13 ms·

"This community is available in the app"

399 points by swat535 7y ago

heartbeats 7y ago
This is the future you chose.
- dang 7y ago
  Maybe so, but could you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebaity comments to HN?
  - heartbeats 7y ago
    I wouldn't think I am - I've had a bad run with the last few, but I do endeavor to post seriously, I'm not rude in comment threads, and what I am posting is not unrelated to the topic. If you disagree, please let me know and I'll take a look at them. To elaborate on my comment, which I think is neither insubstantive nor flamebait: It's absurd to suggest that users are not to blame here. On one hand, they complain about it, but on the other hand, they obviously use the app, or else they wouldn't bother maintaining it. Being subject to all of this tracking nonsense is what within economics is known as a 'revealed preference'. In other words, it is the case that the users chose this future, or as the meme goes, this is the future you chose.
    - nkurz 7y ago
      From the outside, you've been posting a lot of low effort comments. Take this one for example --- if the 'elaboration' was part of the first comment, it would have been solid. As it was, it only addressed people who already agreed with your unspoken conclusion. Yes, it's more effort to make the full comment the first time, but it makes for a better site overall. I comment here because I upvoted several of your comments on the Mike Godwin thread earlier today because I thought they were unfairly downvoted. But even in those cases, you probably could have prevented the downvotes if you'd spent a little more effort of making your case in the opening comment, rather than defending it in the followups. Your point of view is appreciated, so please stick around despite the downvotes. But at the same time, please take the effort to post higher quality initial comments so that you avoid most of those downvotes.
      - heartbeats 7y ago
        Thank you for the feedback; I truly appreciate it. However, I am unsure whether it actually holds true; the elaborating comment to which you are replying currently stands at -1. It's supported behavior to downvote comments based on disagreement[0][1], so it seems like the system is working as it should. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
holler 7y ago
Whenever Reddit, or any other website, tells me to install their app, I make sure that I never install their app. In fact other than maybe 5 or less apps, I only use a browser.
- fireattack 7y ago
  Reddit is one of a few websites that I feel dedicated app works much better than browser, but I use 3rd party one(s).
  - cheeze 7y ago
    Agree on both fronts. Reddit is way improved with an app, but the official app is trash. I prefer relay, but I know that there are many other quality apps out there that folks recommend. Feel free to comment with your favorite.
    - J_cst 7y ago
      Boost (see my comment above)
  - isatty 7y ago
    The old design works well on a browser (now old.reddit). I make it a point to never use the new social network themed reddit, or it’s chat (god, why?) or the default app due to the popup when you access reddit on a mobile browser. Apollo is much better anyhow (iOS only though iirc).
    - adtac 7y ago
      On a desktop, auto redirecting to old.reddit.com, with all custom subreddit CSS disabled, chat turned off, RES enabled and uBlock Origin installed is the only usable way to browse Reddit. For a website that I spend ungodly amounts of time in, I hate that it's this way.
  - doubleunplussed 7y ago
    Is there any app that can essentially open threads in a new tab like in a browser? This is the one thing keeping me in the mobile browser. Well, that and my girlfriends reddit app seems to fail to load GIFs a decent fraction of the time.
seibelj 7y ago
As is repeated ad nauseum here, Reddit has indeed gone downhill for years, as has the quality of most websites, the mainstream news, pop music, and your local sushi restaurant. Maybe someday the perfect, static, never-evolving discussion site will be created, but sadly even HN is full of commies / libertarians / fascists / etc. etc. Maybe you should create a better community yourself? Unfortunately, even Reddit has to pay its bills and stop racking up endless losses.
- moneywoes 7y ago
  I believe there is no such thing as a perfect community on the internet.
  - goldenkey 7y ago
    There's no perfect community physically either. Utopias usually devolve into cults. And even an honest and heartfelt kibbutz has to deal with local authorities and the shit show above them. It's set theory, really. Every community is analagous to a set other than V. Since V is not Utopia, every community has poor conditions in some ancestral superset, which inevitably rain down on them. "You might be able to control local conditions, but that doesn't rule out a meteor from afar" - Michael Scott
    - cheschire 7y ago
      I thought Wayne Gretzky said that?
      - goldenkey 7y ago
        No, you're thinking of Bruce Wayne.
- Reelin 7y ago
  > even HN is full of commies / libertarians / fascists / etc. etc. Translation: Everywhere I go I keep running into people who aren't just like me. Wherever can I find the perfect community where everyone is just like me and my familiar worldviews are never challenged?
Fragoel2 7y ago
Reddit has some of the most aggressive, and bothering, pop-ups I have ever seen on their mobile site that prompt you to install their app.
- vinhboy 7y ago
