1y ago

Some Redditors say they're walking away after Apollo app shuts down

www.businessinsider.com Some Redditors say they're walking away after Apollo app shuts down

Apollo founder Christian Selig said he's "heartbroken" about pulling the plug on the third-party app following Reddit's API pricing changes.

Technology @lemmy.world

www.businessinsider.com /reddit-users-say-walking-away-after-apollo-shutdown-2023-7

87 2

379 comments

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.
- 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.

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.
  
  Look at active number lists not total accts.
- 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

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.
  
  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.
  
  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
- 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.

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
  
  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 …
  
  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.
  
  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’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.
- 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.
  
  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
- 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.

Yep, I’m one of them. RIP Apollo.
- Me too, after ten plus years. Nice to be here (:

hey, that’s me! I’m a redditor that walked away after Apollo shutdown!
- Same here - I’m loving wefwef so far, has a very similar UI 🙌
- hello! glad you walked in here.
- Wefwef has been an amazing replacement so far.
- Samesies, I wish someone at Reddit would leak how many users deleted their account on July 1st and leading up to it compared to a normal month of people coming and going.
- Apollo refugee reporting in!
- ONE OF US!

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.

I deleted my Reddit account. I almost exclusively browsed on mobile and I won't be caught dead using Reddit's useless official ap. Hi Lemmy.
- Hi! I'm in the same boat. Part of me is sad to leave (15 year account) but the more bigger part of me is looking forward to seeing how lemmy grows with this migration.
  
  It does genuinely feel like a new world even though I'd only been on reddit for a half-dozen years.
- I’ve actually been using the Reddit app for quite some time now and I don’t get the hate. Regardless of that, the way Reddit handled all of this was enough for me to leave anyway. Hi Lemmy!
  
  I used sync on Android for about 10 years, and reddit is fun ("rif") for maybe a year before that. I used the official app yesterday to look for any top posts about the lost traffic on reddit and the app was stuttery and was impossible to find even the easiest of things. They've had their requirements and priorities change over the years as middle management comes and goes and so the app doesn't have a unified and streamlined experience, which many of us on 3rd party apps have gotten used to. Which is sad since most 3rd party apps are the efforts of a single individual vs a 100s of employee, first party company.
  
  I tried the official app 5 or 6 years ago but it really sucked, was way too bright and killed my phone's battery life. Settled for RedReader and never looked back.
  RedReader only got better, the Reddit app had some features slowly trickle in years too late, and got worse and had bugs that took ages to fix.
  I was using it enough that I would have considered paying for premium or gold if Reddit was to co-operate to add-in API features like poll voting. But with their such antagonistic approach, I started winding down my Reddit usage in late April and ramping up with Lemmy. Despite RedReader being given an exception, I'm leaving it permanently. I'm not posting or commenting anymore.

The writing is on the wall. I don't want to boiled slowly like a frog. Merely tolerating the disrespect from the CEO of Reddit is not a long term solution. I bet old.reddit.com is next on the chopping block for sure. For me I just bit the bullet and decided to move away now than eventual future.

Yep, here I am! I refuse to use any of Reddit official shit.

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

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.
- I’ve been using WefWef to browse Lemmy and it feels so perfectly familiar. Makes me very happy.
  
  Same. Just starting out but it already feels like home.
  
  Same here
- Never used Apollo but after seeing how Huffman lied about it, plus al of the misleading messaging, it was more than enough to cut that tie
  
  Same. Reddit could walk back everything they said and literally prove they would be unable to do it again by some act of god that I still wouldn't go back. They have completely erased my goodwill towards them.

I’m gone, I blocked Reddit on my firewall, it’s inaccessible from my home network or any of my personal devices. I’ve also added uBlacklist to all my browsers to exclude them from search results.
As far as I’m concerned, that site no longer exists.

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.
  
  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).
  
  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.
  
  I'm using mlem; it's in active development and the TestFlight beta has come a VERY long way in even just the week since I first installed it. It appears to be striving to be an Apollo clone. Still a long way to go but incredible progress, I'm excited to see what the next month will bring to the app!
- Yes, quite the odd feeling! On the bright side, I expect Christian probably made enough from app sales to not have to worry for many, many years.
- Love the icon!
- That’s adorable!!!

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.

