And Apollo/Christian could have swallowed that reality and altered the product so he didn’t have to shut it all down wholsesale, no?
Not saying I’m not happy with the way things played out (I love Voyager 😇), but I need to understand the bigger picture here and why Narwhal can make it work when Christian portrayed it like it was unthink+doable…
Edit: Christian didn’t want to be involved with Reddit and they actually did screw him in a way they had to walk back later, but not before destroying the most problematic competitor for them. This makes much more sense and I have thoroughly revised my views on the matter in partnership with all the kind folks chiming in here
the short answer is that only a few apps were willing to play ball, and reddit corp was able to walk back their initial (untenable) terms to a point where they could keep those apps afloat.
the long answer is that during the course of these ‘negotiations’, huffman publicly libeled the shit out of christian which forced christian to defend himself against the accusations by releasing recordings, and none of this is conducive to a healthy working relationship. neither christian nor huffman have any desire to work with one another at this point, so they don’t.
See I get that then. That makes me way more sympathetic to Christian but his 'tude towards Voyager was still distasteful. He shouldn’t have said anything at all if he didn’t want that introduced into the narrative/record
Look, I liked him and his work, got me into this dialectical stuff for years and Im way better off in consequence. I don’t wish him any ill will anymore and I will alter my rhetoic/talking points accordingly for when it comes up.
See, this is the confirmation and validation of this whole platform/dialectical crowd-sourcing discourse and such. You just changed my view that I was pretty fiercely nursing in less than 1 hour aha
i don’t know what he had to say about/toward voyager, personally. ‘the record’ as far as anyone who’s paid attention is concerned is pretty clear about who’s in the right and who’s a libelous, manipulative fuckwad.
I imagine there were 2 primary reasons, one financial, one personal:
Number of heavy users (including a lot of mods) would’ve forced Christian to implement an open-ended cost model based on individual usage, or raise rates across the board to compensate, making it ultimately cost-prohibitive for the average user, and/or
Not wanting to communicate (by folding) such a change was okay. To move to a blanket cost model is to basically admit that you’re okay with and accept the changes.
Some might say it was pure stubbornness and greed, or conclude his decision was a bad one. That’s its own topic for debate I guess.
I honestly don’t even care anymore, like I’ve found a way to a more moderate understanding of everything and I definitely don’t want anyone to have to violate their own principles and boundaries just so I can have my shiny little toy I want aha.
As long as I have Voyager now (which is infinitely more valuable since it likely won’t be taken away), I’m good and I honestly wish Christian well. I’m just skeptical if I would allow myself to become reliant on any future project of his unless he has built it and communicated that he will not be able to shut it down or take it away
At the end of the day, I come to rely on my apps and tools and become emotionally enmeshed with them and I will not allow them to be taken away anymore or not have a facile contingency plan in place wherever it is necessary or desireable
It was doable, but a bit hard to swallow and restrict the app against free users and Christian didn’t want to answer to the whims of Reddit anymore apparently
I understand and can respect that perspective in that case, altho his comments about Voyager are kinda offputting in that context. Like someone continued your legacy in a way you should be smiling upon but it seems like ego and mean-spirit with that guy in this context.
Like, I was super offput by it. Also, I’m sure it was hard for Narwhal too but here we are.
Anyway, to be fair that is encapulated in the “not wanting to be helping or validating what Reddit has become” defense so Imma drop it with predjudice (good way).
