[EnragedParrot]

I think you nailed it. In reality from a business standpoint, Reddit should have taken Selig's offer and bought out Apollo and built the main app around it and injected ads, maybe offered an overpriced subscription to minimize ads for premium users. I think nobody would have complained a bit.

[jimmydorry]

Reddit balked at Selig's offer that he based on their API pricing (and he even halved it!). They poisoned the well before walking into that discussion, hence it was effectively off the table from the start. Negotiating for a lower buy-out would have been conceeding the point that the API price is severly inflated beyond the actual value of the users Selig served (and the cost to serve them).