Christian Selig, developer of Apollo (the app shut down by Reddit), joins Digg?
Posted by jacaranda_man@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 111 comments
I can't tell if this is real. If you're familiar with press releases, this one reads a bit cringy. but if true, this is juicy. Christian Selig is apparently joining Digg as an advisor.
If you remember Reddit’s APIpocalypse, Christian Selig was the dev behind Apollo, the 3rd party app they priced out of business. This is either confirmed tomorrow, or I'm being punked.
Koraboros@reddit
Love it or hate it this is probably the best bet on a large scale reddit alternative.
HappeningOnMe@reddit
Actually wondered why all the devs of Reddit apps didn’t band together to make an alternative. Everyone caved so hard all around
Pamasich@reddit
They did, several of them moved to Lemmy.
BillyBl4ze@reddit
Yeah, no. A decentralized platform might be a good idea from a democratic perspective, but it's too unintuitive and complicated for casual users. I am fairly tech-savvy and I am already having difficulties understanding the concept of dozens of different servers that share the same content. That's not how you create the new "find information on anything" platform.
Pamasich@reddit
Lemmy is only complicated if you want it to be (or the person explaining it to you does).
Like, you say you're having difficulties understanding? Does the same apply to e-mail? Because if it doesn't, I think the explanation you got was just too technical in nature.
Lemmy isn't really much different from e-mail in principle. You have your account on server A, you can send messages to users on server B with no direct relation between them.
The main difference is communities. Where with e-mail you would directly send messages to another user, on Lemmy you post to a community, which means your server sends the message to every user subscribed to that community.
But that's really it. The principle remains the exact same. Even with e-mail, both you and your recipient retain a copy of your message. Same in Lemmy. Literally no difference.
BillyBl4ze@reddit
That makes more sense, but that's a new concept compared to the classic way online communities work (everything stored in a single database hosted on a single domain). It was not self-explanatory in any way when I visited the Lemmy website. And that's crucial if you want to reach as many people as possible and get them to join, even the less tech-savvy ones.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
Lemmy-Compatible Apps That Defected from Reddit
^I let our AI overlords make this list because I'm lazy
puhtahtoe@reddit
Sync for Lemmy is unofficial?
LJDawson (the original Sync dev) was working on an official Sync for Lemmy. What happened to that?
I guess I should be asking what "official" means in this context. Is an unofficial app one that isn't being made by the Lemmy devs or is it one that is using the name of what used to be a reddit app but is not being made by the original reddit app developer?
Pamasich@reddit
Probably just AI (which OP sourced the list to) hallucinating details again. When I look up sync for lemmy, I do get a Github repository attributed to a Laurence Dawson.
Hokulewa@reddit
I would kill for an impossible browser extension that could somehow detect and just block all AI-generated BS.
Anonyberry@reddit
Same! The signal-to-noise ratio on the internet is plummeting with all the AI-generated content. It's getting harder to find genuine human perspectives.
puhtahtoe@reddit
Honestly I read as far as Sync for Lemmy and stopped to make my comment so I didn't see the AI part.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
100% hallucinations, thanks
Electronic-Phone1732@reddit
Its official, but broken.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
Definitely chalking that up to AI hallucinations. Don't take anything you read on the Internet as fact.
I just wanted to highlight how many options there are for Lemmy. I don't even use these and prefer Voyager which has been likened to Apollo, but I've tried Sync, Boost, and Infinity. ~~they're all leagues better than reddit's dogshit official app~~
SkyyySi@reddit
Making a forum website is easy. And, fun fact, the old versions of Reddit were actually open source, so they wouldn't even have to start from scratch. But even if you didn't use an exisiting project as a starting point, you could still do it in a weekend.
The difficulties with running a social media platform are
DataNerdling@reddit
yea that whole "user" thing
sulaymanf@reddit
Many of us users flocked to Lemmy. It’s not bad.
Aethaira@reddit
How is it doing now that a lot of the dust has settled?
sulaymanf@reddit
The platform has matured, there are multiple mobile apps to pick from and Voyager feels like a clone of Apollo. The sublemmys have a bit of a younger Reddit feel and there’s similar or copied content.
