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Apollo founder Christian Selig said he’s “heartbroken” about pulling the plug on the third-party app following Reddit’s API pricing changes.
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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 can confirm. The drop wouldn’t impact me until they drop
old.reddit.com, but I dropped Reddit because of moral reasons.
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.
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.
There are a few different sites that keep track of it. I like the way https://fedidb.org/software/Lemmy presents the stats. The dip in users that they show though is from them removing a bunch of bot instances from their metrics.
I’ve seen a few stats posted throughout the day. Around 6hrs ago I saw just lemmy.world activity had risen 40% since yesterday.
I’m one of the new ones so I don’t know where stats came from tho.
I was posting and encouraging Lemmy.world and wefwef like crazy until Apollo died.
Lenny just needs to stay popular enough while it works out the kinks. More will eventually follow as it gets polished.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I’m one that left after RiF got shut down. Lemmy.world just announced an increase of 20k new users over the weekend (about a 40% increase), so I’d say there’s quite a few of us
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.
Nine year redditor here; I never fell into the doomscrolling that so many others talk about, and I will miss Reddit, but something I’ve discovered is that while it’s difficult to get a “toe hold” in the fediverse, once you do, there is way more content here than I ever knew about on Reddit.
Not saying that Reddit didn’t have it, but rather that I never got curious enough to poke around beyond my main block of subs that I’d curated over that decade. There are entire domains here devoted to science or philosophy or retro gaming, and it really does look like they’re vibrant and active. Finding them is the issue, which really is the big problem with the fediverse in the first place.
There really isn’t a great cut-and-switch over to Lemmy that will make a redditor feel like nothing has changed, but the discovery process isn’t too much different from Reddit, and I think people need to remember that their Reddit experience wasn’t built in a day. My suggestion is to take a more curious approach rather than the “Reddit’s dead, what’s its identical replacement?” that I see, because there really isn’t one and, even if there was, it’d be just as susceptible to the same disease that is currently killing Reddit (and Twitter).
I think this is great. It’s a new opportunity for all of us to define something new - whatever that means to each of us.
See, I have to agree with how it feels empty. I very carefully curated the subs I looked at on reddit. I was there for very specific news and discussion and memes about my various hobbies and interests all compiled into a single easy to access place. This does not fill my needs yet. But hopefully we can start filling that niche going forward.
That’s exactly my experience- Reddit was really my only social media for most of the last 5 years. I had everything I wanted in one place, and multireddits in Apollo kept it all running smoothly
Totally agree that I want more variety. As with any adventure only time will tell if this is worth it as far as a time investment.
Rather than simply look to Lemmy as a replacement, I’ve also been trying not just not need to look at a screen constantly.
Honestly, in addition to the doom scrolling, because there is less here at the moment, I feel like I can contribute more without feeling like I’m talking to an empty field after a festival. This place will grow, but hopefully it doesn’t turn out to be as Reddit is.
It feels like Lemmy has gotten significantly better over the last few days. I’m having to close out much less frequently
I haven’t read more than a handful of books in the last decade; I’m sure it’s because I got my reading fix on Reddit instead. I’m really curious how this will change in the future.
Stopped using Reddit on mobile for a while when they announced they were killing 3rd party apps. Replaced it with the Apple “Books” app, and I’ve gone through 2 books already. Highly recommend it lol
I’m the same way - I don’t read anymore. I have a BA in English. I should love reading. I am also in a career that involves a bunch of reading and writing, so I am also kinda burned out at the end of the day by stressful content; and Reddit did always have something fun and dumb to look at along with the doom. (Oh, can’t forget about the great Google search sourcing - I do miss that)
Crazy question, I’ve seen the phrase doom scroll a few times- I get the scroll, but not the doom? I feel like I’m missing something
I take it to mean people just scrolling and scrolling their life away, because they are addicted to see what else will appear next. A lot of social media tries to get this happening on purpose so people use their service more and more.
Happy to explain! For me doom scrolling is the tendency to be attracted to the top trending posts of the last 24 hours on Reddit - specifically bad or triggering news. Perhaps for some people that would be news only about social movements or political policies that are frightening for them or their loved ones. Hence a sense of “doom” when scrolling through the feed. Another example might be posts related to Ukraine and Putin’s tactical nukes being moved to Belarus. It all depends on the individual but it’s usually triggering shit that you really don’t need to see more of …
That’s an interesting take and would have been much harder to digest if I saw a comment like that on reddit. However, most of the things I was viewing were all doom and gloom with some exceptions.
I would start the day, looking at doom and gloom and wonder why my anxiety and stress seemed to coincide at the same time. 2 days now and I can clearly see how even scrolling through that stuff was bad for my mental health. I’m still interested in keeping an eye on news but not to that same level again. I kind of feel reset if that makes any sense. While I think the CEO is a dumbass for doing that, I think as time goes on, I might actually be thankful that it happened.
Either way, realizing now how the constant scrolling was a negative impact for me, and dipped my bucket every single morning, I am now aware and can try to learn from it.
Never heard of that term, but making a blind guess… “doom scroll” is basically searching for world/daily tragedies and projecting one’s insecurities towards such, i.e “HAHA that guy deserved to be trashed!.. even more than I do.”
Yeah I agree. Of course it feels empty. But so did reddit. it’s just a different kind of empty. At reddit it was like walking lonely halls that went on forever. Here, at least, it feels like there’s only twenty-seven people all stuck on the face of a brand new habitable planet. It really feels like a fresh start, and it’s up to us to make this place better for everyone.
Yep, smaller, but a tighter group of like-minded folks.