  Yelp would be second place then. They won't allow you to see pictures in their mobile site. Any attempt to view images will take you to the app store. OK sure, I'll download the app... But wait, now I can't use it without logging in... But I can't login because I use a long generated password... well crap, now finding that menu image I want is a huge chore. Why yelp, why.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
moneywoes 7y ago
Pathetic design, I hope this poor A/B test.
tedunangst 7y ago
Viewing the rest of https://www.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/ it seems not everyone likes the new site design.
- chungy 7y ago
  I have a firefox extension to automatically redirect to old.reddit.com for the same reason. It's faster, more compact, easier to read, easier to navigate.
DantesKite 7y ago
What’s the benefit of making users install the app versus just using the web?
- jaynetics 7y ago
  - you can track them more thoroughly - you can "please" them with push notifications - you can save bandwidth by putting static assets / the framework in the app and only load content
  - rahuldottech 7y ago
    - much harder to block ads in apps than in browsers.
    - jaynetics 7y ago
      Good point. I use DNS66 which blocks ads in both so I forgot about that.
      - gruez 7y ago
        I'm surprised that'd even work considering that all the reddit ads are first-party.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - sneak 7y ago
    Geolocation. BLE beacon reception. Detection of other apps installed.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    > you can save bandwidth by putting static assets / the framework in the app and only load content Is the browser cache that unreliable? Especially when you can use localstorage or something fancier to hold a few megabytes of code.
- 7y ago
jjcm 7y ago
More and more I think the whole ad-driven approach to sites is just unsustainable, as eventually they're incentivised to have dark patterns like this in order to drive up revenue and engagement. I'm working on my own alternatives, but all I really want is a premium reddit like community that focuses on UX and gives some of my subscription back to the creators.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  > eventually they're incentivised to have dark patterns like this in order to drive up revenue and engagement. I think you'd still see sites drive engagement, even for paid offerings. Look at Netflix and autoplay. You're almost asking for something like a media outlet that values the greater good over pretty much everything else.
  - jjcm 7y ago
    Fair, but I think Netflix's approach is less nefarious than other platforms. At the end of the day Netflix wants you to do two things: value their platform and spread the word. With things like instagram and facebook, it's different - their objective is to get you as addicted to the platform as possible, collect as much data as they can, and use it as a platform to surface ads. They simply have more drivers that are at odds with what's beneficial to the user.
    - dean177 7y ago
      Anyone care to explain why they downvoted this?
blhack 7y ago
What a strange thing to be this user hostile. When stuff like this happens, people look for alternatives, and even if they don’t switch immediately, this really erodes any loyalty they have to your brand/service. I think Facebook is experiencing a similar thing. A frustrating amount of my network has quit, which makes planning events more difficult (and is frustrating). The difference for Facebook is that they have enough money to just buy wherever people move to. Reddit doesn’t have that. At this point I think a lot of people are actively looking for (and probably finding) replacements. I’m actually surprised Reddit still makes their public api so easily available without any keys. I wonder how long until somebody just scrapes the content and uses that to help get over the network problem and start a competitor.
- themagician 7y ago
  Facebook gave up on its original userbase long ago when it found out there was a near endless supply of older boomers that can barely use a computer and would would click on everything and anything. Facebook is designed for, and in fact is designed to prey on, the computer illiterate.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    > would click on everything and anything. Particularly ads. I don't think it's necessarily computer illiteracy specifically to blame here, though it's certainly a factor. The elderly are also targeted by telephone scammers, presumably because they tend to be more trusting/naive. Even snail-mail becomes an issue for some old folks; my grandmother has trouble differentiating junk mail from legitimate mail, it can sometimes take her several minutes to realize she can throw away a junkmail flier. I have the deepest contempt for the people who work in these sort of industries. They must know what they're doing.
    - themagician 7y ago
      My parents fall prey to a new Facebook scam every couple weeks. I can’t even keep up with it anymore. Scam isn’t even the right word. More like “scheme”. Everything from anti-aging pills to travel clubs to worse. Between this garbage and the fake news nonsense Facebook is an absolute disease at this point. Honestly, someone should start a campaign to ask Mark Zuckerberg to just delete it. Cash out and delete it for the good of humanity.
rahuldottech 7y ago
