If you’re not already aware, Reddit has—contrary to previous promises—introduced extremely high API prices that make it nearly impossible to run a third party Reddit client. Reddit gave developers only a month to make these changes, which would include getting rid of any subscriptions they currently had, likely dealing with those refunds, adding rate limits, changing how they make API calls, and more. The API wasn’t designed for a pay-per-use system, and tacking a price tag on it made creating an app that could even reliably break even impossible. Reddit then refused to compromise with even their largest developers, and may have even publicly made false claims about them, according to recordings published by Christian Selig, the developer of Reddit’s most popular third party app for iOS, Apollo. Reddit mods and users protested, and the entire web has been worse for it.
I was a pretty heavy Reddit user before the API debacle. Hell, I was even a mod for a few months. When the Reddit blackouts started, I also decided to join in with a boycott. But I found it hard. Every time I took a break, sat on my couch, waited for my water to heat up, I would, as if by muscle memory, open the Apollo app. So I deleted it to keep from giving Reddit any views.
Recently I re-downloaded it, to say my proper goodbyes to Reddit and Apollo, by ensuring the developer who made all of this possible doesn’t have to refund everyone who paid for the app. With iOS, refunds are automatic, you have to decline one when a subscription is canceled. If you don’t, Apollo (and other third party developers) will be on the hook, likely for money they already poured into their rent, their development setups, or, you know, food. So, save the developer who helped you enjoy Reddit for years: decline your refund before it’s automatically issued.
Decline a Refund, Support a Developer
Apollo is going to shut down for good on June 30th. That means if you don’t sign on to decline a refund before then, you’re going to get your yearly subscription back for the rest of the year. You’ll only have to decline a subscription if you actually have one, otherwise there’s nothing to do. I actually didn’t have an Apollo Ultra subscription, just Apollo Pro, a one-time payment. There’s no refund for this, so you don’t have to worry if you didn’t have an Apollo Ultra subscription. Still, you may want to log back in anyway. Selig worked with artists who created a number of Apollo’s icons to make new wallpapers. You can download these wallpapers for a minimum donation of $5. You’ll get a pack of iPhone, iPad, and Mac wallpapers.
Apollo developer Christian Selig says that, if people don’t decline the refund, it’ll cost him around $250,000. I don’t know about you, but that’s more than my yearly salary. For a developer who has been living off of his independent work, that could be something he simply can’t pay back. Reddit did this. They told developers they wouldn’t have to worry about pricing changes to the API, which was free, in 2023. Then they told them it wouldn’t be expensive. Then they gave them a month to apply changes for an extremely expensive API. Their transition was worse than Twitter’s, and Twitter was implicitly trying to kill off third party apps. Now they’re potentially costing people hundreds of thousands of dollars in App Store refunds.
If you’d like to protest Reddit further, you can do more than just deleting your account. Deleting your account will still put all the content you’ve created on the Reddit website. If you really want to stick it to Reddit, you have to delete all of your posts and comments. For that, you can use a simple tool like PowerDeleteSuite. I’ve got some deleting to do, and multiple communities will be worse off for that. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman should have thought about community before killing off necessary features the community relies on and attacking the very developers that made Reddit what it is today.
Sources/References:
- Wesley Hilliard, AppleInsider