Aethaira@reddit
What app would you recommend? Voyager?
Electronic-Phone1732@reddit
Voyager is extremely similar to apollo, so if you were a fan of that you would like it.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
I'm not the one you asked, but Voyager is my app of choice after shopping around a bit. I didn't use Apollo, but coming from years of using rif it was easy enough to adapt to.
Sync is a close second but there was some layout quirk I didn't like. Can't even remember why now, honestly. You really won't go wrong with Voyager, Sync, Boost or Connect, they're all fairly similar and familiar.
Sedated_cartoon@reddit
Feels good, Voyager is a cool client and I like swipe to upvote 😁 Although, communities are smaller and interaction is less (users assemble!)
Asyncrosaurus@reddit
Building a Reddit-like is easy, there are literally dozens of them. They're all also graveyards.
Getting people to join and produce content and (mostly importantly) stay engaged long term is the hard part.
kdjfsk@reddit
Yea, but they could hiijack all the users of their app.
Ine day, they open the app and get reddit.com, next day same app opens and it connects to notreddit.com.
And if announcements come out from all the 3rd party apps that they are unified under one banner and redirect to the same spot, maybe enough users join the revolution by staying.
sockpuppetrebel@reddit
I’m sure soon there will be tons filled with AI bots and stolen data from previous forums so that will be cool lol
Electronic-Phone1732@reddit
Lemmy. This is literally what happened.
TraumaJeans@reddit
It's not about development, it's about infrastructure, maintenance and costs (aka business model)
freeparKing33@reddit
Makes no sense but glad to see he’s working on something else
habarnam@reddit
And the snake eats it's own tail again...
NeverMoreThan12@reddit
Yep, hopefully it doesnt get so large and then private equity tries to take it over.
PuddingFeeling907@reddit
Disappointing as Lemmy is right there to use. I mean he posts on Mastodon just fine, so he is already aware of the fediverse.
AshurbanipalsPiss@reddit
For the life of me I can’t figure out Lemmy. Platforms like that just won’t get adopted en masse because they aren’t intuitive to most people. In my opinion, at least.
PuddingFeeling907@reddit
Make an account on lemm.ee
Install the voyager app
Look at the all feed
QuantumUtility@reddit
Ironic
PuddingFeeling907@reddit
I mean these things happen, Lemm.ee ran for two years. People can make another account with the same name.
Another good instance that has open federation is lemmy.zip.
Electronic-Phone1732@reddit
What are you confused about?
Try going to phtn.app and making an account there. (its lemmy).
Xulicbara4you@reddit
The problem for a lot of people is that it too decentralized and frankly confusing to operate. Reddit is easy to use and doom scroll plus it’s has such large communities that it makes Lenny look like a graveyard.
TheuhX@reddit
People use emails, what's the difference?
QuantumUtility@reddit
If I e-mail someone’s Gmail from my Proton mail I won’t have any issues.
If I am on beehaw.org I cannot interact with lemmy.world. If instances de federate the social network starts fragmenting and it’s up to users to keep up.
That nothing to say that I don’t expect proton or google to suddenly stop offering e-mail services but lemm.ee has recently announced it is shutting down.
PuddingFeeling907@reddit
Thank you for saying this! Fediverse platforms are not complicated.
rrrand0mmm@reddit
Lemmy has yet to gain traction and never will. Let’s face it. It’s super niche and nothing but Reddit reposts.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
That attitude is the only thing stopping it
tdhadvocate@reddit
Hard disagree. Lemmy is like all fediverse apps and will always fail. They are all way too complicated to understand and setup. 99% of the population will always take the easier option no matter how evil. Until fediverse can get their shit together in an actually easy to setup system that continues to be easy in use, they will always be failures of nothing but reposts. Plain and simple.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
Nah, users don't need to understand any of the 'complexity'. No more than you need to understand APIs or database queries to use reddit.
It's a story as old as the Internet, the network effect.
AshurbanipalsPiss@reddit
I mean, I tried Lemmy and can’t even figure out how to fucking log in. And I am not tech illiterate. Lol.
