Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure that math is right? If the API access actually costs reddit $20m/year then charging Apollo users $20m/year just offsets those costs. So in the first year they actually lose $10m, and just break even in following years. It only makes sense to buy Apollo if the api costs are low.

View on HN

> If the API access actually costs reddit $20m/year

Do you think anyone believes that to be true?

Not at all. But it seems like the Apollo dev’s argument was “if it actually costs reddit $20m they why not buy Apollo for only $10m”, which doesn’t make sense.

This doesn’t make what reddit is doing any more reasonable though, imo.

The dev specifically said "opportunity cost" as they explained, so the suggestion is that reddit thinks there's that much revenue available.

Ah, that makes much more sense. But, it could be the case that reddit thinks someone will end up paying their outrageous fees, just not him. It doesn’t necessarily follow that they think Apollo is actually worth that much. Then again, if that’s the case it would be reasonable to work out some sort of discount that reflects the true value of the Apollo user base.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com