Browsing Reddit is so much easier in a mobile browser - at least for me. Allows me to open multiple pages in new tabs and browse them when convenient. Also makes sharing articles or pages to other places easier. I've tried the apps - but nothing beats the browser for me. If they kill the mobile website, I'll just stop using Reddit.
- falcolas 7y ago
  Have you tried Narwhale? The UX is pretty incredible for everyday use. Some of the cornercases (subbing, unsubbing) are less intuitive, but it’s my daily driver for mobile use of Reddit.
a3n 7y ago
"Delete Reddit. Hit the gym." (No need to lawyer up.)
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Life is better without Reddit.
bravoetch 7y ago
It appears the only business model left is to sell your users. Looking forward to this phase of the internet being over already.
thaumaturgy 7y ago
Reddit has been a/b testing behavior like this for months. Multiple different popups with variations on "view this in the app"; in some cases the popup is on every single page load, sometimes only once. They started blurring images on select subreddits with a message that you could only view the sub in their app. Okay, I know they're chasing one of two things here: a higher level of revenue from the advertising they can embed in the app, or some app-download metric that can be converted somehow somewhere to more money. But for users like me, they have a couple of significant problems. First, that if I were at all motivated to use their stupid app in the first place, I would've already done, which means that these attempts to force the issue mean they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, and ohwow that looks bad. And two, I don't trust them. There is absolutely no way I am ever going to give them that level of access to my device just so I can browse their website. And every step of their behavior here only reinforces my decision. They aren't tempting me into using their app with irresistible new features that really can't be provided by a regular ol' mobile website. Instead, they're showing me just what kind of behavior I should expect from their app by playing these dirty little games. On the plus side, all this has caused my Reddit time to fall off a cliff and I'm cruising through books at double last year's rate now.
- archon810 7y ago
  Yup. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092 https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_reddit_to_keep_reading_an_account_is_now/ https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_redd...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dleslie 7y ago
  I've started using third party apps to access Reddit.
  - mcraiha 7y ago
    But you still need to install an app. Some people do not want to install apps to their mobile devices. And they do not want to register to get read only access. They just want to browse the content.
archon810 7y ago
Previously in December 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092 https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_reddit_to_keep_reading_an_account_is_now/ https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_redd...
9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
The best way to avoid this nonsense is to use an app: but a third-party one, not Reddit's junk. A lot of people swear by rif, aka/fka reddit is fun.
viklove 7y ago
This is why I started developing an alternative to Reddit a few years ago. It was clear from their leadership that they would continue to move towards satisfying their newly acquired VCs (for example Tencent), and do so by selling out their users in every way possible. Platforms like Reddit do not care about giving their users the best possible experience, and that is no longer the basis of the decisions they make. The only way for a discussion platform to stay true to its users is if it does not rely on revenue from other sources. I wrote a blog post about this a few days back (shameless plug): https://www.plebia.io/blogs/site/uDIkCFPp2b8+Online-Discussion-Platforms-Have-Changed https://www.plebia.io/blogs/site/uDIkCFPp2b8+Online-Discussi...
- pferde 7y ago
  Looks good so far. A suggestion, though - if you really can't make the site work at least a little bit with javascript disabled, at least have a basic landing/about page display for js-less browsers. Simply put - give me a reason to consider unblocking your site, dangle the carrot in front of me.
  - viklove 7y ago
    Yeah that's a fair point, thanks for the feedback!
- dvh 7y ago
  I just made gamedev "sub" there, let's see where it gets. - consider shorter url, instead of /forum/gamedev /p/gamedev or something so it can be referenced in text like on Reddit - I never liked any dark theme so I hope It can be made light - in submit form allow me to prefil link from url parameter and title too so that I can easily post from rss reader - add rss feeds
  - viklove 7y ago
    I know the dark theme can be a bit alienating to some -- thanks for the feedback!
jonplackett 7y ago
The whole web feels like a hostile user experience these days. Every site you visit you must... - figure out how to disagree to ad tracking (Sometimes imposible if you want to use the site) - decline cookies - decline to receive their newsletter - Decline to download their app - decline to receive notifications. It’s painful and ridiculous.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Or you browse with NoScript and UBlock and just don't visit the sites that break.
  - jonplackett 7y ago
    I’ve got UBlock, but you still have to deal with the UI. No script breaks too much stuff doesn’t it?
    - adrianN 7y ago
      For me Noscript fixes about as much stuff as it breaks.
willberman 7y ago
