Having just listened, I can understand that misinterpretation!

I can buy that Selig's words may have been intended, at some level, as a jokey hypothetical to draw a point into contrast. That is, he meant it as (fleshed-out sympathetic rewording): "If this really is just about a $20M drain to you, it'd be a dead-simple & efficient solution to pay $10M to make me go away quietly forever. But of course I wouldn't ask for that & you wouldn't do it, thus this isn't really just about solving your $20M/year cost center, but other mutually-agreeable futures."

But Selig's actual wording in the clip is exactly how people coyly/semi-deniably imply that they be handed various kinds of "go-away" or "hush" money. (That includes arrangements that might not technically be "blackmail" as a legal definition, but feel like vernacular 'blackmail' to laypeople or business-negotiators.)

Selig's opening words, of this audio clip, absolutely sound like an actionable offer "pay me this specific cash amount & your troubles – both technical/competitive & in terms of any ruckus I can raise in public – go away." I mean, here's Selig's exact words:

"Uh, hey, I could make it really easy on you, if you think Apollo is costing you $20M a year, you cut me a check for $10M, and we can both skip off into the sunset. 6 months of use, we're good. That's mostly a joke."

Until "that's mostly a joke", & depending on earlier context/levels-of-mutual-trust, that sounds like a specific offer to do whatever eases things for Reddit in return for $10M cash.

And even after "that's mostly a joke", the 'mostly' leaves open that maybe something of this shape is legitimately in Selig's mind as a resolution.

I'm shocked that people are interpreting this as not fishing for a payoff, honestly. "We can both skip off into the sunset" does not mean "rewrite the app to do fewer API calls", as he tries to claim later in the call. It means it's done, over, everyone is happy. And why would he say "mostly joking" if he actually meant doing fewer API requests? Nothing about this recording or transcript makes me think Selig is an honest person.

I don't really buy the phrase "go quiet" in terms of API usage, it does sound like the developer was backtracking when called out on it

I mean, even in the text snippets you can see that they seem to understand after a bit as to what Christian was talking about.

Christian was extremely awkward during that call - no way this guy was making some underhanded threat. He spoke in a poor way for sure.