Alex Omenye
The popular third-party Reddit app Apollo has disclosed that the company is shutting down by June 30, 2023.
This is as a direct result of Reddit’s recently announced new API pricing plans which would cost Apollo $20 million per year to operate.
Reddit announced its plans to adjust its API pricing in an interview with The New York Times, where it stated it’s a way to moderate Reddit’s huge online forum site from becoming free arena for companies training their AI systems on the internet.
Reddit in response stated the move was not meant to “kill” third-party apps.
After Selig’s call with Reddit to discuss pricing, he seemed to realize running the app would be unsustainable as a business.
“I’ll cut to the chase: 50 million requests costs $12,000, a figure far more than I ever could have imagined,” Selig wrote on the Apollo app’s subreddit last week.
“Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, which would put it at about 1.7 million dollars per month, or 20 million US dollars per year,”
He added he was “deeply disappointed in this price”
Selig stated he made the decision to shut down Apollo as the company has possible future under Reddit’s new pricing.
Apollo which was first launched on the App Store in 2017 is not the first third-party app to announce a shutdown because of the pricing.
ReddPlanet developer stated its app would also shut down by the month’s end.