Some Redditors say they're walking away after Apollo app shuts down
Some Redditors say they're walking away after Apollo app shuts down
Apollo founder Christian Selig said he's "heartbroken" about pulling the plug on the third-party app following Reddit's API pricing changes.
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.
I think this is also true for a lot of long term power-users of reddit. So, LOTS of drops in the ocean.
Sync user here. I've walked away.. Waiting on SyncForLemmy.
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
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.
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.
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.
Yep, I’m one of them. RIP Apollo.
Me too, after ten plus years. Nice to be here (:
I have, for now at least. Reddit is a hard habbit to break, and maybe lemmy is just feeding that same habbit but it's an interesting time.
Reddit was becoming complete trash. The only thing that kept me was Apollo because it had an awesome feature where I could filter out all the keywords I didn’t want to see. Well, Apollo is now gone, so I’m done with Reddit and have started using lemmy.
I spent the last 3 years curating my feed by filtering the subs I didn’t want to see on r/all in Apollo. I can’t get that back and the front page is just garbage.
So yeah, I’m here now unless a better platform pops up.
Went straight from Apollo to wefwef. Smooth transition.
Agree. The more I play around and get comfortable with Lemmy the more I realize I don’t need to “grieve” the loss of Reddit
Same here. So far so good.
Not as much activity as Reddit obviously, but I’m embracing it by seeking out the more active communities. I definitely fell into a rut on Reddit by only sticking to a handful of subs. This transition is forcing me to develop new interests, it’s great!
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.
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.
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.
Everyone keeps commenting on how federation feels “emptier” than Reddit, but honestly all I did after 15 or so years on Reddit is doom scroll. I just lurked and felt miserable. There IS less content here and because of that I visit for a shorter period of time and that FREEs me up to do other, more productive things with people I know outside of social media. After the past few weeks of learning about the tech and the why and how of the land I think I like the balance here.
Apollo refugee here. Can confirm.
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 deleted my Reddit account right after I noticed Apollo stopped working. Mastodon and Kbin are filling the void nicely and I find I don't miss Reddit at all.
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 here
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!
Apollo for Lemmy when?
Memmy has been giving me Apollo vibes and has made the transition way easier
I bought the wallpapers to support Christian and had a really emotional evening.
When the blackout started I joined Lemmy and started to stop using Reddit to show my support by not producing any traffic.
On the last day I opened up apollo again and it was so terrifying, knowing the way I used Reddit for years will be gone. I used PDS but will wait with the deletion of my accounts to be safe that Reddit doesn’t restore my comments.
I still keep my fingers crossed that Christian will make an Apollo App for Lemmy, but I can totally understand the he got other things to do.
Just remember, he got called out from Spez and one of his income sources just disappeared because a business partner just wanted to fuck him up. I hope his friends and family will be there for him.
BTW: Made a little fan icon. Just for the dreams.
Have you tried wefwef? I’m also coming from Apollo and finding it very familiar :)
I never used Apollo (I'm an Android user) but I tried wefwef for the first time today and I'm surprised at how natural it feels. If this is what Apollo was like I'm sad I didn't get a chance to experience it.
I wish I knew about wefwef sooner I don’t know how I can transfer my data from Apollo now
Is that what Apollo was like? I'm an android user, so never actually used Apollo. The sliding to vote, collapse, and reply is kinda neat (if perhaps not very obvious at first -- I saw a comment mention it, which is the main reason I even knew it was there).
Yup, that's me. I'm still a little surprised at how easy (thanks Spez) it actually was for being such a heavy consumer of Reddit. Doing Christian wrong like that, as well as the many popular 3rd party apps and their loyal users, just didn't sit right with me. Spez chose the nuclear option, instead of actually working with and potentially helping to grow the site along with 3rd party devs, so this is the resulting fallout. He asked for it, so he got it.
I’m one of those
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.
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.
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.
Try wefwef.app my fellow ex-Apollo users
Using it right now, it’s like a warm blanket.
A warm blanket that feels familiar huh
Yep, using it right now. I honestly don’t even miss the other site anymore, though Apollo (and AlienBlue) will always have a place in my heart.
I do not understand how there is no mention of the fediverse.
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.