Instagram only allows you to see a portion of a user's photos before forcing you to login. It does this on both mobile and browser. I'm not a big application design junkey, but it's behavior like this that makes me appreciate the simplicity of hacker news. A few standard concepts implemented in their most basic form. No changes in the name of more user engagement. I understand that Reddit and Instagram's primary motive is to make money, but these sorts of "features" remove me from their pool of potential customers. I'd like to see a move towards a purely data based web where I get to choose how the data is displayed. I know a semantic web paired with a standard set of user interface components chosen by the user wouldn't be as profitable as the current internet, but I would prefer it.
- krtkush 7y ago
  > Instagram only allows you to see a portion of a user's photos before forcing you to login. It does this on both mobile and browser. For the curious, adblockers can get rid of the annoying pop-ups.
  - willberman 7y ago
    I just tried, and I can only use my adblocker to block the element that requests I login. My scrolling is still stopped, and I can't see anymore of a user's photos. Am I missing something?
    - krtkush 7y ago
      I'm a Firefox desktop user. I use all of uBlock origin's annoyance filters and it works for me.
    - mkl 7y ago
      IIRC there's an "overflow: hidden" style on <body> or something like that. Delete it and the site seems to work fine.
    - whatsmyusername 7y ago
      Scroll till you hit the modal, then ublock zapper it. If you permablock it with the picker the scroller will break. They have something from the modal logic tied into the scrolling logic.
krtkush 7y ago
I believe that there will be a point in time when reddit APIs will no longer be open and third party apps will be completely dysfunctional or severely limited. The platform is going the way of twitter and facebook.
tobr 7y ago
Is it just my perception or are aggressive “signup walls” and the like becoming more common? I feel like it was very frowned upon when Quora and Pinterest did it. But now Reddit, Instagram and even Dribbble are very aggressive about refusing to let you do nearly anything without an account. This has some negative consequences for their logged in users too. For example, many small shops and restaurants seem to use Instagram instead of a traditional website. I wonder if they are aware that plenty of people can’t see their menus etc? I find Dribbble’s wall especially ironic. For the longest time it would be hard to get a Dribbble account - you had to know someone with an invite. And now they refuse to even tell you who designed which image unless you create an account. (Isn’t that rather problematic from a copyright perspective?)
- acdha 7y ago
  It’s a stage in the bubble process: these companies were funded well beyond their real revenue prospects and those unsustainable business models are also seeing ad rates which have been declining for many years. The investors expect returns which the market can’t deliver and that’s going to lead to more abuses until the users switch to a company earlier in the cycle. Reddit has had something like $550M in funding, with the last round in December 2019. It’s been around for 15 years so it’s unlikely to become profitable at the desired levels but everyone involved has a strong incentive not to recognize that.
bibyte 7y ago
I started seeing this a few days ago. What is even more exasperating is that the default Reddit doesn't support tabs and it is INSANELY slow. I can stream 4K content on YouTube comfortably but I have to wait multiple seconds to open a text thread. Maybe I should try the Boost client...
- 29083011397778 7y ago
  If you're after tabs, there is, of course, a workaround. I use firefox on desktop and mobile, with extensions to redirect to old.reddit.com and i.reddit.com respectively. Because logins are saved, everything just... works. Opening links in a new tab included. At least until only Reddit's new design is allowed, and I stop using the site.
  - bibyte 7y ago
    I can't edit it now but I was talking about the default Reddit app for Android, not the new mobile website. The website was pretty fast for me. But because of these new changes you can't even view a subreddit without using the app. I just installed Boost for Reddit and it is pretty fast. But thanks for letting me know about i.reddit.com, I didn't even know that exists. The old Reddit is still the best on desktops, I hope they don't kill it.
codeful 7y ago
i didnt find how to turn off notifications about trending topics on android app without going to android settings- so i uninstalled the app.It was enough for me.
thewhitetulip 7y ago
I gave up on read Quora when they forced logins I will give up on reddit if they do the same. Isn't visits a valid criteria? Why force a mobile app?
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  Browsers are agents of the user, apps are agents of the company behind the app. With a browser the user can install extensions and do things that benefit them, in an app you get exactly what the app owner gives you. If monetization is your only purpose, you would choose apps exclusively if your users are willing to accept it.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    > Browsers are agents of the user The most-used browsers, too, are agents of the company making them.
    - gsich 7y ago
      Compared to most company apps: yes, they are at least somewhat user focused.
  - tobr 7y ago