I haven't willingly been back since the 12th. Shithead CEOs aren't going to profit off my contributions. If everyone did the same it would evaporate overnight
- I don't know about everyone but I am the same
- Same

Apollo shutting down forced me to confront my Reddit addiction. I used Reddit to escape my life. Even if it was just 5 minutes to take a break from work, or remove myself from reality to avoid anxiety or boredom. It became a crutch and an addiction. Instead of focusing on trying to change the moment or situation I’d escape instead.
It’s a lazy crutch to give yourself dopamine when in reality we all should be focusing on self improvement. Delayed gratification instead of immediate release. It sucks the various communities will die but at least my health can improve.
- I moved my Lemmy app to the same location I'd habitually press sync for reddit. Im as addicted to pressing that part of my screen as I am reddit itself
- These kinds of media can be used for self-improvement though. I'm sorry that it's merely an escape for you and I hope you find the peace you're searching for.
- Until it is replaced with your shiney brand new Lemmy addiction.

I deleted my 12 year 100k account at 11:59p Friday night. Had redact edit every old comment then delete them and closed the account. Some of my Google searches are still landing me over there. I don't even know what it would take to put me there permanently, again. I'm just hoping I can cultivate my experience here, enough, so that I won't have to find out.
- I noticed googling my reddit username still showed links to posts I deleted with my name in the Google description. Clicking showed it was deleted content with no videos/images left.
  
  It's probably just cached. If you want to get fancy maybe a DMCA takedown notice will get it removed?
  
  Same, I used to be StripedNinja on Reddit. Still see a bunch of Rocket League, Microsoft Excel, Guitar, and Mandolin posts when I google it.
- We should never go back no matter what. Imagine a world where email was centralized and theres was a monopoly company behind it and they started abusing their power. If the open email protocol came out and everyone switched to it, would you ever go back to the monopoly? Centralized monopolies always corrupt eventually. Any opportunity we have to distribute control, we should jump on it.
- Same here.. i just quit cold turkey after ~15 years. I just tell myself I can do it again. I pinned the lemmy to my phone so it feels like RIF, just has less content. Thats why we are here though.
  
  That's what I did too lol. The muscle memory of clicking the bottom left spot of my phone was crazy after a decade of RIF being in one spot the whole time.
  The less content is something that will change the more we post.
  I plan to find a community or make one that is about just random games that nobody mentions anymore. I found a new love for old Xbox 360 games that have been forgotten.

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.
  https://d3.harvard.edu/platform-digit/submission/the-demise-of-digg-how-an-online-giant-lost-control-of-the-digital-crowd/
  
  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 !

After 12 years, I walked away. No Apollo, no Reddit. I like it here just fine.
- Did you try wefwef? It’s pretty much has the same interface as Apollo
  
  I’ve been reading about it today. I’m going to give it a go. Thank you!

I’m not an Apollo user but still quit reddit because of the disgusting handling not only of third party app but also of the mods and users. Reddit isn’t deserving any of my time anymore. So far I’m enjoying lemmy and hope it stays free of corporate greed!
- I found the attitudes behind the API changes and handling the whole thing problematic enough that I am here now. Deleted thousands of comments and posts on my way out.
  
  Same, and I was active on hobby forums where I answered questions. I feel bad for the people who responded to me year(s) later thanking me, but reddit doesn't need the SEO boost

Apollo for Lemmy when?
- wefwef says it's inspired by apollo
  
  Wefwef hella laggy on my device. Scrolling is not smooth at all
- Memmy has been giving me Apollo vibes and has made the transition way easier
- I know this isn’t technically the same thing, but we feed.app is pretty nice.

I do not understand how there is no mention of the fediverse.
- Do the owners of business insider benefit from open, decentralized social media?
- This seems weird to me, especially when I checked on Reddit...

I stopped using reddit the second Apollo stopped working, and I don't think I've truly missed it once since then, I'm optimistic things will get far better with time as more people join lemmy.

Sync user here. I've walked away.. Waiting on SyncForLemmy.

As soon as Apollo stopped working, i deleted it and moved Memmy to Apollo’s spot. I will miss it and enjoyed the developers work on it but I’m done with Reddit unless my troubleshooting work points me there.
Normally I would get my news from Reddit but I have Apple News and that works fine for now while Lemmy ramps up.

Christian would be wise to start a Lemmy app. He would have a huge following right out the gate.
- I think he’s done relying on API beyond his control. Understandable. As federated and open as lemmy / kbin is right now, there is still a chance for a large company built a tiny wall around it. Like gmail has done with email.

Yup, that's me. I'm still a little surprised at how easy (thanks Spez) it actually was for being such a heavy consumer of Reddit. Doing Christian wrong like that, as well as the many popular 3rd party apps and their loyal users, just didn't sit right with me. Spez chose the nuclear option, instead of actually working with and potentially helping to grow the site along with 3rd party devs, so this is the resulting fallout. He asked for it, so he got it.

