Apollo seemed willing to make $12.99/year mandatory, pay some to Reddit, and cut the free users. That would have worked if Reddit started charging fees that were in line with either imgur's prices or their existing revenue numbers or a small multiple of them. Which is a range between 50 cents a year and 6 dollars a year.
I expect that the reddit premium price is far above the ad revenue from a mildly engaged user.
These things are different though, we must admit. Imgur used to be much bigger, but today hardly pulls the same audience volume that Reddit or Twitter do, for instance. I don't think Imgur could get away with API pricing like Twitter is, and Reddit will soon be.
> I expect that the reddit premium price is far above the ad revenue from a mildly engaged user.
Given the number of ads you see while browsing via the official app, I would peg it around $2 per user per month (which mostly aligns with my previous statements and estimates, as well as with API pricing), for someone that uses Reddit for 1-2 hours daily. I suspect, without evidence and can be wrong, that 1-2 hours daily is typical for a mildly engaged Reddit user.
Apollo doesn't need to drop free users - they need to get revenue from them. If not directly, then via ads. Although that seems antithetical to what Apollo was trying to create... but reality has come knocking.
I expect that the reddit premium price is far above the ad revenue from a mildly engaged user.