    > Browsers are agents of the user, apps are agents of the company behind the app. Alas, browsers are also apps.
- duiker101 7y ago
  I think the engagement and ad revenue is higher in the mobile app. fewer ad block and more places to put them.
- codedokode 7y ago
  A website cannot silently read a phone number and list of nearby WiFi access points for geolocation, scan local drive for interesting files, show annoying notifications every hour to return user back to the app.
dt3ft 7y ago
Shameless plug: I started building 20-things.com as a similar-feature community but with goal to never use dark patterns. More competition is good. I posted a Show: HN but it seems to have been buried/blocked as it got no attention whatsoever. I would love to hear your feedback/thoughts/ideas.
enjoyyourlife 7y ago
At least https://i.reddit.com/ https://i.reddit.com/ still works
- seddin 7y ago
  https://old.reddit.com/ https://old.reddit.com/ too.
vinc 7y ago
It's really sad to watch Reddit being slowly destroyed like that, one user-hostile feature after the other. All of it for short term gains. For me the threshold to leave will be when old.reddit.com will not be available anymore. At that point it'll be pretty easy. I already spend a lot less time on the website than before.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Macha 7y ago
They've also started growth hacking bullshit by A/B testing sending PM digests of subs they feel you haven't visited enough: https://www.reddit.com/r/beta/comments/dw7frl/community_reminders_notifications_on_direct/ https://www.reddit.com/r/beta/comments/dw7frl/community_remi...
neals 7y ago
Is there any way to sandbox Apps on Android?
- hiq 7y ago
  You can put them in some work profile: https://f-droid.org/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/ https://f-droid.org/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/
p2t2p 7y ago
Reddit is blocked on the level of /etc/hosts on all of my machines... so... :)
buboard 7y ago
reddit should be careful what they wish for. One of the things you get by switching to the app is you get stuck with the phone app crowd which likes phone app things, photos , 1 line comments etc, you'll get a bad instagram for college boys with lots of nsfw. OTOH , if reddit unravels we ll probably witness a lot of disparate forums springing up again, which may be good
MrPatan 7y ago
Delete your reddit account. It will make using reddit more annoying, so you'll use it less.
badrabbit 7y ago
If only reddit was run like HN. I heard of competition sites popping up but not sure what happened to them since.
alfiedotwtf 7y ago
If people wanted a new Reddit, which is to say a website in front of Usenet that is social and allows voting, what other features would you find interesting? I'm sure there's someone reading these comments who is looking for a side project, and this may be interesting to them... let's help them out.
- corobo 7y ago
  Features? No idea. The thing that’s needed though is content, the problem that these spinoff Reddits have is that they seem to think catching the runoff is a good idea to build a community. New reddit, whoever you may be, don’t populate yourselves with the communities that get banned from reddit.
- rollinDyno 7y ago
  I do not know if it makes financial sense, but I would be very interested in trying out a new Reddit with a more representative subreddit moderators. Currently, moderators are selected with little input from the community members. Because mods produce the content policies of a community, members don't have the most effective tools to effect the policies of their communities (where they can spend a lot of time and effort). Ideally, moderators would be selected by vote but that's a challenge of its own. I would still like to see more democratic forms of mod selection, it would also keep them accountable from abusing their power (arbitrary banning, censoring and/or taking bribes from corporations).
ferzul 7y ago
in the web brower, i can open anything in a new tab and come back six weeks later. in the app, i have one view, and if i ignore the app for an hour it reverts to the default state. isn't it obvious which one i want? yes! it's the one that takes features away from me and makes me miserable!
moonbug 7y ago
Reddit's sell of its app is so hard , I can only conclude it's packed full of deeply nefarious stuff.
foo101 7y ago
Is Reddit forgetting history? Users migrated from Digg to Reddit in large numbers due to UI changes that users did not appreciate.
newscracker 7y ago
Reddit has been trying many user hostile approaches and dark patterns to push its app. I’ve been terribly annoyed by this arm twisting, but I won’t use the app. I have reduced visiting reddit because of such annoyances. On mobile, sometimes closing the tab and reopening works, sometimes changing networks works, and the most recent one I’ve seen is to request for the desktop site, which has worked consistently even though it makes reading a bit more difficult. With iOS not allowing the user to set a default app, using a third party app like Apollo as an alternative to the browser isn’t convenient either. It’s either view/use the official reddit app or continue with the browser. I wonder if browsing with the Apollo or another app (like Narwhal) also throws the same message and restricts reading on the platform.
phreack 7y ago
Is there any reddit clone that's not a haven for communities that have been banned for reddit?
lokedhs 7y ago
A federated alternative to Reddit would be nice. Perhaps something that integrates with the Fediverse. Surely someone must ha e built something like this already?
