[DecayingOrganic]

After carefully reading the comments and going back to the post, I take back my argument. It was flawed and did not represent the whole picture. I apologize for that. I think it wasn't a threat, but rather an unsuccessful attempt to sell Apollo before time runs out. I apologize for the confusion I created with my poor argument. I need to read more carefully.

--- I initially clicked on this post fully prepared to be outraged at Reddit and its CEO, but after carefully going through the audio, I just can't share that sentiment. I've listened to the recording multiple times, making sure that I'm not missing any crucial points in the conversation. It is evident to me that this statement, "if you want Apollo to go quiet," did come across as a threat.

Yes, the developer tried to backtrack later in the call by adding "in terms of API usage," but the damage was already done. Steve's side even provided several opportunities for him to clarify his statement, claiming that he couldn't hear him properly. I understand that many members of this community are rightfully upset with Reddit and its actions in recent years (me included), but we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that it really felt and sounded like a threat. ---

Transcript of the call: https://gist.github.com/christianselig/fda7e8bc5a25aec9824f9...

Audio: http://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-3...

[mustacheemperor]

In the most charitable possible interpretation for Christian, he spoke in a way that was misinterpreted, conclusively clarified it at the end of the call, both parties shared an apology for the misunderstanding, and then Steve made public comments of the original misinterpretation only (with an editorialized paraphrase).

In the least charitable possible interpretation for Christian, he made an implicit threat that he would continue to raise community clamor if not bought out, then backtracked it as soon as he was asked about it, both parties shared an apology for a misunderstanding neither believed was really a misunderstanding, and then Steve made public statements of the original interpreted threat only, with that editorialized paraphrase. In responding to that statement, Christian announced his app would close in 22 days, so it sounds like he can't be doing much with Reddit's community by then regardless.

I don't see the point in either of these situations for Steve to have said what he did, and he must have been aware of how this call could be interpreted in transcript and did it anyway. If I was hearing about this as a disagreement between business partners retold in a bar conversation, I might give reddit's team the same benefit of the doubt as you. In this case, it doesn't seem to matter much. The question remains WTF was spez thinking even making those comments.

[EatingWithForks]

I actually think the most charitable position doesn't require either one to have any negative intentions. This is quite possibly a very simple explanation: It is possible to apologize in the face of feeling threatened, even if you are not in fact under any threat, and then later reconcile one's feelings of being threatened in a space where they feel safer.

There's a common error where, because one believes they have been aggressed upon, they can behave as if they actually have been aggrieved without actually examining realistic positions of actual evidence. I've seen this sort of thing happen in a variety of circumstances. Whether or not the Apollo developer intended to threaten or not doesn't actually change the behavior of the person who took whatever was said as a threat, and acting in a reconciliatory manner when one feels threatened is actually a very reasonable thing to do.

[DecayingOrganic]

Great charitable interpretations! I wish you had done this impartially for both parties, but no worries! Now, let's look at the situation realistically. Let's say that instead of Steve's side asking for clarifications, he had agreed to pay Christian $10M when he said "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." Would Christian then say, "Oh no, I was merely making a joke," or would he accept the offer?

And do you think if Steve had made this offer, would we have even heard a second of this recording?

I mean, come on guys. He literally said "I can make it easy on you," named a price, and then clarified that he was mostly joking.

edit: Thank you for catching that! I've now changed "Steve" with "Steve's side."

[kaba0]

You are misinterpreting the whole situation. The price/selling is not even the “misunderstandable” part — there is no evil in telling a company that they could earn back half of their “lost” opportunity cost by buying out Christian’s app. It was quite clearly a joke (that didn’t land), but what exactly is evil about that, besides possibly Apollo’s community’s hurt feelings?

The misinterpretation came from the ‘quieting down’ expression, which referred to the API usage (I think quite obviously).

[mustacheemperor]

>I wish you had done this impartially for both parties

instead of your thought experiment, I'd request you just pose your impartial take on the most charitable view for Steve and explain why in that view it was a reasonable act of good leadership for him to make these comments. Otherwise I don't think we're really talking about the same thing.

You've quoted the transcript elsewhere for people to "decide for themselves" and I'm not sure how you could be convinced we all did in fact read it and already did, and just don't agree with you.

