Apollo founder Christian Selig said he’s “heartbroken” about pulling the plug on the third-party app following Reddit’s API pricing changes.
hey, that’s me! I’m a redditor that walked away after Apollo shutdown!
Same here - I’m loving wefwef so far, has a very similar UI 🙌
hello! glad you walked in here.
Wefwef has been an amazing replacement so far.
Samesies, I wish someone at Reddit would leak how many users deleted their account on July 1st and leading up to it compared to a normal month of people coming and going.
Apollo refugee reporting in!
ONE OF US!
I deleted my Reddit account. I almost exclusively browsed on mobile and I won’t be caught dead using Reddit’s useless official ap. Hi Lemmy.
Hi! I’m in the same boat. Part of me is sad to leave (15 year account) but the more bigger part of me is looking forward to seeing how lemmy grows with this migration.
It does genuinely feel like a new world even though I’d only been on reddit for a half-dozen years.
I’ve actually been using the Reddit app for quite some time now and I don’t get the hate. Regardless of that, the way Reddit handled all of this was enough for me to leave anyway. Hi Lemmy!
I used sync on Android for about 10 years, and reddit is fun (“rif”) for maybe a year before that. I used the official app yesterday to look for any top posts about the lost traffic on reddit and the app was stuttery and was impossible to find even the easiest of things. They’ve had their requirements and priorities change over the years as middle management comes and goes and so the app doesn’t have a unified and streamlined experience, which many of us on 3rd party apps have gotten used to. Which is sad since most 3rd party apps are the efforts of a single individual vs a 100s of employee, first party company.
IIRC, the official Reddit app used to be third party app Alien Blue. They didn’t even build their official app, they just bought a premade one.
Nothing of Alien Blue was really left, they just destroyed it and replaced it with their own crap
Goes to show how difficult it can be for teams to build good products when there’s a million stakeholders involved vs one stakeholder (plus users). It can be done of course, but only if managed well. Which Reddit obviously didn’t.
I tried the official app 5 or 6 years ago but it really sucked, was way too bright and killed my phone’s battery life. Settled for RedReader and never looked back.
RedReader only got better, the Reddit app had some features slowly trickle in years too late, and got worse and had bugs that took ages to fix.
I was using it enough that I would have considered paying for premium or gold if Reddit was to co-operate to add-in API features like poll voting. But with their such antagonistic approach, I started winding down my Reddit usage in late April and ramping up with Lemmy. Despite RedReader being given an exception, I’m leaving it permanently. I’m not posting or commenting anymore.
I stepped away from Reddit after Apollo shut down in part out of spite and to stand against the crap from Reddit but mostly because Apollo made Reddit usable.
I’ve been using WefWef to browse Lemmy and it feels so perfectly familiar. Makes me very happy.
Same. Just starting out but it already feels like home.
Same here
Never used Apollo but after seeing how Huffman lied about it, plus al of the misleading messaging, it was more than enough to cut that tie
Same. Reddit could walk back everything they said and literally prove they would be unable to do it again by some act of god that I still wouldn’t go back. They have completely erased my goodwill towards them.
Apollo shutting down forced me to confront my Reddit addiction. I used Reddit to escape my life. Even if it was just 5 minutes to take a break from work, or remove myself from reality to avoid anxiety or boredom. It became a crutch and an addiction. Instead of focusing on trying to change the moment or situation I’d escape instead.
It’s a lazy crutch to give yourself dopamine when in reality we all should be focusing on self improvement. Delayed gratification instead of immediate release. It sucks the various communities will die but at least my health can improve.
I moved my Lemmy app to the same location I’d habitually press sync for reddit. Im as addicted to pressing that part of my screen as I am reddit itself
These kinds of media can be used for self-improvement though. I’m sorry that it’s merely an escape for you and I hope you find the peace you’re searching for.
Until it is replaced with your shiney brand new Lemmy addiction.
I’m pissed at HOW they did it. Without an ounce of respect for the user base. They could have made it affordable and turned a profit out of 3rd party apps, they could have been more civil on the communications, they could have explained the problem and asked suggestions, even if they had no intentions on doing something else.
But they choosed a huge FU, not only to it’s end users, but to people that were trying to make reddit a better place, either at barely a profit, or with volunteer work.
They could have just straight up said, “hey, we are getting rid of third party apps because we need to consolidate where our users browse reddit for our IPO”. I would have been annoyed, but the way they pretended that all that TPA devs were too unreasonable to work with their outrageous terms genuinely pissed me the fuck off.