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.
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.
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.
100% agree, hate to see it go down like that but they made their decisions
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Not being able to browse on mobile killed it for me. Most of my browsing was on mobile via Apollo. I refuse to get the official app after this stunt so now I’m just not using Reddit.
Luckily wefwef is making the transition easy and familiar.
I never used Apollo but I’m really liking wefwef.
This app has totally blown me away. I always considered PWAs a gimmick, but they’re kind of a “now it works” version of the original iPhone 3rd party apps concept
PWAs have been held back by Apple for a very long time so I’m glad that started to gain traction now.
Man, the astroturfing for wefwef around here is insane. I keep seeing it get brought up even in completely unrelated threads!
Apollo had a huge loyal customer base.
Wefwef provides an almost perfectly cloned UI and is a mere WebApp.
For this reason a lot of users are so impressed with it that they are evangelising it.
The big problem with it that it requires users to submit their login credentials, which is a bit of a security issue.
Unfortunately all apps are suffering that issue because Lemmy doesn’t support OAuth2. It’s one of the many things on the dev backlog, but hopefully it won’t be too long.
Can you say more about the security issues?Asking for a technology dummy friend.
You need to supply the app with your username and password. The app could theoretically steal your credentials when you enter them in order to login. It’s a good reason to not reuse passwords.
Also enable 2fa on your Lemmy account
Oof, I didn’t give this thought when I signed in. I luckily didn’t reuse my password here but that’s a great reminder, and good to know my exposure…
Android users are fortunate to be able to sideload apps without rooting their phones. The Play store isn’t as restrictive either. There are so many options for Android users to get on Lemmy.
iPhone users get cucked, wefwef as far as I know is the only option without jailbreaking
After enrolling in TestFlight, I’ve tried mlem and Liftoff (which is what I’m replying to you on now). Wefwef is good but I’m hoping to use an actual app long term.
Neither are quite Apollo and I’m really hoping Christian throws his hat back in the ring but they’re solid experiences so long as Lemmy itself doesn’t run into issues.
Memmy on TestFlight is pretty solid
I mean, maybe users are just excited about finding a place to land after the exodus, and an app that does feel very similar to Apollo.
I am using it based off seeing it mentioned a couple times and was very pleasantly surprised it’s similar to Apollo. Definitely makes the transition easier.
I used reddit is fun but it’s the same story. Literally 15 years using that website daily.
Same deal, we both got fucked by Reddit.
What sucks is I’m sure you’d have paid to stay on RIF and I know I would have paid to stay on Apollo.
What a bummer that dickshit spez couldn’t see past his own nose.
Narwahl decided to try the subscription model. It should cost around 4-7 €/month. Unfortunately, I don’t think Reddit is that valuable to me, so I’ll just stick with Lemmy instead.
Pro Tip, list view has made this feel very much like RIF.
Pro Tip, list view has made this feel very much like RIF.
Same here, since 2017. I cannot recommend wefwef enough if you’re not already on it.
👋
Went straight from Apollo to wefwef. Smooth transition.
It’s surprisingly good, for a project that started just 20 days ago. And I don’t want to jinx it but the pace of development is quite good as well, they keep releasing updates every few hours or so.
Hardest part was remembering what subjects I was subscribed to and finding analogues here
Have you tried the “Migrate Apollo Export” option in the settings? Not perfect since of course lots of things don’t have one to one analogues, but it’s handy for going through your subs.
deleted by creator
I uninstalled when it stopped working yesterday, and can’t log back in when reinstalling now since the API is dead. I can reference my subs on desktop if needed but it’s not bad to have a fresh start
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
Yep, I’m one of them. RIP Apollo.
Me too, after ten plus years. Nice to be here (:
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
100%. Been checking out Lemmy with Wefwef for last couple of days and I don’t have a single urge to go back to Reddit. Trying to be more active now to do my bit to make Lemmy successful.
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.
The other site that shall not be named lol
Jokes aside, it’s Apollo and Boost for me
Yep, here I am! I refuse to use any of Reddit official shit.
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 :)
Yeah I did and currently I’m switching between wefwef and Memmy. I have to say that I’m positively shocked how fast those Apps developed in the last two weeks.
Maybe I would like to see the original Apollo App, because I used it for years and it’s more about the emotional bonding.
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.
Same here I never really got into reddit until I found an app that I actually enjoyed browsing on…. Apollo
I wish I knew about wefwef sooner I don’t know how I can transfer my data from Apollo now
Seriously, wefwef has made the transition so easy for me with such a familiar interface.
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).
As a native App it felt of course more smooth and everything was more polished. But the whole UI is exactly like Apollo, still missing some QOL features (like favorite communities).
There were a lot of features which you would never ask for in the beginning but when you’re used to it, they are great. For example: You want to share some reddit content with friends who don’t use reddit? Here, take the native video downloader and just share the video and not a link. Or you could share a thread/comment as a big vertical screenshot, so your friends could read it on their mobile device.
Yes, very much. It had even a few more really useful tricks like press and hold on a comment and a menu would pop up to let you do different actions, like reply, quote, select text, save the comment or even translate it using google translate. It was really awesome, clean and intuitive.
Yeah this was exactly how Apollo worked. I went from Sync on Android to Apollo when I switched to iOS and love both
Yes, very much. It had even a few more really useful tricks like press and hold on a comment and a menu would pop up to let you do different actions, like reply, quote, select text, save the comment or even translate it using google translate. It was really awesome, clean and intuitive.
Love the icon!
That’s adorable!!!
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.
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!
same haha
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’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.
