Again, more baseless speculation from you, in a way that is totally irrelevant. As you point out, even at 3.3k that's nearly a quarter of what Reddit wants to charge.
But more importantly, it's patently obvious that Reddit's sole goal was to shutoff every 3rd party app, because that is exactly what happened. This isn't just about Christian, literally every other 3rd party app developer found the new API terms untenable as well. If it was just Christian being unreasonable, as you are suggesting, but some other app developer ran the numbers and thought "well, that's OK, I could still make a business off that", they would be thrilled to come in and fill the void with Apollo leaving.
None of them are doing that. Your point is totally moot.
Yeah, I don't believe it. Go back and read his posts from 5+ years ago when Imgur went from $25/mo to $250/mo for 7.5 million requests.
You are telling me he is still grandfathered on a plan from over 5 years ago? As one of their heaviest API users? (probably)
That was 5+ years ago, it's only gotten more expensive.
Also, he implemented a caching system that saved some 18 million requests (I think 90%, forget off the top of my head).
But he'll never talk about how even if he's being completely honest, he's getting an INSANE deal from Imgur.
The same plan today would cost $3.3K to Reddit's $12K. But he'd never tell you that.