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Those apps will now also have to move to a subscription-only model because the APIs will be paid, as the Apollo dev confirmed.
It wouldn't be so difficult to swallow if the official mobile app was high quality, but it isn't. There are major UX issues with the official app that haven't been fixed for years. The 3rd party app ecosystem is vibrant because of this. Instead of competing and being the best on merit, they have decided to play their platform-owner veto card which is very disappointing, compounded with their dishonesty about the true intent of these changes.
Reddit's management simply have awful UI instincts.
There is absolutely zero way they're unaware of the impact and I guarantee you they have thought this move through thoroughly.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/12qwagm/an_update_r...
There is no shortage of people who would volunteer for something like this. The replacements might even be less terrible, both at the job (reddit is stiflingly over-moderated, as documented on r/undelete and r/redditminusmods) and in their dealings with users.
Indeed, it seems to be a chaotic mess, as most of Reddit's "throw shit at a walk and hope something sticks" development methodology is.
