this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023

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Apollo - A beautiful app built for power and speed.

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Christian squeezing Apollo for its last bit of money (old.reddit.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Christian has decided to squeeze Apollo again for more money, besides the wallpapers and asking people to decline their prorated refund. Christian additionally forced a pop up ad advertising this plushie.

This is just exposing to more people the greediness that Christian has tapped into recently. Recall that previously, Christian forced daily pop up ads to paid pro users to get them to subscribe to ultra, which was originally stated to only be for notifications since it required a server, but now had all new features attached to it, even very simple local features. Reddit did him dirty, but to be honest, he may have had it coming. He previously disabled ultra access to Jailbroken devices as well, even if they were valid paid users. Christian also didn’t provide refunds to lifetime users who bought it before all the API stuff. Speaking of that, does anyone remember how instead of stating the price was increasing (which happened all the time) he instead said it was “going on sale at the old price”? Kinda misleading.

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[–] TeckFire 58 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I can’t get behind this narrative. Honestly, how else do you market this product? On Twitter? On Facebook? Mastodon maybe?

Look, he’s updating an app that hasn’t been operational in months… nobody who still has that app has any illusions of it coming back. What do they expect when they open that app?

I won’t buy a plushie, since I don’t have a place for it, but I had many fond years using Apollo, and wouldn’t mind buying something like this at all, and I would have never known otherwise (except for people complaining about it online.)

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago

This is where I am. I don’t get the narrative of Darth Christian abusing the populace. He’s an independent gig worker marketing his skills and products.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I would also like to add on that this pop up was shown to all sideloaded Apollo users as well.

[–] TeckFire 10 points 9 months ago

Ah… so unofficial installations of an old app got a notification that was only intended for people who had a non-functional version of the app, because that’s what the official update was set as? The audacity!

In all seriousness, that’s like saying someone with a pirated copy of a game having a bug and complaining about it to the one who runs the server is justified. Actually, not even a bug, just a regular notification… that only notifies you after you open the app…..

You see how thin this argument is, surely?

[+] [email protected] -8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The “product” is an attempt to get people who feel sad to give him more money. What other app tries sells plushies of its logo?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Many sell merch. For example, I play an idle game called Melvor Idle that routinely sells plushies of in game pets.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That’s a game, not a (defunct) social media app

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You asked “what other app sells plushies of its logo?”

Melvor Idle has featured those pets in its logos and and meets your question. Your only response to that was to double down and drag those goalposts further down the field by changing the criteria.

I get that you’re super butthurt over this, but maybe you need to step back, take a breath, get some perspective and figure out why others actions that have no impact on your life bother you so much. How does this change your life? How would your life be different if this happened without your knowledge or never happened?

I bet your life wouldn’t be significantly different other than the amount of energy you’re exerting letting this anger you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I get that you’re super butthurt over this, but maybe you need to step back, take a breath, get some perspective and figure out why others actions that have no impact on your life bother you so much.

Honestly, Lemmy users can get antsy over the weirdest shit. Not a fan of that being carried over from Reddit/Twitter to the fediverse.

This post was crossposted to the Reddit community on one of the major instances, to which it was downvoted a lot. Reddthat doesn't allow downvotes, but the major Lemmy instances and the one I'm on do. Between that and TeckFire's top comment (though Reddthat doesn't federate downvotes, it's got more upvotes than the OP), I think it's safe to say the majority of people disagree with OP.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No “goalposts” were moved. I was perhaps not specific enough when I said app, which is why I clarified more.

There’s no reason to be passive aggressive about this. You make it sound like I dedicate my life to this, when all I did was make one post here, and outlined some of my concerns with some of the developers behavior.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Asking for an example, then “clarifying” so that the criteria changes in order that the example — which answers the prior questions but now — doesn’t meet the later change is literally “shifting the goalposts”. You might look up the definition.

And your multiple replies to comments to different people that disagree all over this post are a bit more than making “one post”.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

This “criteria” was my original intent all along. English is not my first language so maybe i was not so clear. And is it really so wrong to reply to people that come up in my inbox?

[–] TeckFire 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

And you’re saying that that’s unethical because…?

I mean think about it. Why does any company sell merch? Is it unethical for them to sell it? Why or why not?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It’s not inherently unethical to sell merch. It’s however apparent to me that this seems to be a cash grab. The app died months ago. This is further apparent to me when acknowledging the greediness Christian has shown before. It is unethical to try and use your already dead app to try and gain even more money by selling a low-effort plushie.

[–] TeckFire 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Again I ask… what makes this a “cash grab” and other merch not? Is it because this service is no longer active? What if there was a new plush released for Phantasy Star Online, a now defunct but beloved game?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I’m not sure what Phantasy Star Online is, but yes it is because he is releasing merch for his defunct app months after the fact while also being radio silence towards the Apollo community. Christian says he wants to move on, but I guess that doesn’t apply to money making ventures.

I’m also more critical on this because of his previous more greedy behavior, which I outlined in my main post as well.

[–] TeckFire 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What is the statute of limitations you are arbitrarily lining up for when it’s okay to sell merch, then? As soon as a product with a live service is no longer functioning?

As far as “move on” and “money making” goes… I just don’t see the big deal. He doesn’t want to keep developing Apollo, and wants a new project, hence moving on. But as far as reminiscing on good times, is that now not allowed?