Before Reddit shutdown the apis I used a tool that deleted my entire history. I think this move on Reddit's part is just the beginning, very similar to Twitter. Honestly any platform that gets to large tends to forget itself.
- I'm currently in the process of doing that... sort of.
  I'm using https://redact.dev/ which gives the option of editing all of the comments to replace it with random text. I think I'm not going to delete my comments and instead leave them as random just to fuck up any future AI data mining. Scorched Earth :P
  It's over a decade of comments and posts, across three different accounts so the process is taking all day. Kinda weird seeing comments from 10 years ago stream by as they're being randomized.
  
  I ran this in my account the other day in preview but didn’t pull the trigger since I was waiting for Apollo to die. Now when redact asks me to log into my Reddit account, I do and give it permission, and all it does is open Reddit chat. I can’t figure out what’s different or why it won’t do anything else. Using the same iMac.

I’ve always preferred mobile sites to apps. Not sure why. Maybe I just like to use Safari to manage all that I’m checking out.
But I stand with developers. Even Balmer knew developers are a major key to success. I’m not interested in using a site with such hostile ownership.
Fuck spez.
- I do too! I just generally don't want to keep track of and manage permission and data access for a number of different apps that might change when the ownership changes. I see apps as a way for the owner to take control of more of your mobile environment than is actually warranted, whereas connecting to all services through my browser lets me stay in control of what information they have access to -- to some extent.
  
  I started to think more about it, and I think the main reason is being able to use an ad blocker in Safari, and not within apps. Sure, I could use a DNS profile, but I don't feel like installing one (I don't like installing stuff, I'm seeing a pattern...)
- Except that when using Safari to access reddit, any post marked as NSFW forces you into the app.
  
  Looks like it works if you're signed in. I tried r/Playboy while signed in and it worked. Tried again in a private tab and didn't.

used to use reddit sync.. deleted my reddit account now. shame, it was a really active site, but this is a good equivalent and it won't get spezzed or eloned. I can just move server if I feel like it.
- Same here. But fortunately LJ is working on a Sync for Lemmy, excited for that. I use Connect for Lemmy right now which has a similar UI
  
  Thank you for the good in between app solution while waiting for Sync :)
- Same here. I didn't delete my account for the same reason I never deleted my facebook - so I can have a nostalgia hit when I'd like, looking at my old posts. But, with how they handled this, I'm gone.

I quit when rif went down. I've never used an official app, desktop site, mobile site etc. Rif was Reddit to me for 10 years. Maybe leaving as a collective will make some difference, maybe not, but I'm going to start being more firm on how much I'll let companies try to push me around expecting me to just take it. They built it on our backs, then just took it away so a literal select few can cash in, when they are already filthy rich and had other options.
I've been explaining it to others as if you broke your phone. Now it's frustrating getting used to a new phone, but it has lots of new features you never even thought of that make up for the inconveniences. Sure I could go back to my old phone, it's comfortable to use, but the screen is broken and it cuts me now and again, and over time it'll cut me more often. I'd rather get used to the new phone.
This past year I've dealt with food going up, gas, utilities, rent, hell cigarettes and even beer, my fishing license went up. Every single nook and cranny they can pull a cent from you they will.
I'm done choosing to let them. If they want my data, my attention, my content, they can pull it from my cold dead hands damnit.
Ok weird ass Braveheart speech over and out.

Looks like I'm from the minority of people who browsed Reddit on Firefox Android. Although I lost nothing, I like the smaller cohesive community feeling of Lemmy
- Count me in for Firefox! I'm still using it for browsing Lemmy but Jerboa is also nice.
  
  Useful list for people exploring Lemmy apps https://lemmy.world/post/465785
  
  Check put wefwef.app, it's the best of both worlds
- You lost your innocence. /s

Once Bacon Reader died, I stopped. It's sad. I was subbed to a lot of fun and interesting subreddits. But fuck spez, that greedy little pig boy. Lemmy seems like reddit lite for the moment, but I'm sure it will grow.
- Yup same here with RIF gone, fuck that and fuck spez. The sad thing is that Reddit is so old that there's always little niche subs that have a lot of mileage that are really nice to figure out new stuff. Like I was looking at Add-ons for Kodi in my last days and probably will still have to resort to go there once in a while for stuff like that.
- I am kind of liking it with less people. It's more like how reddit used to be when I joined. You could have really great conversations with people.
- I barely use Reddit since Bacon Reader has been offline. The official Reddit app is garbage. I'm enjoying using Lemmy with the Connect app, but I wish the Bacon Reader team would create an app for Lemmy.
- All my homies hate greedy little pig boys.
- Might be confirmation bias, but theres a lot more baconreader representation than usual. I wonder if theres a reason for it, or if its in my head.

