New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on April 20, 2023) follows:

Developed by a former Apple Employee, Apollo is a third-party app for accessing the popular social networking platform, Reddit.

It has been built considering the feedback from thousands of Redditors and features a beautiful and native iOS design.

The app also makes it easy for one to browse through content on Reddit, thanks to customizable gestures, fast-loading pages, a supercharged Media Viewer experience, and much more.

Appolo-for-Reddit-featured-image-1

However, it looks like Apollo for Reddit may soon start showing ads to the app users.

Apollo for Reddit may soon start showing ads due to new Reddit API policy

According to a recent post on Reddit’s official community forum, it appears that the platform may soon start charging fees from 3rd-party app developers to access their API.

Reddit-API-Changes-notes-1
Source (Click / tap to view)

Our Data API will still be available to developers for appropriate use cases and accessible via our Developer Platform, which is designed to help developers improve the core Reddit experience, but, we will be enforcing rate limits.
Source

And to add to the worries, there are some quite popular third-party app clients that will be affected once this policy gets enforced.

Apollo for Reddit has been the most preferred client for many iOS users as it doesn’t display ads and allows one to smoothly explore content from a plethora of communities.

In this regard, Apollo’s development team has contacted Reddit for some clarity.

Apollo-for-Reddit-inline-image-1

And as per their communication, they believe that Reddit will soon force them to display advertisements on their app so that they can generate revenue from it.

They have come to this conclusion after the platform clarified that it will no longer offer Free usage of its API.

Apollo-developer-communication-with-reddit-img-1
Source (Click / tap to view)

But, it looks like this news has not been well received by the third party app developers (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8). And as a result, they have started an online petition in order to stop Reddit from limiting third-party apps access to the API.

However, in fairness to Reddit, their revenue gets deeply impacted by the third-party applications providing users with an ad-free experience.

Along with this, there are recurring costs and expenditures of running the web servers and providing access to API which makes it fair for Reddit to ask for monetization.

Apollo-inline-image-3

And due to this, it is now asking third-party app developers to display ads to free users or generate revenue through a premium subscription model.

That said, we would like to know your views in this regard. So feel free to comment in the comments section given below.

Rest assured, we’ll keep an eye on the topic and update this article with the latest information.

Update 1 (June 1, 2023)

05:38 pm (IST): Reddit’s new API policy would force third-party apps (like Apollo) to pay up to $20 million per year to keep running.

Update 2 (June 8, 2023)

05:38 pm (IST): In what looks like a attempt to cover the cost for API fee, Apollo for Reddit subscription fee has been increased by $5 per month:

Apollo for Reddit $5
Source (Click/ tap to view)

Update 3 (June 9, 2023)

01:38 pm (IST): It’s a bad news for all the Apollo users as Christian Selig announced that the app will close down on 30 June:

Apollo for Reddit
Source

There are multiple reasons behind this behind this from the $20 Million per year cost to the recent hostile nature of conversations with Reddit.

In response to Reddit’s allegations of Apollo’s lower efficiency, Selig countered that the data presented by Reddit was misleading.

Selig highlighted that Apollo adheres strictly to Reddit’s API rate limits, employing only a minute fraction of the limits imposed by Reddit. Apollo Backend has been made public to demonstrate this.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman will be hosting an AMA about the latest API updates, including accessibility, mod bots, and third-party mod tools.

Reddit CEO
Source

But it looks like the users have already made up their mind as various tools are being shared to not just delete accounts but to delete all your data.

Don’t just delete your account. Use a tool to delete all your data before deleting your account, so Reddit doesn’t get money for your posts from 5 years ago showing up in google. Take your value with you when you leave.
Source

04:51 pm (IST): Its not just the Apollo for Reddit, other apps including RIF, ReddPlanet, and Sync are also shutting down.

Note: There are more such stories in our News Section so be sure to follow them as well.

Featured image source: Apollo for Reddit .

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Kanav Sood
740 Posts

I love technology and like to talk about the latest news in the Tech industry.

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