I used Apollo to browse Reddit. It was really a great app, and it made browsing Reddit enjoyable. The dev, Christian, listened to his users, frequently updated and improved the app, was active in the subreddit, and seemed to care about making it a positive experience. It really was like being a part of a club.
It wasn’t just that Reddit shut down the API, but the way they boldfaced lied about Christian and their interactions with him. He was feverishly in talks with them to save the app, but Reddit not only wasn’t negotiating in good faith, but even worse, lying about the interactions to try to smear Christian and make him look like the villain. It was then that I knew that Reddit would never be the same, and I started looking for alternatives.
I tried several, but Lemmy seemed to be the closest to Reddit and scratched the itch. Not only that, an amazing dev created Voyager, which is heavily inspired by Apollo, (pretty much a direct copy), and makes me feel at home. There’s not as many communities here as subreddits over there, but I have curated a great Home feed, which includes most of my interests and that I enjoy browsing. I can honestly say the comments here are much better and more authentic. On the whole I get real replies and have better conversations instead of trolls and confrontations like I frequently did at Reddit. I do stop in over there sometimes out of boredom and browse, but it’s really not the same as before. (And maybe it is, and I was just fooling myself and not seeing it.) I don’t think I’ve posted or commented on Reddit since Apollo died except on live sports game feeds, which I do miss over here. I found a regional instance that I like, and, on the whole, I really enjoy it here.
TLDR: API killed Apollo.
I was on .world too, but I’m from Georgia, so I like being on yall.theatl.social much better. It’s a smaller, more tight knit community, and it’s in Atlanta, so it’s more-or-less local for me.