When the controversy first started, I thought reddit was doing the ol “announce something way worse than what we actually intend so when we compromise and get what we really want everyone will be happy” but no, they didn’t budge at all and acted like assholes in the process. If they just remained silent the whole time that would have been better. Instead they showed how they truly do not care about their users.
I’m not an Apollo user but still quit reddit because of the disgusting handling not only of third party app but also of the mods and users. Reddit isn’t deserving any of my time anymore. So far I’m enjoying lemmy and hope it stays free of corporate greed!
I found the attitudes behind the API changes and handling the whole thing problematic enough that I am here now. Deleted thousands of comments and posts on my way out.
Same, and I was active on hobby forums where I answered questions. I feel bad for the people who responded to me year(s) later thanking me, but reddit doesn’t need the SEO boost
Sync user here. I’ve walked away… Waiting on SyncForLemmy.
Same here. I’m on Connect for now, which is decent, but checking if Sync is ready every day haha
Check out wefwef! It’s quite nice and mimics iOS’ design quite well.
I still have the sync app, so when I accidentally click on a Reddit link, it takes me to the broken app, reminding me how fucked Reddit is, and how I don’t want to be using it any more.
Can’t wait for the Lemmy Sync app too! Not that Jerboa is really that bad…
Reddit is Fun user here… I had 15 years on reddit, I was part of their FCC filing in favor of Net Neutrality… I’m not going back.
It’s not just about shutting down the apps, it’s about the utter disdain they showed the communities and the users.
Rip RIF, you served us well all these years.
I’m sort of motivated by laziness. When RIF stopped working I thought oh well, guess I just use Lemmy on my phone.
When old.reddit stops working some day I do the same for the desktop. Reddit is literally driving me away. How badly can they fuck up? The modern reddit they are trying to push on us is not the reddit I signed up for 11 years ago.
But, but, it’s the one they can monitize for their IPO! ;)
I’m the same, used RIF for 10 years and really miss it. I would love a Lemmy app that rivals how good RIF was.
Started with Jerboa on Android, it was fine, found wefwef and downloaded the app for that, it’s just about perfect.
Once Bacon Reader died, I stopped. It’s sad. I was subbed to a lot of fun and interesting subreddits. But fuck spez, that greedy little pig boy. Lemmy seems like reddit lite for the moment, but I’m sure it will grow.
Yup same here with RIF gone, fuck that and fuck spez. The sad thing is that Reddit is so old that there’s always little niche subs that have a lot of mileage that are really nice to figure out new stuff. Like I was looking at Add-ons for Kodi in my last days and probably will still have to resort to go there once in a while for stuff like that.
I am kind of liking it with less people. It’s more like how reddit used to be when I joined. You could have really great conversations with people.
I barely use Reddit since Bacon Reader has been offline. The official Reddit app is garbage. I’m enjoying using Lemmy with the Connect app, but I wish the Bacon Reader team would create an app for Lemmy.
All my homies hate greedy little pig boys.
Might be confirmation bias, but theres a lot more baconreader representation than usual. I wonder if theres a reason for it, or if its in my head.
I’ve always preferred mobile sites to apps. Not sure why. Maybe I just like to use Safari to manage all that I’m checking out.
But I stand with developers. Even Balmer knew developers are a major key to success. I’m not interested in using a site with such hostile ownership.
Fuck spez.
I do too! I just generally don’t want to keep track of and manage permission and data access for a number of different apps that might change when the ownership changes. I see apps as a way for the owner to take control of more of your mobile environment than is actually warranted, whereas connecting to all services through my browser lets me stay in control of what information they have access to – to some extent.
I started to think more about it, and I think the main reason is being able to use an ad blocker in Safari, and not within apps. Sure, I could use a DNS profile, but I don’t feel like installing one (I don’t like installing stuff, I’m seeing a pattern…)
Except that when using Safari to access reddit, any post marked as NSFW forces you into the app.
Looks like it works if you’re signed in. I tried r/Playboy while signed in and it worked. Tried again in a private tab and didn’t.
I have the same issue even when signed in. I’m still seeing performance issues and long wait times until actions complete like posting comments on lemmy.world in the web, so it might be more the site than Wefwef, and WW is just timing out.
I have the same issue even when signed in. I’m still seeing performance issues and long wait times until actions complete like posting comments on lemmy.world in the web, so it might be more the site than Wefwef, and WW is just timing out.
used to use reddit sync… deleted my reddit account now. shame, it was a really active site, but this is a good equivalent and it won’t get spezzed or eloned. I can just move server if I feel like it.
