[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
@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.