XhPEC50ot 7y ago
good replacement for reddit?
XhPEC50ot 7y ago
ideas for reddit replacement?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
steinbitten 7y ago
Final straw for me when I read «This community is only available in the app". Such a anti-user thing to do so closed my account in protest. I primarily used reddit for programming and audio related news. Luckily I have ycombinator for my programming needs and gearslutz for my audio needs.
Jupe 7y ago
With ~400 employees [1] and ~$100m in ad revenue [2], that's only about $250,000 / employee (seems like a lot, but take out unemployment taxes, health care contribution, corporate taxes, etc.). And then there's infrastructure, which I'm sure is relatively high given ~500m users per month. I'm sure there is MUCH more revenue to be extracted from an app (with access to so much on-device data) I guess, if the information on their site is truly worthy, then I'd buck for the Reddit Gold (Premium) [3]. Does anyone know if that works on the web, or you need the app? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit [2] https://www.emarketer.com/content/reddit-to-cross-100-million-in-ad-revenues-in-2019 https://www.emarketer.com/content/reddit-to-cross-100-millio... [3] https://www.reddit.com/premium https://www.reddit.com/premium
- judge2020 7y ago
  I don't see device data being worth anything unless you mean being able to serve ads based on that data, or at most being able to sell location data [again, for ad purposes].
hi5eyes 7y ago
old.reddit.com choose use desktop mode on ur phone browser zzzzzzzzzzzz
empath75 7y ago
The day they stop supporting the old ui is the day I stop using Reddit.
- mrweasel 7y ago
  I still can't use their new desktop design on my laptop. Apparently a 7 years old MacBook Pro isn't powerful enough to run neither Reddit nor Imgur particular well. I can do development, run an AppleTV emulator, VM's, a ton of Firefox tabs, and a stack of Python virtualenv's, just not the redesigned Reddit at a reasonable speed.
Kostic 7y ago
Very annoying. I've stopped using the mobile version for a while and then replaced the web version with the RedReader app from F-Droid.[0] Hopefully, APIs won't be closed. [0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/
cannabis_sam 7y ago
Just today I tried to open a post on /r/haskell in incognito mode (because there’s a markdown/commonmark mismatch on code sections between old and new reddit, and hey, I’m the dumb one insisting on the old version so I accept that I’m the one who has to work around this.) And then I get hit with the his garbage??? Seriously, the assholes at reddit responsible for this shit should resign in shame and vow to never touch a computer for the next ten years.
nvr219 7y ago
Apollo is the best app to browse Reddit.
motohagiography 7y ago
Reddit was a great place to engage with ideas, and then move on from them, but turning it into just another surveillance operation is where communities go to die. I still think I know how Reddit could make money, but it's possible they are too staid to get it. They may have also lost the plot politically, where a particular flavour of virtue is becoming a substitute for the growth and success they actually need to effect the change they want to. The music business is and always was a celebrity and micro-celebrity factory, and Reddit (and their main magazine empire investor) could be that for content. Imagine a record label like Time Warner happened to own every indie bar in every little city where bands played, got first option on every group that came through the doors, and could measure audience reaction in real time. That's what Reddit is, but for content. This pressuring users to give up PII sounds like there is a sea change happening at the corporate/financial level where they've been given a limited runway and need to show some short term traction, "or else." I've mostly kicked my reddit habit, and their strategy really resembles something they'd do if they're hitting a negative inflection point.
mighty_bander 7y ago
In depressing times like these, I like to remember that something like 30% of users have adblockers installed. It might seem like people will mindlessly go along with this sort of manipulation, but there is still a place for independent thought on the web. Not on facebook, Reddit, Instagram, or really any other big-name site, but you can find it if you look.
weare138 7y ago
It's ironic Reddit went through a major redesign that many of it's users complained about to make the site mobile friendly only to completely ruin the mobile UI/UX by constantly spamming users with prompts to install the app. Now the desktop users of the new site get all the annoyances of a mobile UI and mobile users can't use the site without an app. Brilliant!
pier25 7y ago
I think a better strategy would have been to have an ugly and outdated mobile site where users cannot install RES.
nialv7 7y ago
There is a federated alternative to Reddit in the works: https://github.com/dessalines/lemmy https://github.com/dessalines/lemmy Previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686972
wiseleo 7y ago
I hate websites that coerce the use of an inferior app. Trust immediately goes to zero.
norswap 7y ago
What really puzzles me: what do they gain by us using their app? Certainly it is marginal and can't offset the user/revenue loss from alienating users??
IndexPointer 7y ago
I hope someone comes along and makes a less hostile alternative to reddit soon...
estranhosidade 7y ago
/watchredditdie