Same here. But fortunately LJ is working on a Sync for Lemmy, excited for that. I use Connect for Lemmy right now which has a similar UI
Thank you for the good in between app solution while waiting for Sync :)
Same here. I didn’t delete my account for the same reason I never deleted my facebook - so I can have a nostalgia hit when I’d like, looking at my old posts. But, with how they handled this, I’m gone.
After Apollo’s API token was invalid, I deleted my account. I know it’s a minuscule drop in the ocean for Reddit, but not matter, I’m with Lemmy and the fediverse come what may.
Same, in the optional feedback box, I told them to fire Spez
Same. Can’t do much, but I think voting with our feet is the right thing to do.
It’s pretty cozy here tbh, really liking it so far and it’s way more busy than I was expecting.
Honestly I thought it would be tougher to switch. I know Reddit has a depth of content in niche communities and it’s tragic to lose that, but I’ve been delighted to find myself enjoying exploring a new system and all the weird and clever instances that are popping up.
I think this is also true for a lot of long term power-users of reddit. So, LOTS of drops in the ocean.
I also deleted my account on Friday. Yea, we are just few drops, but enough drops have an impact.
I haven’t deleted my account, but I deleted every post and comment.
worth keeping your account on the off chance someone with a brain takes over and unfucks the place or you can find a good price to sell it to spammers.
I’ve also kept my account for the time being in case they want to revert any comments. Will be deleting in a few days.
Looks like I’m from the minority of people who browsed Reddit on Firefox Android. Although I lost nothing, I like the smaller cohesive community feeling of Lemmy
Count me in for Firefox! I’m still using it for browsing Lemmy but Jerboa is also nice.
Useful list for people exploring Lemmy apps https://lemmy.world/post/465785
Thank you, I’ve missed this list and looks quite comprehensive. There are there some apps I will try!
Thank you, I’ve missed this list and looks quite comprehensive. There are there some apps I will try!
Check put wefwef.app, it’s the best of both worlds
You lost your innocence. /s
Apollo refugee here. Can confirm.
And the app developer u/iamthatis was a class act right up to the end. Even had a free update on the last day and included an Easter egg.
Can’t say the same about u/spez.
I used Reddit for over a decade, and much of that was with Apollo. Not going back purely because of how they treated Christian and the other 3rd party devs
I’ve said this before elsewhere, but all of the spez BS aside, I used RiF for reddit. To me, that was Reddit. 95% of my time on reddit was through the lens of RiF.
They are effectively getting rid of reddit for me by forcing RiF to shutdown.
Before the APIcalypse, I thought about quitting reddit. Now that my 3rd party app died, quitting has never been easier. I tried to check the site with a mobile browser, but I can’t collapse comments, so that ended up being a very quick visit.
I used Apollo and I feel ya. I used to keep the default app installed so I could claim free gifts but it wasn’t worth ending up in the official Reddit app on accident while browsing the web :P Yeah, it’s that bad.
Good way of putting it. Their app was so horrible that I went from PAYING and using their app to moving to Apollo. I tried using it after they bought Blue Alien but it got worse and worse and finally I gave up paying and moved. Reddit died with third party useful apps.
Exactly my scenario. They really fucked the chicken up with the move to charge for API access.
It’s amazing how history always finds a way of repeating itself. The ignorance to not acknowledge what happened to digg, and what sent so many to deadit is laughable. I would be very interested to see what traffic looks like now to reddit, and how much of it is coming from their app, which I think they said they will start charging a monthly subscription fee for. That CEO should have the cheese touch after that debacle.
Really a subscription for the basic tier app? That would be madness.
Of course it’s madness now that they charge $50/year now for premium. It was paying the highest’ tier of Apollo and it was $10/year and actually had features I wanted.
Lmao a subscription to use the app
THEY ARE CHARGING FOR THE APP???
What alternate reality are they living in?
FFS. It doesn’t even work half the time.
You’d think that knowing they were going to do this they’d have put some effort into making it work a bit better, but no.
Yep, deleted mine yesterday. Their disdain for the mods that provide free labor and for the users in general with their lazy “they’ll get over it” attitude was the deal breaker. Fuuuuuck Reddit.
Hell yeah. 16 years here, and as part of some big happenings early on. (RIP I_RAPE_CATS)
Haven’t touched Reddit since Apollo died.
