In general I would agree, but the only reason the recordings were made public was because Reddit was straight up lying about the Apollo dev. So the recordings were released to prove that the Apollo dev was right.
this part is up to debate. I would also consider "joke" with $10m sticker to go away quiet as a threat, which looks like didn't go through and apollo dev backed up.
The recording contains the Apollo dev explaining that it wasn't a threat, and spez acknowledging it as such. To other people spez still says he was threatened. How is that anything but a lie?
Okay. So spez acknowledged in the call that it wasn't a threat, but he felt threatened, so it's okay for him to tell everyone the Apollo dev threatened him?
> So spez acknowledged in the call that it wasn't a threat
its regular bs sugar coating, like you know someone is cheating, and he knows he is cheating but doesn't admit, but you don't have proof and you say "oh it was miscommunication" for the sake of continuing cooperation.
Why do you think this is the case? The audio by the Apollo dev doesn't support this, and spez has not published anything that would prove there was a threat. The audio doesn't sound like what you're describing, it sounds like what the Apollo dev is describing.
If he was joking then why would he still be asking for reddit to buy Apollo?
Yesterday he wrote,
> Why doesn't Reddit just buy Apollo and other third-party apps?
> This was a very common comment across the topics: "If Apollo has an apparent opportunity cost of $20 million per year, why not just buy them and other third-party apps, as they did with Alien Blue?"
> I believe it's a fair question. If these apps apparently cost so much, an easy solution that would likely make everyone happy would be to simply buy these apps out. So I brought that up to them during a call on May 31st where I was suggesting a variety of potential solutions
I don't care whether he is joking, I care whether he is making a threat or not. He did not make a threat. spez understood him as saying "if you want this discussion and situation to go away quietly, pay me this". The Apollo dev was asking "if you're having these costs, why not just pay me half that and have the app quiet down?". One is a threat (pay me or XYZ will happen), the other is a legitimate question.
No, he clearly was. I don't know how someone could think otherwise. He said "I could make it really easy on you", "we can both skip off into the sunset", "Bob's your uncle", "And have Apollo quiet down". He just backed up at the end I think because they're somewhat scared nerds and they don't like that level of confrontation. But nobody would go into a business meeting and just say that accidentally. You wouldn't even do that at a weekly meeting with your own team members, much less talking to the CEO of a decent sized company and asking to be acquired. And he actually carried out the threat, he helped make one of reddit's biggest messes (although mostly they did to themselves.)
All of the things you quoted are obviously referring to Reddits claim that Apollo is incurring very high costs through its API usage. I don't know how you can get anything else from it. What do you think "And have Apollo quiet down" could mean EXCEPT for this?
spez is free to release counter-evidence, the Apollo dev has given his approval for anything to be released. Him not doing it means we just have the Apollo devs recording to go off - and that is very, very clearly referring to what he is claiming it's referring to.
this part is up to debate. I would also consider "joke" with $10m sticker to go away quiet as a threat, which looks like didn't go through and apollo dev backed up.