Due to Reddit’s recently disclosed revised API payment restrictions, the developer of Apollo, one of the most well-known third-party mobile apps for accessing Reddit, may have to shut down business. Reddit’s API price appears to be terrible news for the future of third-party Reddit apps, according to app developer Christian Selig, who revealed today that it will now cost him $20 million per year to continue operating Apollo’s business as it is. With Apollo’s long history of thorough app upgrades, iOS-friendly design, and all-around usability, which has made the app a popular alternative to Reddit’s official client, customer backlash over Reddit’s terms is already increasing in light of the announcement.
Reddit had informed developers that the changes to API pricing wouldn’t affect those who were creating apps to help users utilise Reddit, so the news came as a surprise. Instead, the action was justified as a means of preventing Reddit’s enormous internet forum site from being used as free training data by businesses for their AI systems. In essence, Reddit sought to be compensated for its “corpus of data,” according to an interview with founder and CEO Steve Huffman published in The New York Times.
He stated in his comments that researchers and developers who wished to use Reddit for academic or non-profit purposes to build apps and bots would not be required to pay for the API. (Those acquainted with Reddit’s API strategy told us that those comments were misinterpreted; they were intended to relate to developers creating goods on Reddit, not off Reddit, like Apollo.)
Selig asserts that, in reality, that won’t be the case.
The developer said in a Reddit post that, in accordance with phone talks he’s had with Reddit, 50 million requests will now cost $12,000 under the conditions of the new API – “a sum far greater than I ever could have anticipated.”
According to Selig, “Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, or around 1.7 million dollars per month, or 20 million US dollars per year.”
The developer added that restricting access to the programme to subscribers in an effort to reduce the amount of queries would not be a workable option either, as the average Apollo user makes 344 requests every day, costing $2.50 per month on average. According to Selig, such amount is more than twice what the subscription presently costs.
The creator of Apollo had many talks with Reddit staff members to address these pricing issues, and although he characterised those interactions as cordial and open, he emphasised that he is “very dissatisfied” with the outcomes. (The business also granted him permission to share the call’s specifics, which is why, according to him, he’s disseminating the details on Reddit and other social media sites.)
Apollo would appear to be forced out of business by Reddit’s new API fees.
Selig told TechCrunch that as of right now, Apollo has around 900,000 daily active users and between 1.3 million and 1.5 million monthly active users. Apollo has seen around 5 million global installs as of this writing, according to independent estimates from app intelligence service data.ai. Selig claims, “It’s not even in the realm of possible or near to what Reddit is charging,” despite his refusal to provide numbers of Apollo’s earnings.
Selig complained, “But wording it differently, even if I booted off every user other than those who pay a subscription, I would still be in the red every month.” He adds that he has no backup plans because he didn’t anticipate getting this kind of news.
Reddit’s intention to overcharge for API access comes after Twitter made a related choice. The latter ultimately prevented a sizable portion of the Twitter ecosystem of third-party developers from having access to Twitter’s developer tools. As a result, many Twitter clients, apps, and services have since shut down or changed their focus to concentrate on other things, like supporting Mastodon, an open source competitor to Twitter.
Twitter last week unveiled a new $5,000/month API tier in an effort to make access a little more accessible. This is the first time the company has somewhat backed off on its exorbitant pricing. The new tier bridges the gap between the basic tier, which costs $100 per month, and the enterprise tier, which costs $42,000 per month, but it still doesn’t provide a solution for smaller organisations because they would have to spend $60,000 annually to use it.
Let’s just say that when Apollo originally debuted on the App Store in 2017, I was a fan. With features like customisable gestures, a media viewer, a complete Markdown writing editor, and other features influenced by Reddit user comments, the app offered a distinctive experience at the time. Users of Apollo have expressed their appreciation for the app’s customizability and power user features over time, as well as for its iOS-friendly layout. Selig claimed that his goal was to create a Reddit software that appeared to have been created by Apple.
The developer was also quick to incorporate new iOS features, as evidenced, for instance, by its recent release of Lock Screen widgets for iOS 16. The iPhone’s recent “Dynamic Island” user interface upgrade, which transformed the pill-shaped notch at the top of the iPhone 14 Pro into a tappable and interactive feature for notifications, also provided Selig with some amusement. He created ingenious “Pixel Pals,” or pets that were akin to Tamagotchi, that could move around on the notch. Because of how well-liked they were, the pets quickly acquired a separate mobile application.
Selig posted about Apollo’s future on Reddit a few hours ago, and since then, it has gotten 8.6K upvotes and counting. Fans of the app are understandably angered by this announcement; they accuse Reddit of being greedy, threaten to leave, and vow to support Selig’s future projects if this is really the end of their beloved application.
When contacted for comment, Tim Rathschmidt of Reddit made the following assertion:
Absolutely no third-party apps are intended to be “killed” by this. Following our first announcement about API changes, we have been in touch with third-party apps and developers, including Apollo, over the previous six weeks. Our position on third-party apps has not changed. We’re dedicated to establishing a secure and ethical developer community around Reddit. Developers and third-party apps may improve Reddit in a sustainable and mutually beneficial cooperation while simultaneously protecting the privacy of our users and their personal information.
Widespread data access has consequences and costs, and we owe it to our communities to manage data responsibly in terms of security and privacy.
The new API terms of service and premium access programme must be followed when using Reddit data for business purposes. We’ve long had a policy defining commercial and non-commercial use in our terms, but regrettably some of those agreements weren’t followed, so we updated our rules and contacted a few select firms to work with them on compliance and a paid premium access tier.
Updated with a Reddit statement on 5/31/23, 5:56 PM EST.