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Comment by kevdev | Hacker News Reader

In general I would agree, but the only reason the recordings were made public was because Reddit was straight up lying about the Apollo dev. So the recordings were released to prove that the Apollo dev was right.

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> Reddit was straight up lying

this part is up to debate. I would also consider "joke" with $10m sticker to go away quiet as a threat, which looks like didn't go through and apollo dev backed up.

The recording contains the Apollo dev explaining that it wasn't a threat, and spez acknowledging it as such. To other people spez still says he was threatened. How is that anything but a lie?

Yes, this part is in my opinion: threat didn't go through, not accepted, reddit contact explicitly called it, and apollo dev is backing up

Okay. So spez acknowledged in the call that it wasn't a threat, but he felt threatened, so it's okay for him to tell everyone the Apollo dev threatened him?

> So spez acknowledged in the call that it wasn't a threat

its regular bs sugar coating, like you know someone is cheating, and he knows he is cheating but doesn't admit, but you don't have proof and you say "oh it was miscommunication" for the sake of continuing cooperation.

Why do you think this is the case? The audio by the Apollo dev doesn't support this, and spez has not published anything that would prove there was a threat. The audio doesn't sound like what you're describing, it sounds like what the Apollo dev is describing.

> The audio by the Apollo dev doesn't support this

looks like we are in disagreement about this part.

I'll quote directly from the audio (https://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-... 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.

I read this very carefully several times, and there is context which you decided not to quote, what is your point?

Update on your updated comment: > and the tone it was said in? I see no way your interpretation makes sense.

Looks like we are again in disagreement about this.

Could you explicitly state the context you believe I decided not to quote? Timestamps are enough.

context was "joke" about $10m to go quiet.

So the part that spez was talking about misunderstanding, which he apologized for? The context you think I didn't include is the thing that spez is explicitly saying he didn't understand correctly?

> The context you think I didn't include is the thing that spez is explicitly saying he didn't understand correctly?

sorry, this doesn't make sense to me.

I quoted spez apologizing for misunderstanding something. You're saying I left that something out as context. Considering spez acknowledged his misunderstanding and apologized, it seems a bit ridiculous to expect the something he apologized for to "override" his apology, doesn't it?

> Considering spez acknowledged his misunderstanding and apologized, it seems a bit ridiculous

I answered this already, it could be sugarcoating. Sorry, this discussion is low quality to my taste and I have no interest in continuing. Good bye.

If he was joking then why would he still be asking for reddit to buy Apollo?

Yesterday he wrote,

> Why doesn't Reddit just buy Apollo and other third-party apps?

> This was a very common comment across the topics: "If Apollo has an apparent opportunity cost of $20 million per year, why not just buy them and other third-party apps, as they did with Alien Blue?"

> I believe it's a fair question. If these apps apparently cost so much, an easy solution that would likely make everyone happy would be to simply buy these apps out. So I brought that up to them during a call on May 31st where I was suggesting a variety of potential solutions

And he linked to a comment,

https://reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_w...

I don't care whether he is joking, I care whether he is making a threat or not. He did not make a threat. spez understood him as saying "if you want this discussion and situation to go away quietly, pay me this". The Apollo dev was asking "if you're having these costs, why not just pay me half that and have the app quiet down?". One is a threat (pay me or XYZ will happen), the other is a legitimate question.

No, he clearly was. I don't know how someone could think otherwise. He said "I could make it really easy on you", "we can both skip off into the sunset", "Bob's your uncle", "And have Apollo quiet down". He just backed up at the end I think because they're somewhat scared nerds and they don't like that level of confrontation. But nobody would go into a business meeting and just say that accidentally. You wouldn't even do that at a weekly meeting with your own team members, much less talking to the CEO of a decent sized company and asking to be acquired. And he actually carried out the threat, he helped make one of reddit's biggest messes (although mostly they did to themselves.)

All of the things you quoted are obviously referring to Reddits claim that Apollo is incurring very high costs through its API usage. I don't know how you can get anything else from it. What do you think "And have Apollo quiet down" could mean EXCEPT for this?

spez is free to release counter-evidence, the Apollo dev has given his approval for anything to be released. Him not doing it means we just have the Apollo devs recording to go off - and that is very, very clearly referring to what he is claiming it's referring to.

Sorry, had to go check the timeline cause maybe you're right. But I don't think so.

Apollo dev said the call was 24hrs before June 1st. So he asked reddit for 10 million dollars right before he made this post:

https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_ca...

He had previously made 2 other posts about it before on Apr 18-19, so that's what he meant by "quiet down". Reddit refused to pay him $10 million and so he went the opposite of "quiet", he made a post telling his story and it blew up.

For the next week when mods were taking their subs private, the Apollo dev didn't disclose to any of them that he'd asked for 10 million to "have Apollo quiet down." If some reddit employee hadn't asked him about it Mastodon, he would never have told anyone about that.

I'm not sure what timeline you're exactly trying to prove or disprove. It makes sense to me that he'd make a post describing a call with Reddit, after he had a call with Reddit. He doesn't have to describe exactly everything he describes, but fact is: Reddit is claiming he is costing them 20 million dollars per year, he suggested a buy-out for half that. You have to actually prove he tried to threaten them, because the non-threat explanation makes perfect sense - because of course the developer of an app would make posts about the status of communications regarding these changes!

If I'm missing something you're alluding to in the beginning I'd appreciate an explicit explanation :)

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