From: Christian Selig, May 3, 2023 To: Steve Huffman Hey Steve, I thought I'd reach out candidly about the Reddit API changes, both because it's important to me as my full time job, and you were kind enough to express interest in Apollo back in 2017, in hopes that you will hopefully reply candidly as well. The Reddit API's been near and dear to me for a long time, so the news from a few weeks ago was somewhat concerning, especially that the details were slightly brief in some areas. The calls with Reddit assuaged that slightly, but I want to get an opinion from the top: There's been a lot of talk about Reddit's new Developer Platform going forward. Is this platform built with third party app developers in mind (even partially), or are we more of a legacy use case that will only exist through the existing, older APIs? I'm curious if you see third party apps as still serving an important space for users in the Reddit ecosystem going forward. Lastly, I know there's been some concern around explicit content and the API. I understand with the political climate, specifically in the US (I've read up on Utah and Louisiana's laws), there's increased pressure to ensure explicit content is properly safeguarded so Reddit isn't liable, and third party access could present an unpredictable access point to it. Is this the reasoning behind the limiting? If so, is there truly no way to integrate whatever signed-in verification (or related) method you employ directly into the API? Appreciate you reading. Your course with Udacity way back when was the beginning of my interest in programming, so it's pretty neat to be emailing you. Christian ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Huffman, May 7, 2023 To: Christian Selig Hey Christian, Just found your email in my filter. Good to hear from you. The dev platform is about expanding what people can do on Reddit and what they can use Reddit for. It more or less has two components, bot hosting and custom posts. The former would cover things like Automod or RemindMeBot, but scalable, sharable, copy-able, extendable, and hosted by Reddit. The latter means a cross-platform interactive canvas as a post, for a game, for example. Dev Platform doesn't consider 3P apps as we know them today, but does not rule our 3P services / apps / companies. The two structures I mentioned are the two that we envision right now, but I imagine there is another that is some sort of hybrid between Reddit canvas, Reddit bot, and a third-party service. Something like the Midjourney bot on Discord, which is a company that runs on Discord. Some of the things users use 3P apps for today I think will be better exist as apps on Dev Platform. Many of the mod tools, for example. My understanding is you have a game of some sort in Apollo that itself it a good business? That sort of thing I hope will be a perfect fit for Dev Platform, including the monetization. For 3P apps themselves, they're expensive to run. That's what we hope to work out in the coming weeks. For Adult Content and Ads (not relevant for you, but is for others), they're both complex in a bunch of ways and getting worse. I don't see it working out. —- So happy you enjoyed the Udacity course. It was a random project back in the day, but I love knowing it's helped a few people along their journeys. -Steve ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christian Selig, May 8, 2023 To: Steve Huffman Hey Steve, Appreciate the thorough response. That's really interesting on the dev platform side of things, congratulations on all the work there, I'm excited to see how both of those facets manifest in the hands of the right people. Third party apps is admittedly kinda where I like operating, I think offering some users something that might mesh with them better than first party offerings can be a really powerful option (Malcolm Gladwell has a hilarious version of this about spaghetti sauce https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIiAAhUeR6Y, actually). So I'm glad to hear that's being kept in mind, and the prospect of being able to continue doing that in a way that's perhaps more equitable with Reddit not fronting the entire cost is honestly kinda nice from a sustainability standpoint, and I hope that ends up fruitful for both of us. I've been building Apollo for 8 years now as my full-time job, and while the Pixel Pals game within it is a fun little addition to it, I don't want to say bye to the app I've worked so hard on! Ads I do understand, if unfortunate. Despite the complexity with adult content though, I hope whatever system you implement is one where the resulting verified account can be used through the API. I think that that content is a real sticking point for some users that would be really upsetting to lose, and worth the work to work to see through properly, even if the requirements for apps like my own are large. I genuinely do think your course at Udacity lives to a certain extent in my work and in Apollo specifically. You had a great lecture where you talked about early Reddit and the importance of being authentic with users and garnering feedback, and I like to think that philosophy and advice is a big reason Apollo has any users at all, so I hope you can appreciate that my thanks for the course is more than superficial. Christian ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christian Selig, June 1, 2023 To: Steve Huffman Hey Steve, I've thought a lot today, and read a lot of comments and messages, and I genuinely think there's a compromise here where Reddit can walk away from this with API pricing that remains close to what you're asking, with developers and moderators happy as well. An opportunity to show good faith discussion that you're not looking to kill third-party apps, but without you being taken to lunch either. Any interest in talking? Christian ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Huffman, June 1, 2023 To: Christian Selig I know we are not trying to kill third-party apps... It's you that is saying that. What is your suggestion? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christian Selig, June 1, 2023 To: Steve Huffman It's a sentiment I've heard repeated from users and other developers in my position over the last 24 hours, but I do think it can be corrected. Do you have time to talk on a call tomorrow? Christian ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Huffman, June 1, 2023 To: Christian Selig Sorry, no. You can give a ping if you want. