https://reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/_/jmddwnj/?context=1
Literally all that says is Apollo users use reddit more than users of other third party apps. Which could possibly mean Apollo drives more traffic to reddit. Or it could mean that the more dedicated reddit users know Apollo is the better app.
This guy is more talented than the entire development team working for reddit. They can fire everyone and just hire him for app development and it would result in a better experience.
Not really, the Reddit development team is just shoehorned into making an app that the higher ups want. The current official Reddit app on IOS is a port of alien blue, but is unrecognisable compared to it and alien blue is 109x better. The Reddit app is shaped by a bunch of demands from VC investors that show shit about fuck when it comes to software development.
Reddit development team is just shoehorned into making an app that the higher ups want
You just summarized why 95+% of apps and 90+% of software generally sucks now. You have to do metrics, you have to do tracking, and you have to do ad delivery, because management demands it so they can do stupid little investor earnings calls and talk about how their line went up. Apollo is good because the guy made an app that avoids all of the above, and is just funded by people being grateful to him for providing a way to avoid the official reddit app with its ad-laden, user-tracking crap. And because Apollo doesn't do 500 extra bullshit things in the background it's also a really fast and clean app to use, too.
Except now we've turned a new page in the story. Apollo indirectly benefited from those 0% interest rates just like all of the tech industry did, because Apollo is directly based on Reddit. Since Wall Street wants their line to go up now the same way it did before the money spigot was shut off means every big tech company is doing the same thing at the same time: juicing their assets, worsening the experience for existing users, and squeezing every possible avenue of value. And now Apollo is getting squeezed.
Thanks for the gold, stranger. Every dollar you gave to this shitty company has led to the same result of you not giving them a dollar in the first place: a worse service.
Idk about the iOS App but the Android official app is a buggy mess. And the video player is crap.
My point is it doesn't matter how talented a Dev team is if it has to bend to corporate demands. The Reddit video player has always been bad. That's more of an infrastructure thing, no amount of efficient code is going to improve video playback if the servers can't handle the sheer load of video data.
Another example is graphic design, a well known livery creator online got hired by a formula one team, in alpine, to design the paint scheme for their cars. People were so excited about it. His fanservice designs were awesome. But as soon as he went to an F1 team, his work turned back to the same bland corporate paint schemes and liveries everyone hates.
that's such a good point, it almost makes me wonder if reddit's end game is to simply buy the better apps after API starving them. sure, maybe the apollo guy wouldn't be interested, but there are a shit ton of better reddit apps.
very on brand for the reddit developer to be making a specious argument
Rent seeking behavior always arrives. Make a big site, make millions off advertising, other people use your API for their own apps. Now charge them unreasonable rent. Price out the little guys (also competition for your own app). Anyone who wants it bad enough will pay, if they don't, then your app gets more users because it's the only game in town.
Don't ever let a capitalist frame success as work on their part. It comes from two places, exploiting labor and rent-seeking behavior (which also exploits labor). That is how you become wealthy. It's not being smart, it's not working hard, it's not taking risks, it's not even being lucky. It's convincing a bunch of poorer people to work for you while you siphon their excess labor and/or it's owning property and renting it. In this case it's renting intellectual property.
you're not gonna be facebook you idiots! you will never be facebook! you've cultivated a userbase of extremely finicky nerds that want their little lifehacks and micro-optimized interfaces for arguing about which Nolan movie is the most Epic! you killed forums and now it's your job to babysit these people! tough shit!
Yeah almost certainly the last AMA he does. Kind of refreshing for :reddit-logo: All of Gates' previous AMAs were pretty much just bazingas lining up to blow him.
Getting off of :reddit-logo: was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I don't even use it a lot, but google frequently leads me to reddit, which is a fucking hassle to browse (so i use reddit is fun). i will have to download a redirect extension to take me to the reddit mirrors
Same. I'll miss the trans subs, but otherwise this will be like the end of a decade-long curse.
It took my gaming PC melting to break my video game addiction, and it's gonna take RiF getting banned to break my reddit addiction.
It's for the best.
the trans surgery wiki kinda needs to be rehomed... millions of splinter discords can't effectively aggregate the information in a publicly accessible way.
i'm going to just purge everything that isn't hobby or cannabis related and use it on PC only since the app is cancer and accessing it on mobile is hell.
i'm sure once it's public they'll purge all the cannabis subs for "sourcing" or whatever anyways. i get way better less tainted "word on the street" info from here anyways.
the third party reddit apps has much better accessibility compared to the native app also https://old.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/13wuywv/rip_apollo/
that's just sad, i've never worked on a "serious" app that didn't have at least someone checking for and filing accessibility bugs
I mean, how long before there's a reddit mobile alternative frontend that simply simulates a mobile browser ? no need to get through the API. It'll hurt reddit's servers more than going through the API but hey, their fault.
The maintainers of such an app would be in an endless cat-and-mouse game with reddit but it's been done before.
This is basically how NewPipe (a YouTube app) works.
I have never used a reddit app. Old reddit interface in landscape on my phone > anything else. Not that I go on :reddit-logo: that much anymore.
Some of the posts on Reddit are like 11k likes of.
If rif is done I'm done with Reddit
The reddit app is horrible.
This is such a snarky reply too, given that it's in response to the developer saying the new rate would cost $20 million a year. Like yeah, sure, just be a little more efficient, I'm sure $5 or $10 million would be fine.
https://hexbear.net/post/270245
I honestly hope we've arrived at the phase of witnessing reddit go belly up. They've squandered so many opportunities to be great by trading them for opportunities to maintain mediocrity turd-like stasis.