Imagine an average 53 year old who wasn’t born when the internet was already a thing trying to use it.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
https://lemmy.world/
Click this.
Scroll.
???
AshurbanipalsPiss@reddit
Conveniently forgetting this direction -
You must log in or # to comment.
Electronic-Phone1732@reddit
You have to login to comment, like on every other website.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
If you can't figure out how to sign up and login to a website, that's not a lemmy problem, it's a you problem.
AshurbanipalsPiss@reddit
You’re missing my point entirely.
My point was that the current alternatives to Reddit aren’t super user friendly. We can go in circles about this but they simply don’t make sense to the vast majority of people. If they did then maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation on Reddit.
Clearly something about those platforms isn’t jiving well with the general public. For me it’s the user interface.
And by the way, for what it’s worth, we don’t have to agree.
Mental_Tea_4084@reddit
It's exactly the same as every other site on the Internet.
Top right. Three dots. Sign in. Username password. Submit.
It functions virtually identical to reddit, your problem is imaginary. If you are logged in here, you can do exactly the same thing there.
panickedthumb@reddit
Digg is likely a more stable paying job than jumping onto the fediverse
I would like to see Lemmy or something get traction though. Reddit is the people and the content. If you can’t get them you don’t have a solid replacement
I always thought Imzy was promising but they had a startup on a gamble with far too many people.
ek00992@reddit
Digg was abandoned for far less than what Reddit has done. It’s wild to me how these big social media sites dominate their sectors so much more effectively than in the past.
busymom0@reddit
Words are worthless. What guarantee are they giving that their reboot won't eventually have the same fate as Reddit once they need to make money? They aren't even using ActivityPub or some other decentralization. So basically Reddit 2.0.
tinyLEDs@reddit
even if it only gets us 6 years back down the right side of the enshittification cycle, I'm in.
Or who knows, maybe they won't go public, and will find an alternate path to viability that shirks the the race-to-the-enshittified-bottom template.
Keep your mind open to it.
PuddingFeeling907@reddit
Lets not keep repeating the cycle and just use decentralized social media such as Piefed, Mbin and Lemmy.
tdhadvocate@reddit
These will never take off because they are overly complicated to set up and use. No one cares how evil a company is, as long as it is as easy as 1-2 clicks to open, setup, and use. Until fediverse systems can figure that out, they will NEVER be a viable option. Plain and simple.
c15co@reddit
Wild that people don’t get this!! The average person doesn’t want the hassle of the fediverse
PuddingFeeling907@reddit
There's nothing complicated about it. Just make an account and be done.
tdhadvocate@reddit
Right? And then they get mad and downvote because the facts don't line up with their biased opinions. It's so sad honestly.
PuddingFeeling907@reddit
Just signup on Lemm.ee and install the voyager app and you're done..
rrrand0mmm@reddit
Those are niche products that just won’t catch on. It’s not user friendly as creating a login then signing in.
Electronic-Phone1732@reddit
Go to lemmy.ca
Click "sign up".
Enter email address, username, password and solve the captcha.
Wait for an admin to approve your account.
PuddingFeeling907@reddit
Yup, it's as simple as that.
tinyLEDs@reddit
NGL, whichever platform can capture that 2014-ish reddit vibe will be where I go. They can train any AI they want to on me, that was lightning in a bottle.
Everyone's got a price. Mine's just lower than yours and that's ok
busymom0@reddit
What was 2014 like on reddit? What differences do you think are worth reverting?
tinyLEDs@reddit
It was a heyday. That stuff got stripped when things went going-public, and management gradually went amoral/corporate track
busymom0@reddit
I believe the race-to-the-enshittification has been accelerated due to rise of Ai and LLMs.
tinyLEDs@reddit
I agree, but it is an arms race... There are countermeasures but i depends on the ethic/culture of ownership. An organization CAN have values, which do not need to be temporary. It is just very rare to eschew max-revenue.
Torley_@reddit
It’s 2011 all over again…
flyryan@reddit
Did you miss that Alexis is joining them? That's way bigger news that the Apollo dev....