[DecayingOrganic]

Well, I don't agree with myself too anymore! I stand correct, and I apologize for the confusion I created with my poor argument. I need to read more carefully.

[mustacheemperor]

Hey, for what it's worth I think it was valuable to take a critical look at the situation and where the real wrongdoing vs internet outrage snowball lies. And I think with this outcome I've experienced a civil and rewarding discussion of alternating viewpoints that is delightfully un-reddit!

[lapcat]

> Let's say that instead of Steve asking for clarifications

It was not Steve on the call, it was an unnamed Reddit employee. Christian makes this clear in his post.

[Goronmon]

Yes, the developer tried to backtrack later in the call...

You say it was later in the call, but it was an immediate request for clarification and then reworded and clarified once that statement was made. There wasn't some long back and forth where the developer finally relented and changed his mind.

If anything, the immediate response of "No, no, sorry. I didn't mean that to-" seems to indicate that he wanted to clarify what he meant.

And "if you want Apollo to go quiet" isn't the original quote anyways, not sure why you had to paraphrase but pretend otherwise.

[DecayingOrganic]

Instead of arguing further, I'll directly drop the verbatim quote from the transcript here so that people can decide for themselves:

Christian: 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.

[Goronmon]

Right, but the original statement that was meant to be the "threat" was "If you want to rip that band-aid off once. And have Apollo quiet down, you know, six months." where the wording lines up with "...it's quite loud in terms of its API usage".

[DeRock]

The complaint was not with the audio call itself, but how Steve had paraphrased the audio call to others not in attendance, specifically saying:

> Steve: "Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million."

> Steve: "This guy behind the scenes is coercing us. He's threatening us."

In the audio call Steve apologizes for the misinterpretation after clarifying, but then goes off and still makes claims of threats.

[wayne-li2]

I strongly disagree. First of all, in normal situations, you can't "threaten" a billion dollar company as an individual. The power balance there is so asymmetrical that any logical person's first thought shouldn't be "the individual has threatened the billion dollar company". Sure there might be exceptions, whistle blowing, etc. but overwhelmingly, this rule holds.

It is clear that Christian was asking Reddit to buy out Apollo. It was a business proposition. Pay me 6 months, and I'll shut off my app, which is what Reddit wants. They want more users on their official app so they can make revenue. The language he used was clumsy, but it is clear, and it was clarified afterwards. The natural easy response is to say no, we are unwilling to pay, end of conversation.

The problem here is that Reddit seems to be litigating free-flowing language from part of a conversation as part of its defense for its changes. That is not only ridiculous, but wildly inappropriate.

To be honest, reddit has all the justification it needs to do what they're doing. Do I think they're making the right decision? No. But they're free to raise prices however they want. It's their API. But a billion dollar company accusing an individual of threatening them and then continuing to litigate the words used even after clarifications have been made is indicative of a catastrophic leadership failure on Reddit's side.

[Zak]

> But they're free to raise prices however they want. It's their API.

They may not be. According to Christian's post, they told him they will not do that in 2023. Were he inclined to sue them, he might be able to hold them to that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#Reliance-based_estopp...

[EatingWithForks]

I believe what's happening here is that Reddit leadership feels like they've been threatened, and are acting accordingly without seriously considering the actual power imbalance. People under privilege rarely, if ever, actually consider their relative power when disagreeing with people in less power than them and have exaggerated responses when people in less power than them try to gain any leverage, such as an app developer trying to negotiate with the platform the app runs on. You can also observe this when people get very upset about $perceived_thing_that_people_less_well_off_than_them_get. I'd list exact examples but I fear I'd distract with people getting angry, lol.

[lapcat]

> It is evident to me that this statement, "if you want Apollo to go quiet," did come across as a threat.

I just listened to your audio link several times, and I totally disagree that it sounded like a threat.

Also, the call was not with Steve, as Christian explained:

> Have you talked to CEO Steve Huffman about any of this?

> I requested a call to talk to Steve about some suggestions I had, his response was "Sorry, no. You can give name-redacted a ping if you want."

[BashiBazouk]

From reading the transcript it reads to me that Reddit says Apollo is costing them $20 mil a year from lost opportunity cost, which I take to mean advertising/tracking et? The Apollo dev seems skeptical of that cost and is jokingly suggesting that if they cut him a $10 mil check, they can make it up in 6 months purely from getting that "opportunity" back with the added benefit Apollo just disappears.

