His app icon was showcased front and center at the WWDC keynote, something I always thought was bought with money, for (I assume) free. It has tons of users including paying users. I have a very hard time imagining being able to sell the app right now for less than 10 figures. All this fight has shown me is that people will gladly pay for this app monthly
If he's leaving all that on the table out of spite, well thats his money to lose. But he shouldn't call the world unfair
As he mentions in the post, the main issue is the 30-day timeframe to completely rethink the business model of the app and move enough users over to paying subscriptions to not go bankrupt when the first API access bill comes in. The suggested API fees also seem quite unrealistic and it's unclear whether enough users would be willing to pay the necessary monthly fees to cover them.
Reddit's actions here make it pretty clear that they just want the app (all third-party apps) to shut down — if they actually wanted a solution they could easily lower the pricing to something more realistic and/or give a slightly longer transition period.
When our app has been featured in WWDC moments, it's at the discretion of Apple. I don't believe that it's paid, but more Apple choosing what they think are quality examples of apps to motivate developers.
>something I always thought was bought with money,
No. Apple chooses this on their own. Their internal teams find new and interesting apps, songs, etc.
When they announced the iPhone X, they used a band without telling them before. They asked the band to send them some music samples and just a generic "this might end up on an Apple marketing material one day". The band was shocked when it turned out to be THE song on THE intro video for the iPhone X.
If he's leaving all that on the table out of spite, well thats his money to lose. But he shouldn't call the world unfair