Christian Selig

Transcript of call: https://gist.github.com/christianselig/fda7e8bc5a25aec9824f915e6a5c7014

> Me: No, no, I'm sorry. Yeah one more time. I was just saying if the opportunity cost of Apollo is currently $20 million a year. And that's a yearly, apparently ongoing cost to you folks. If you want to rip that band-aid off once. And have Apollo quiet down, you know, six months. Beautiful deal. Again this is mostly a joke, I'm just saying if the opportunity cost is that high, and if that is something that could make it easier on you guys, that could happen too. As is, it's quite difficult.

> Reddit: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. I think it's… I don't know what you mean by quiet down. I find that to be-

> Me: No, no, sorry. I didn't mean that to-

> Reddit: I'm going to very straightforward to you too, it sounds like a threat. And I'm just like "Oh interesting". Because one of the things we're trying to do is say "You have been using our API free of cost for many, many years and we have absolutely sanctioned - you have not broken any rules." And now we're changing our perspective for what we're telling you - and I know you disagree with it. That hey, we want to operate on a thing that is financially, you know, footing. And so hopefully you mean something completely different from what I said when you say like "go quietly", I just want to make sure.

> Me: How did you take that, sorry? Could you elaborate?

> Reddit: Oh, like, because you were like, "Hey, if you want this to go…

In this situation, do you hire someone to negotiate with or for you? I'm thinking the intention here was to sell the company for $10 million and that came across as a threat because of the language that was used. You would not record the call [1] and then publish it if you actually were blackmailing them for $10 million.

He probably could have walked away will at least a few million vs shutting it down if there was a small level of negotiation that took place here. I'm not sure who was on the other end of the call but strategic accounts normally get pretty seasoned sales folks assigned to them. They are used to having hard conversations around pricing and pissed off customers. That's all part of negotiation.

Or, is saying you're shutting down part of negotiation too? This likely took it too far if it was, in that you're making reddit looks like the bad guy very publicly now. So, it's probably worth it for reddit to cut ties and force people into the reddit app. No winners here. Apollo the company is gone. Apollo users are gone. Reddit has no customer paying money. Cannot reference them. Reddit users are pissed off. This is a case study in bad negotiation tactics.

That call was brutal to listing too.

[1] http://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a

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 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/fda7e8bc5a25aec9824f915e6a5c7014

Audio: http://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a

He isn't even using YouTube's APIs. From the dev himself:

> I’ve said from the initial launch, Juno is built as a web-wrapper for YouTube, akin to a browser extension, and purposefully built with full respect for the YouTube website and experience, and as a result does not block ads in any capacity, nor does it introduce extra functionality like downloading videos offline that could facilitate that. Further, Juno doesn’t even use any YouTube APIs, as it has no need to: it just wraps the website, and uses CSS and JavaScript to style the website and functionality more in line with visionOS. This is in contrast to other third-party tools that for instance scrape the YouTube website for applicable video URLs and use those directly, or those that integrate ad-blocking functionality.

https://christianselig.com/2024/06/announcing-juno-2/#lastly-answering-googleyoutubes-issues-with-juno

I'll quote directly from the audio (https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a starting around 2:18):

> Apollo dev: How did you take that, sorry? Could you elaborate?

> spez: Oh, like, cause you were like "hey, if you want this, if you want this to go away, like [unintelligeble]..."

> Apollo dev: Oh, I said if you want Apollo to go quiet, like I would say it's quite loud in terms of its API use..."

> spez: Oh, okay, got it. Got it, sorry. That's a complete misinterpretation on my part. I apologize immediately [...]

Would you expect spez to still consider it a threat given both the literal content of what he says, and the tone it was said in? I see no way your interpretation makes sense.

Not only does Steve Huffman need to step down and quit this whole business, the entire team of senior management at Reddit needs to just get away as far as they can from managing anything larger than a lemon stand. Impossibly stupid way of running their business.

Edit: Jesus Christ, that guy on the other end of the phone has just completely destroyed himself in the world of business by lying about the conversation he had with the Apollo developer: https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a