Until it is replaced with your shiney brand new Lemmy addiction.
Another former Redditor that walked away as soon as Apollo stopped working. I will never look back!
Same. And wefwef clones Apollo so well. Mlem is also pretty good.
I deleted my 12 year 100k account at 11:59p Friday night. Had redact edit every old comment then delete them and closed the account. Some of my Google searches are still landing me over there. I don't even know what it would take to put me there permanently, again. I'm just hoping I can cultivate my experience here, enough, so that I won't have to find out.
Same here.. i just quit cold turkey after ~15 years. I just tell myself I can do it again. I pinned the lemmy to my phone so it feels like RIF, just has less content. Thats why we are here though.
Why is it always Apollo? There were tons of amazing third party apps. This was just another one that seems to be iphone exclusive, which who cares about iOS anyways.
It's not really about Apollo specifically. Or people refusing to use a Reddit without the Apollo app
Reddit is the site it is because of third-party assistance. The communities were all built and have been maintained for free by volunteer moderators for almost 20 years. Developers liked Reddit and contributed apps that made it useful. Reddit is fun, Automoderator, moderator toolkit, apollo, praw, etc etc. Imgur was created so that people could post images to Reddit and easily link them.
I quit reddit because of the company's two-faced approach to the people who have done the most work to make this site successful. The shitty behavior is nothing new, but I think that openly telling third-party developers and moderators to go fuck themselves was just a breaking point for a lot of people.
There seems to be quite a fan club. I used RIF and Boost. All apps except the official were good.
Done with Reddit. Lemmy is the way
I got a Reddit notification for this post while browsing this post. Time to turn off notifications!
Speaking of notifications, that menu used to be just for comment responses. Nowadays Reddit is using it to push me some “popular” posts I couldn’t care less about.
Lemmy is my home now
I already built a bathtub here. I'm not leaving anytime soon.
I’m a part of that group. I see 24 people wish I’d kick rocks haha, I get it.
Look, I’m sure most of the refugees agree with me. If we don’t fit in we’ll leave.
So far I’m digging Lemmy. I wish it was more active, but if it’s gonna grow it will.
It broke my heart to leave Reddit after 15-16 years, but it’s not that same place any more any way.
So, hello fellow Apollo refugees.
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 :)
I’m here too having signed up this morning. I am still hoping for a good iOS mobile experience. Either way I’m here for the long run. I’m done with Reddit.
An iOS app (Mlem) is currently under development. If you want to be an early adopter, you can test it already. I guess it will be available in the app store sooner or later.
Have Memmy closed their beta testing sign up now? I’ve been testing Mlem and Memmy for a couple of weeks and wefwef for a few days. Memmy is streaks ahead of the other two right now. I can’t see myself choosing Mlem over Memmy ever. Wefwef has potential but has understandably been buggy as hell. I’m looking forward to Artemis but it’s invite only beta testing at the moment.
Let's be realistic here, there's very little chance that a significant portion of users migrate out. It's cool. We don't have to obsess about our ex.
I know I am migrating!
I'm not sure if you're old enough to remember Digg, but they also alienated their users which caused users to migrate to Reddit.
The situations are vastly different. Digg was nowhere near as popular as reddit, and neither was social media in general. There's a huge majority of people on reddit who don't care about API prices and don't want the old reddit back. They just want to see le funny meme and read made up stuff, they're not gonna jump ship for some drama.
The only ones who care about that and want the old reddit back is us, right here. Which is cool because we have an opportunity to make it before the normies find out about it !
I haven't willingly been back since the 12th. Shithead CEOs aren't going to profit off my contributions. If everyone did the same it would evaporate overnight
I don't know about everyone but I am the same
Same
Judging from the slowdowns and hiccups around here, yeah, I'd say that was "some". And we're not done yet either. Plenty of people in the world party on friday and saturday. Plenty of people in the US are camping or something on an extended weekend.
Everyone checks it eventually as the week rolls on though. Kinda fortunate for us, really. Spreads the influx out.
Do you know if there are usage stats posted somewhere? I would like to see how much people joins in the upcoming weeks.
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 🙌
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!
Wefwef has been an amazing replacement so far.
hello! glad you walked in here.
ONE OF US!