Honestly Spez's attitude in general towards the entire community is what drove me away. I don't really care that much about the 3rd party apps personally. I do use one occasionally, but I primarily use the website. However, I don't think the users, mods and developers are being unreasonable here in what they're asking for and he basically just spat in their faces, lied to and about them, and then pretended he was willing to discuss and work with them while his actions pretty clearly showed that he actually had no intention whatsoever of actually doing anything of the sort.
If you're not willing to budge, just say that. Don't lie to my face while very clearly doing the exact opposite of what you're saying. If you don't want 3rd party apps anymore, just say that instead of promising to work with developers and then basically giving them the middle finger when they try to communicate with you about it. That sort of thing shows exactly what he thinks of the community that has built his company for him and that's the reason he can shove what's left of reddit right up his ass as far as I'm concerned.
So basically if you do something stupid to put yourself in that situation, you have to pay for the rescue. Something like say going to the bottom of the ocean in a Jerry rigged tin can with limited communication functionality and piloted using a cheap off brand Xbox controller?