‘It’s been a great run. So long and thanks for everything.’
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Many popular third-party Reddit apps will be shutting down on Friday because of the platform’s forthcoming paid API, and fans of the apps are sending them off with heartfelt posts and memes.
The Apollo for Reddit subreddit, for example, is filled with posts celebrating the app. “So long and thanks for everything,” said one post for an Apollo-themed version of the “was I a good boy” meme. This morning, someone posted a “Dawn of the Final Day” image. Even Carrot Weather seems to be mourning Apollo. Seriously, just scroll through them all.
Apollo and developer Christian Selig were rallying points for the protests across Reddit this month. After Selig said he would have to shut down Apollo because it would cost him around $20 million per year to keep the app going, other developers said they would have to close up shop, too. Thousands of subreddits said they would go dark in protest — many people prefer third-party apps to Reddit’s official ones. Reddit, however, hasn’t budged, and many apps will be going away before July 1st.
After we first published this story, Selig posted his own eulogy in the Apollo subreddit. “Legitimately, I really feel a sense of that ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened’ right now,” he wrote. He also teased that he was “pretty deep” into work on an iPad app, which he says he may open source one day. As I write this, his post is at the top of r/all.
Communities for other apps are memorializing, too. “Time to go touch some grass instead.” A post in the Sync for Reddit community titled “Goodnight Sweet Sync” has more than 100 comments. “Thank you for being my most used app for nearly a decade,” said a user on the BaconReader subreddit. And even though the reddit is fun for Reddit (RIF) community has been in a restricted mode for nearly three weeks, the posts you can see are nearly all tributes to the app.
Not every app is shutting down once July 1st rolls around. Narwhal, a popular iOS app, will live on, though with a subscription. The developer of the Infinity for Reddit Android app says they plan to make it subscription-only, too. Accessibility-focused apps, including RedReader, Dystopia, and Luna, received exemptions from the fees from Reddit, so they’ll still be available. And on Friday, the developers of Relay for Reddit and Now for Reddit said their apps would survive, too.
But for fans of apps like Apollo, RIF, Boost, and more, there’s only a few more hours until the apps shut down for good. At least we’ll have the memes.
Update June 30th, 6:48PM ET: Added eulogy from Christian Selig and that Relay for Reddit and Now for Reddit will still be available.