Electrizendo@reddit
what is Digg?
timallen445@reddit
New digg having a good mobile app sounds cool
Nepit60@reddit
Amazing, is it ready for use yet?
solarus@reddit
I left digg for reddit, then reddit for digg.. more or less confirms new reddit in the future if the pattern holds!
percypersimmon@reddit
The should retroactively give us all “Great Digg Migration” trophies to those of us who were there
Hokulewa@reddit
RemindMe! 15 years
RemindMeBot@reddit
I will be messaging you in 15 years on 2040-05-21 14:30:39 UTC to remind you of this link
CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) ^(delete this message to hide from others.)
Repulsive-Square-593@reddit
diggers
singleguy79@reddit
Digg still exists?
Crivotz@reddit
New Easter
btrpo@reddit
Where'd you find this?
Cyzor@reddit
This seems to confirm it. https://x.com/kevinrose/status/1925200747983216701
RemarkableLook5485@reddit
also wondering
Stright_16@reddit
Should've worked with something related to the Fediverse
iadas@reddit
Put in my application for a digg account, with christian the app gonna be fire now
UnflinchingSugartits@reddit
Wonder if this means they'll make an Android app for digg
dwerg85@reddit
Yes. It’s in the works. DIGG only exists as wireframes and mockups now btw. It’ll be a while before anything usable is in the cards.
cosmiclatte44@reddit
Thought it was going live in June?
melancious@reddit
he’s an iOS developer lol
UnflinchingSugartits@reddit
Dammit. Lol
Telekineticism@reddit
He’s being brought on as an advisor, it’s not like he’s their only coder working on apps. He can bring app ideology to both sides.
screendrain@reddit
I loved Apollo but Christian could be really tone deaf to the community's complaints and also promised ipad optimization for years and never really delivered. I'm hopeful but also just have some disappointment from that stuff.
BitingChaos@reddit
A lot of people also seem to think reddit killed Apollo.
No, Christian himself decided to sabotage the app and killed support for it out of spite.
Anyone that has been sideloading an older version of Apollo (that lacks the kill-screen and is modified to let you put in your own API key) knows that it still works fine.
Reddit has not enforced any strict API lockdowns that prevent apps from working. I'm on reddit a shitload and I've never hit any limitations, despite using Apollo for years.
Christian is a brilliant developer but I feel like what he did with the app was not right.
Corben11@reddit
Yup was just out of spite and protest. He even said in his post he could charge like $3.25 a user a month to pay for it.
Corben11@reddit
He didn't even need to shut down Apollo just charge people like $4 a month.
CurrentRisk@reddit
I fully agree. Love Apollo too and still using it (sideloaded). But the promising iPad optimization that never happened, the high price increase together with constant pop-up ads at the end of the road. Not listening to half his user-base.
But if you say all that, you’ll get things like the other comments mentioned to you;
Everyone has a different opinion but, it’s meh to dismiss valid points/ arguments with “it’s a one guy dev!”. That’s what the other half of his user-base kept writing and that’s also how the user-base split into halves. Half the side went “one dev guy!” And the other half went “valid arguments gets dismissed with one sentence. Upset”.
Anyway, I’m curious how the entire Digg thing will unfold.
iKR8@reddit
Dude also literally got a macbook crowdfunded for the lulz.
rrrand0mmm@reddit
1 guy dev team….? Sounds like nothing but complaining from you to be honest.
LR2@reddit
Still by far the best mobile Reddit app that ever existed. He is still only human and was a solo developer.
ca_sig_z@reddit
Wait digg is back?
dwerg85@reddit
No. But also yes. It’s in the works to be back. It’s being developed right now from the ground up.
rrrand0mmm@reddit
Where you been homie?! This was announced awhile ago!
Dream_Squirrel@reddit
Love that our boy pivoted to be a press release worthy hire!
geralt_wolf@reddit
Savings-Cry-3201@reddit
Looks like it’s time to join Digg
This guy has a ton of goodwill, Apollo was amazing
rrrand0mmm@reddit
Yesssssssss!!!!
Edg-R@reddit
Fuck yes
Whitesecan@reddit
Interesting.