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christian Selig, June 1, 2023 To: Steve Huffman, I'm glad you're not looking to kill third-party apps, my fear, and the fear of others, is that that would be the result. What IS your goal that is the driving force behind this pricing? Is it curbing gratuitous use of AI training using your data? My goal is to have my app survive, and at the current prices that's incredibly difficult. I've honestly enjoyed talking with , but the reason I reached out to you was that - and perhaps this was a mistake on my part - I had the impression that is not able to be flexible on pricing or other policies, even slightly, in a way that would make things improve things for third-party developers who feel hurt by this. If that's something is willing to talk about, I'm more than willing to, but I don't want to waste either of our time by talking in circles around things that are unwilling or unable to be listened to. That's a long way of saying, are you receptive to listening to any changes at this stage, or is this a closed discussion? Christian ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christian Selig, June 1, 2023 To: Steve Huffman, Reading that back, it came across perhaps not as I intended. Reddit has done an incredible service providing a free API for years, and I agree that that's not a tenable situation or fair to Reddit to continue indefinitely. I was really excited to hear there'd be a potential to have a more equitable solution long-term, and I still am. I've also heard some employees say publicly that Apollo is excessive in its API usage, if that's the case, that's something I'm happy to work on getting down if you can explain the inefficiencies you're seeing. Combined with that, and even a small movement on pricing, I truly think we can come to a solution that both parties would be happy with. If the goal here is simply to make sure both parties are made whole, as I've said before I'm totally on board for working together to make that happen. I'm also hearing there was a potential misunderstanding in my comment yesterday to about money at the end of the call and I want to make sure that isn't the case. I said “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.” I know this wording well because I prepared it as a light joke before the call. That was a reference to you saying the API pricing is based on opportunity cost, and Apollo's current cost without any changes would cost $20 million per year. If that's the case, I said I'll give you a steal of an acquisition at only six months of cost ($10 million) and Apollo can quiet down in its API usage, you can even turn it off completely! It was my understanding at the end of the call my intention was very understood here, and I want to make abundantly sure that is still the case. I do not want a payout, I just want to find a solution here together. Christian ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christian Selig, June 2, 2023 To: Steve Huffman, Hey and Steve, I understand where Reddit's coming from in this. A free API, while appreciated, is not tenable for you especially heading into an IPO, and my only goal here is to come to a solution where we both feel understood. I also hear you that killing third-party clients isn't actually the goal, and in that spirit have been working on how to address your concerns from my end: Move to a higher API base-price. My current subscription price is $1.50 monthly with many grandfathered into $1.00 month, but I have no issue raising that within reason and provided there's time to do so. Move to a subscription-only model, removing most free/non-subscription users outside of a free trial. If you are concerned about overall API volume, this will amount to an overall decrease of approximately 86% for you. Work to identify any inefficiencies in my API usage and reduce them. I've heard you that this is a concern, and I've found a few smaller things in a preliminary scan, but have ideas for more, and with cooperation from Reddit can surely reduce it further. In the interest of honesty, I don't see a path to something as low as 100 per day, but I'm willing to try my hardest to get the number down. Even with these changes, Apollo will die at the current API pricing. Here are my ideas so that doesn't happen and we can both be happy: Lower pricing to $0.12 per 1,000 calls. Combined with more efficient API usage and an increase in price, Apollo would be able to weather this. Provide a 3 month transition period, allowing me to build in these changes, lower API call usage, and transition existing users over to the new plan. I would love nothing more than to enter an arrangement like this with you folks where I can continue to build Apollo while you are also being made whole. Are either of you free today to discuss this? Christian ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: , June 2, 2023 To: Christian Selig, Steve Huffman Christian, Appreciate your feedback, and for acknowledging that our intention is not to kill third-party clients. Your thoughts on Apollo's pricing and handling paid/free users seem sensible from the outside in; of course, you're the operator and know best what would make sense for your business. About the pricing, our rates are standard for all users who need paid access and have been thoughtfully worked out. There are no negotiated discounts. We've been transparent about our pricing and intend to treat all developers the same. On the 90-day transition, remember that billing doesn't kick in until July 1. So you won't see your first bill from July until the beginning of August, and it won't be due until the end of August (It's net 30 day billing). You do, however, have to sign an agreement to get paid level access on July 1. If you have additional questions regarding how to improve efficiency, we're happy to learn more about your business and share what approaches might work. If it's in regard to pricing or policy, we would agree a call is probably less productive. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christian Selig, June 2, 2023 Understood. In terms of timeline, what concerns me most is the short nature of it before I start incurring costs. I have a large amount of users at price points that I won't be able to afford to support with 30 days notice. For instance, users who subscribed for a year for $10 six months ago when I had no idea any of this was coming, amounts to $0.83 per month or $0.58 after Apple's cut. Even if I'm able to decrease my API usage down to the number in your charts, that still puts me in the red for everyone of those users for awhile with no recourse. A situation like this is one that is legitimately making me legitimately leaning toward shutting down the app, but one that I could salvage if given more time to transition from the free API to the paid API. In prior calls you mentioned that provided I kept communicating and progress was being made, the timeline wasn't an absolute. Is that still the case, or is it now the case that the date is set in stone? Christian ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------