one spez hired, obviously.

I mean, why disingenuously try to kill the tool that most of your VOLUNTEER moderators use to keep those millions flowing? Or why not strategically make Apollo the ONE EXCEPTION, instead of enraging the tiny group of users who can actually dent your revenue by direct action, as they are currently proving. Exactly what microscopic number of users, soon forced to see ads, is worth the years of investment loss that publicity about this kind of Caligula mismanagement—right before the IPO—will entail? Meeting after meeting of investors questioning their basic soundness, instead of throwing cash at them? Who would not just write off that tiny bit to keep the service running happily (or at least without blackout protests that crash the server)? The same people who forget this exact lesson year after year.

The users are the product, the entire product, that pays for their servers and millionaire Silicon Valley lifestyles. Not some kind of leeches on a charity service they are justified to cut away or disregard like annoying children. This "protest" isn't some kind of feeble gesture by social justice warriors. Reddit has already lost this little game of maximal profit squeezing they insisted on playing soo badly. At this rate, they could have just paid the $10 million joke "extortion" price to avoid untold investment loss for responding like trolls. It would have been a bargain.

Big thanks to Christian for taking the time to explain this issue so cogently. Actually dealing with someone ruining your livelihood, while lying about the reasons to make you seem like the bad guy, is enormously stressful. Take a vacation, you deserve it!

[Given the location, I meant this as support, and to foreground some things for people who didn't even bother to read the reddit thread. Will not be checking this thread for replies, and am unsubscribed. I actually mean that, unlike people who were "done" half a dozen essays ago. GO TO REDDIT.]

@photonometric again I need to stress I supported Apollo before this call - and I support the other apps as well. I think everyone does to some degree that has a similar opinion to mine.

So funny that they responded to "buy my company for what you say are a few months of its operational costs" (whether a joke or serious) with accusations of blackmail.

They never said blackmail. The wording Reddit used was threat. The developer also says opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is the cost of not choosing the next best alternative. Operational cost is what it would cost Reddit to run the API for free in general. It is a financial concept used in the books they keep. They can negate the operational cost by just rate limiting non-paid users, which they are doing. They don't need to buyout any heavy users. That doesn't make sense.

In this thread we also talk a good bit about clarifying coercion vs extortion/blackmail. I'd suggest giving it another read through in the event you do return.

For the people who seem to think a billion-dollar company needs to be defended at all costs, like a battered child: this is another in a long, long string of incidents in which this company was caught in totally unnecessary lies, manipulation, and contempt for its users

All in all this is what it all comes down to for the vast majority unfortunately. You don't even care if you're being accurate or objective and at the end of the day just want to outrage at corporations. This has been exactly my entire point. That being said there have been others (such as @SpencerKaiser) who seem to just truly mean well and are not explicitly anti-corporate in general. I would say it seems they are few and far between unfortunately.

The API was free for around 7 years. Apps that block ads and bring heavy traffic to the API hurt revenue. For all we know Reddit's books are so bad that they even risk bankruptcy if they don't fix this now. If you really feel Reddit is so bad just stop using it and move on with your life. Why say this and then go right back to Reddit? If you truly see it that way - quit.

All this petty social media invective on someone's personal github?

A huge group is protesting using pretty much every form of social media in support of your viewpoint. Saying people posting on GitHub is 'petty social media invective' just because their opinion opposes yours is quite hypocritical. I don't even have accounts on actual social media. The reason I came back to this thread is how unreasonable it all has been. I will say there has been some constructive dialog in doing so - so I'm glad I took the time.

At this rate, they could have just paid the $10 million joke "extortion" price to avoid untold investment loss for responding like trolls.

This reads like they should have paid the price just to avoid the outrage from the opposing viewpoint. Which is the entire reason both Reddit and a minority of others see this portion of the call as a threat.

Reddit isn't a profitable company right now. Shareholders/investors don't even get anything! Reddit has hundreds and hundreds of employees whose livelihoods depend on them.

The fact that the majority of people with your opinion see things like this has been pretty much my entire argument. It's a dangerous outlook to come from. It does more harm than good to listen to a large group of people that are this extreme and blindly anti-corporate.

If Apollo's developer ever clears up the whole quiet/loud/noisy API user verbiage I'd most likely support him again regardless. Half a decade isn't the longest time to be programming - but I've never once heard this used the way it was here. I understand noisy neighbor and noisy data concepts. Even noisy API calls can have some context to spam/unneeded calls (this in itself is incredibly uncommon) but there isn't such a thing as a noisy API user in context to a users heavy traffic. Until this is clarified some will see this as a threat.

Re: gists Markdown documents on GH are used by even ECMA International(a standards organization) for documenting meeting notes/transcripts (example), they are also used by orgs like "Rust Foundation" for RFCs (example). Creating a Gist for a one-off document (instead of a repo like ECMA, RF, et al) is absolutely valid. I can't think of a possible reason why someone would take issue with that, unless you don't use GitHub that often.

Re: ToS violation It would be a ToS violation if there was something like both-party consent laws in Canada (where Christian is based), but there isn't so there likely isn't a ToS violation.

@fa7ad thanks for looking into this and sourcing a bit. I appreciate you taking the time.

In regards to Rust, I actually just started using Bevy this year. One of my main side projects is actually a Bevy plugin. Not sure when I'm going to be able to release it. Game development is a hobby of mine so I find time when I can. I'm new to Rust but I really enjoy it.

I'm more familiar with ECMA/JavaScript and even actively author node packages. I'm currently working on the development of a React/Node SSR framework that syncs server and client component context.

There is a big difference between a business call transcript with monetary implications and a languages documents for standardization. If those sources were related to business in any capacity I wouldn't have said anything. They are my two favorite languages! I'm actively familiar with both of your sources.

Your sources actually support what I was saying. If you can find some corporate business related subject matter to source I'm open to seeing it and changing my take on that ofc. Both of your sources aren't actually corporations - something you noted. Nor are they about anything business related. Just documentation related to their languages. ECMA includes meeting information in what you sourced but they are not meeting to talk about business deals or anything of the sort. So I'm a bit confused by you using them as examples for a counterpoint.

That's a nightmare for any product person. Taking away people's free access is the quickest way to get your app review-bombed to oblivion. So yes, Apollo might still be alive but at what cost?

Possibly but given the context of the scenario I personally think it'd bring good reviews for Apollo and bad reviews for Reddit. I do see your point though. Any change always warrants the possibility of bad reviews.