399 points by swat535 7y ago

heartbeats 7y ago

This is the future you chose.

dang 7y ago
Maybe so, but could you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebaity comments to HN?
- heartbeats 7y ago
  I wouldn't think I am - I've had a bad run with the last few, but I do endeavor to post seriously, I'm not rude in comment threads, and what I am posting is not unrelated to the topic. If you disagree, please let me know and I'll take a look at them. To elaborate on my comment, which I think is neither insubstantive nor flamebait: It's absurd to suggest that users are not to blame here. On one hand, they complain about it, but on the other hand, they obviously use the app, or else they wouldn't bother maintaining it. Being subject to all of this tracking nonsense is what within economics is known as a 'revealed preference'. In other words, it is the case that the users chose this future, or as the meme goes, this is the future you chose.
  - nkurz 7y ago
    From the outside, you've been posting a lot of low effort comments. Take this one for example --- if the 'elaboration' was part of the first comment, it would have been solid. As it was, it only addressed people who already agreed with your unspoken conclusion. Yes, it's more effort to make the full comment the first time, but it makes for a better site overall. I comment here because I upvoted several of your comments on the Mike Godwin thread earlier today because I thought they were unfairly downvoted. But even in those cases, you probably could have prevented the downvotes if you'd spent a little more effort of making your case in the opening comment, rather than defending it in the followups. Your point of view is appreciated, so please stick around despite the downvotes. But at the same time, please take the effort to post higher quality initial comments so that you avoid most of those downvotes.
    - heartbeats 7y ago
      Thank you for the feedback; I truly appreciate it. However, I am unsure whether it actually holds true; the elaborating comment to which you are replying currently stands at -1. It's supported behavior to downvote comments based on disagreement[0][1], so it seems like the system is working as it should. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

