> then bought the most popular iOS third-party client as a starting point

If you're ever in a situation where this happens, consider it you're big flashing warning sign about trying to run a competing offering!

(Mac users of a certain age will remember Apple buying SoundJam MP.)

Alien Blue was bought out nearly 9 years ago, so that wasn't actually a sign that bad things were coming soon for other third-party clients.

I remember SoundJam MP very well, I still have the box somewhere. The box that I bought from some store in a strip mall on Route 1, maybe CompUSA? Circuit City? The Wiz?

It came with a stereo RCA to 1/8th inch adapter cable, for digitizing audio files straight from your record player / cassette player.

I also remember being bummed that iTunes never properly supported aliases [0] when running under Mac OS 9. And I remember Audion [1]. Heady days indeed!

0. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La...

1. https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/

Mac users of a certain age will remember this happening several times and it almost always ended up being better when it was just built in. Reddit's app is garbo.

This is why you don't build a business on top of someone else's rug.

Businesses are almost always built on top of someone else. What you need to make sure of is that your financial interests are aligned.

Which is to say have a contract that your counterparty can’t redefine freely.

Was there a contract or SLA for the free Reddit API?

If not, then there isn't much to complain about

The terms of service are the default contract. Presumably it has a we-can-screw-you-whenever clause, but sometimes the corporate lawyers screw up and you can actually get them for violating their own ToS.

Build your own rug before the rug pull comes.

Its rugs all the way down!

Indeed, Courtland, and even on IndieHackers you see a lot of stories about platform risk, platforms which indie hackers often use to build a good product but always seem surprised that they got rugged, as if the previous X stories didn't show that it inevitably happens.