I look at less of a threat and more of a calling the bluff...

[the_mitsuhiko]

I’m curious what the threat here is. Is the implication that they can pay 10 Million and he shuts down the app quiet or he shuts the app down revealing the cost of the API?

[Jochim]

The implication is they buy the app and do what they like with it.

The alternative is that he has no choice but to shut down the app, given that they've announced what the price will be 30 days before it's introduction. Even if he'd said nothing there would have been a shitstorm; the timing would be obvious.

Reasonable notice of the price increase would have given 3rd party developers time to monetise and meet the new costs. A more reasonable price could have been borne by 3rd party apps with very little fuss. Making API access a premium Reddit feature would have put even more money in Reddit's pocket. Buying out the 3rd party apps would have been unpopular but would give Reddit the appearance of being less incompetent, underhanded, and duplicitous.

Instead, Reddit made literally the worst possible choice in this situation: alienating their users and the moderators that do most of the work on the platform.

[skyyler]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but reddit is trying to do an IPO soon and this guy is projecting a lot of uncertainty about their business. He's offering to stop that if he gets paid off.

(for the record, I almost feel like he's in the right to do so. Still weird how this is being presented)

[kaba0]

He jokingly offered that the whole situation can easily be solved — he shuts down/sells his app for half of the “lost” money reddit would make were Apollo’s users using the official app. Win-win for both sides. The other side of the phone call misinterpreted a “quiet down” expression, which was used for the API calls from Apollo servers (serving which costs Reddit money).

[skyyler]

It seems too ambiguous to judge, honestly.

It seems like he was trying to invoke a sort of ironic use of quiet down to ease the situation, but ironic extortion is still extortion.

[wvenable]

It's not extortion -- the whole point of the joke is that the pricing is so ridiculous that it would be a massive discount to Reddit if they just bought his app for $10 million.

[dtech]

the first part yes, the second part would be more like causing a public nuisance.

[lijok]

Did you miss the part where spez apologised for misunderstanding him?

[dtech]

Same, while it's blatantly clear that Reddit is trying to kill 3rd party apps, I don't get the sentiment that this is being misrepresented at all. The audio gives me a very strong "would be a shame if someone would stir up trouble, $10M can make it all disappear" vibe, just as how the CEO interpreted it.

[kaba0]

It’s absolutely not that, not from a hundred miles. The guy was jokingly telling that if the free usage of reddit’s apis cost them $20million bucks in a year, than for half of that he can “quit down” the API calls by shutting down the app, letting the users back to the main site where they could generate that opportunity cost.

[wvenable]

Here's an interview with the Apollo author about the situation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypwgu1BpaO0

I think that interpretation is incorrect and based on Christian's attitude towards the whole thing. More likely it's projection on the part of Reddit's CEO.

[eclipxe]

The call wasn't with Steve, and it was clear to me listening that he wasn't making a threat at all. He was talking about the API chatter, it was obvious to me.

[dameyawn]

I think, for one, it is important to note that Christian doesn't say "go quiet". He said "quiet down", and those carry different interpretable implications regardless of context (the latter having much less potential implied threat imo).

Second, listening to the actual audio, it doesn't sound like a threat at all, and it all cleared up right away.

[thepasswordis]

He's saying:

"You are claiming that my app is costing you $20M a year in API calls. Just buy it from me for $10M. Then it's yours to shut down if you want, or modify, or whatever you want to do with it."

That's not a threat. At that point it seems like he didn't have any obligation to do anything, and was offering them a mutually beneficial deal. Reddit's cost go down by $20M a year, he gets paid, and everybody (except probably the apollo users) benefits.

[jlmorton]

This is exactly correct.

It is always amazing to me how easily people will accept however an issue is framed for them on social media.

Of course this was a threat. It wasn't a language issue. And the post-hoc explanation was nonsense. It was an obvious and indisputable threat.

[kaba0]

> It is always amazing to me how easily people will accept however an issue is framed for them on social media.

And it’s even more amazing when people think they are smarter “than the average” and go the exact opposite way just because, failing a proper evaluation.