Yupp. I jumped ship at approx 2 pm on Friday. Was a sad sad moment when Apollo stopped working :(

To me, Apollo WAS Reddit. Period. When Apollo shut down, Reddit shut down.
- Same, but with Bacon Reader. Wonder how that IPO is going to go now?
  
  It's so rare that I see anyone talk about Bacon Reader anywhere but that was the only app I liked. It was so minimal but still felt like it had everything I needed.
  On the bright side, Reddit valuation has dropped from $10 billion to $5.5 billion in two years...so there's that.

I’ll still have a look every now and then on the pc with RES. But 95% of my Reddit time was on Apollo. Inreallly enjoyed alien blue before that, so it’s a mystery how they managed to fuckup that once they bought it

Apollo refugee here. Can confirm.
- And the app developer u/iamthatis was a class act right up to the end. Even had a free update on the last day and included an Easter egg.
  Can't say the same about u/spez.

I miss r/Cricket with the massive community of Indian Redditors, they are so funny and quick witted, so it was a quiet one this week in the small Cricket sub (or whatever you call it). But glad to get the ball rolling with Lemmy.

I’m one of them! Loving wefwef so far

Mod for a medium-sized city subreddit, here. I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to be able to keep modding for it, now that apps like Apollo and RIF are dead. It is functionally impossible to mod effectively with the official app (let alone the mobile site).
I'm not quite ready to just abandon the city community I spent so much time assisting - I mean, they're my friends and neighbors, not just my subreddit subscribers. But if they move to Lenny en masse, I'll join them, and say goodbye to Reddit permanently.
- Why not get ahead of the curve and start moderating/start a community here already?
  The positivity and enthusiasm on lemmy is so refreshing and each community is growing quickly. It’s like the days of Reddit when it was young.
  
  There's already a Lemmy community for the city, and I'm watching it closely to see if it takes off. So far, the signs are good, but the Reddit community is still a lot more active.
  Maybe that will change as uses realize we simply can't effectively moderate it anymore.
- I would love to start a community for my city here but I honestly can’t figure out how the syntax works to start one. Every time I try to create one I get an error.
  
  When did you try? The devs are stamping out bugs as fast as they can. Maybe you ran into one (or several). If you hit the "Create Community" link at the top, you can build one.

I mean let's be real: Anyone with a fraction of self-respect would walk away from this dumpster fire after being repeatedly called noise by the idiots running the website.
But on the other hand I have to admit that Spez was completely right. This did blow over rather nicely for Reddit, since any publicity is good publicity and it seems like most of it is business as usual minus actually good apps.
- We'll have to see what the long-term looks like. This was never going to be an instant death for reddit, but it absolutely could be the beginning of a slow decline into irrelevance. Digg never went offline, it just became useless
  
  I hope so, but I somehow doubt it. Reddit has so many casual users who were never even aware of the existence of third party apps and consider the protests to be "pointless".

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.
- I knew it was getting bad nearly a year ago when they permanently banned my 12-year-old account for "threatening violence." When I warned someone else that their rhetoric could be understood as such.
  They and their friends went on a mass reporting spree and it took a month to get the ban overturned.

Well I just stopped going to reddit. The only way O used reddit was apollo. I put lemmy icon on the aplllo place cos I kept unconsciously clicking it even though I knew it wont work.
- I did the exact same. Apollo has been relegated to the graveyard on my phone. Gone but never forgotten. Wefwef is in the same location so I stop opening up discord by accident trying to click on Apollo.

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

Now we wait for them to kill old.reddit and Reddit will finally be the low-energy TikTok clone Spez wants it to be.

Another former Redditor that walked away as soon as Apollo stopped working. I will never look back!

I'm still reading /r/boxoffice (on desktop using old.reddit) so that I can follow the Summer of Flops, but that's about it. If a community exists and is reasonably active on both Reddit and Lemmy/kbin, I won't touch the Reddit version.
- I know nothing about movies really but maybe you should try and start a /c/boxoffice here! We need to recreate the communities somehow
  
  There already is one. It just doesn't get much traffic.
  I'm not planning on following box office stuff once things get back to normal, anyway, but there's been some nice schadenfreude seeing the big studios lose money.

379 comments