And as far as the refunds for lifetime users goes, what would be an acceptable refund? For every person who bought the lifetime to get a refund? Everyone who bought it a year back? Six months? Three months? You buy it for the lifetime of the product, and it was lifetimed. Perhaps he didn’t have a good way of sorting data for users and when they purchased the memberships, making this a moot point. Perhaps he didn’t have the money to refund it after refunding everyone else. Or perhaps a million other possibilities. Regardless, I don’t see this as unethical, just unfortunate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I covered much more than just the lifetime refunds, but do you really believe that there was no way for Christian to refund people who bought lifetime before all the API stuff? Someone could’ve seen Christian reassuring that API is not an issue, buy lifetime, and basically get screwed over. The plushie is a last straw sort of deal. He wants to completely move on from Apollo, unless there’s a chance he can make some more money from it. Not sure how you call selling a plushie of your logo posthumously “reminiscing on good times” while already selling them on wallpapers and convincing them to decline their prorated refunds.

[–] TeckFire 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Considering the time that post came out, the situation was developing rapidly. I won’t fault someone for not seeing the future, especially since his updates were very detailed and took a sharp turn very quickly in their tone. I don’t have omniscience and won’t judge without evidence.

Also, I don’t think asking users if they’re okay with not refunding is unethical. They could still be refunded if they wanted to… it’s just asking for the equivalent of a donation at that point (aside from lifetime, not discussing that.) Moreover, again, I don’t think it’s unethical to advertise and sell products, especially since it’s not misleading. It’s showing you exactly what you’re getting, a wallpaper or a plushie. Unless he decides to take money and not deliver on a product he advertised, I still don’t see what the problem is.

Essentially your argument (to me) is this:

Christian is accused of not refunding lifetime users, asking users who’ve paid if they are okay with not getting an offered refund, making public optimistic comments that aged like milk, and advertising and selling products in a defunct app that has not worked for anything else in several months (nor does it claim to on the App Store.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

tbh, the original OP has accusations, without any proof. That shit got tiring on Reddit. Until then, it just seems like to me the guy is mad Christian wants to market Apollo's mascot a bit more and is trying to paint him as evil.

(FWIW, Apollo users were able to get Apollo as a Pixel Pal, so it wasn't like this came out of thin air)

EDIT: Seems like OP is also trying to rile up the Voyager community by showing a comment from Christian about how he's "contributed enough" to Voyager (with it being an Apollo clone).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Pop ups to paid users: https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/z83qh4/im_an_early_supporter_and_paid_for_pro_ive_had https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/12hcrdw/ultra_spamming etc

Disabling paid access to Jailbreak users: https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/hpyybw/any_way_to_know_what_tweak_is_causing_this_i (it was originally meant to stop pirates but the tweak list included more than just piracy tweaks)

https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/z75s9r/last_chance_for_black_fridaycyber_monday_sale_on Black Friday pop ups as well as locking new features to Ultra subscription (originally meant for things that require a server only)

https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/z4l0v5/apollo_for_reddit_and_pixel_pals_black_friday increasing prices disguised as a sale

Checking r/ApolloApp can find many more examples of everything I have talked about.

I’m a long time Apollo users, so I took for granted that not everyone is aware or remembers these events

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Christian's apologised for the popups on the top one:

Clearly I went a bit too aggressive with that (it seems the double-final-day thing caused this influx of posts so that was clearly the tipping point of annoyance for many folks), and I am sorry, my intention genuinely wasn't to be spammy but I do see how it came across that way.

You also seem to be presenting the increased prices as him doing it before when I'm seeing it was clearly done after.

For the first time in about half a decade since introducing Ultra, I'll be increasing the prices slightly after this Black Friday event, so this is also your last chance to get the monthly and yearly unlocks at a lower price. Monthly will increase from $0.99 to $1.49, yearly from $9.99 -> $12.99.

For jailbreaking, well, if you have tweaks that allow pirating of in-app purchases, you're gonna have to deal with that tbh. He wasn't targeting jailbroken users per se, he was targeting people who are using the free IAP tweaks there. Even if the user didn't intend to use it on Apollo, those tweaks aren't discriminate in how they work (having run that tweak before when I used an iPhone). You'll have to just disable it on apps that detect it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This will be the last reply i make towards this topic, as I am kinda getting tired of it

Yes he did apologize, but he then did it again. And again. His apology was seen as disingenuous by the community. Especially since early on he was claiming it was a bug but then not fixing it for some reason. Apologizing doesn’t discount the fact that it kept happening. I’m not sure if he even disabled it after he apologized or not, my memory is not too good on that.
That was not my intention. I was stating that he used sales as a way to increase the price. He did this frequently with lifetime (originally only $20, became $50 by the end)
The problem was that his blacklist tweak list included more than just those piracy tweaks. He should’ve done more research before completely locking people out of their subscription. Not a big deal though, since apparently it was also easily bypassed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Not too sure about the popups myself. They only got frequent during the API stuff I'd say.
I'd have to disagree on using the sales that way. He probably had the increase in mind, and did that as a way to get people on board beforehand. Call me optimistic, I just think it's something like Hanlon's razor - cockup before conspiracy.
From my experience with jailbreaking: You jailbreak your device, you face the consequences of doing so. Simple as that. I once got a virus from running a pirated tweak. You can't expect app developers to support jailbreaks, and unless it's their job to, why should they? Nowadays, Christian has given the go-ahead on using jailbroken/patched versions if you want to use it.

I'm also pretty much done here too - I'm not saying the criticism is bad, if the popups were that bad then yeah, sure, but I've seen some genuinely awful stuff coming from the subreddit. Blatant homophobia towards people defending him, for one. Best thing I can say, given what the worst of the subreddit has come to (which, in the case of general homophobia, tracks with other subreddits according to people I know), don't be surprised if people found the posts to be an attack.

[–] skeezix 29 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Spez sucks.

[–] SpezCanLigmaBalls 5 points 9 months ago

Yes

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

True

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Yep