holler 7y ago

Whenever Reddit, or any other website, tells me to install their app, I make sure that I never install their app. In fact other than maybe 5 or less apps, I only use a browser.

fireattack 7y ago
Reddit is one of a few websites that I feel dedicated app works much better than browser, but I use 3rd party one(s).
- cheeze 7y ago
  Agree on both fronts. Reddit is way improved with an app, but the official app is trash. I prefer relay, but I know that there are many other quality apps out there that folks recommend. Feel free to comment with your favorite.
  - J_cst 7y ago
    Boost (see my comment above)
- isatty 7y ago
  The old design works well on a browser (now old.reddit). I make it a point to never use the new social network themed reddit, or it’s chat (god, why?) or the default app due to the popup when you access reddit on a mobile browser. Apollo is much better anyhow (iOS only though iirc).
  - adtac 7y ago
    On a desktop, auto redirecting to old.reddit.com, with all custom subreddit CSS disabled, chat turned off, RES enabled and uBlock Origin installed is the only usable way to browse Reddit. For a website that I spend ungodly amounts of time in, I hate that it's this way.
- doubleunplussed 7y ago
  Is there any app that can essentially open threads in a new tab like in a browser? This is the one thing keeping me in the mobile browser. Well, that and my girlfriends reddit app seems to fail to load GIFs a decent fraction of the time.

seibelj 7y ago

As is repeated ad nauseum here, Reddit has indeed gone downhill for years, as has the quality of most websites, the mainstream news, pop music, and your local sushi restaurant. Maybe someday the perfect, static, never-evolving discussion site will be created, but sadly even HN is full of commies / libertarians / fascists / etc. etc. Maybe you should create a better community yourself? Unfortunately, even Reddit has to pay its bills and stop racking up endless losses.

moneywoes 7y ago
I believe there is no such thing as a perfect community on the internet.
- goldenkey 7y ago
  There's no perfect community physically either. Utopias usually devolve into cults. And even an honest and heartfelt kibbutz has to deal with local authorities and the shit show above them. It's set theory, really. Every community is analagous to a set other than V. Since V is not Utopia, every community has poor conditions in some ancestral superset, which inevitably rain down on them. "You might be able to control local conditions, but that doesn't rule out a meteor from afar" - Michael Scott
  - cheschire 7y ago
    I thought Wayne Gretzky said that?
    - goldenkey 7y ago
      No, you're thinking of Bruce Wayne.
Reelin 7y ago
> even HN is full of commies / libertarians / fascists / etc. etc. Translation: Everywhere I go I keep running into people who aren't just like me. Wherever can I find the perfect community where everyone is just like me and my familiar worldviews are never challenged?

Fragoel2 7y ago

Reddit has some of the most aggressive, and bothering, pop-ups I have ever seen on their mobile site that prompt you to install their app.

vinhboy 7y ago
Yelp would be second place then. They won't allow you to see pictures in their mobile site. Any attempt to view images will take you to the app store. OK sure, I'll download the app... But wait, now I can't use it without logging in... But I can't login because I use a long generated password... well crap, now finding that menu image I want is a huge chore. Why yelp, why.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

moneywoes 7y ago

Pathetic design, I hope this poor A/B test.

tedunangst 7y ago

Viewing the rest of https://www.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/ it seems not everyone likes the new site design.

chungy 7y ago
I have a firefox extension to automatically redirect to old.reddit.com for the same reason. It's faster, more compact, easier to read, easier to navigate.

DantesKite 7y ago

What’s the benefit of making users install the app versus just using the web?

jaynetics 7y ago
- you can track them more thoroughly - you can "please" them with push notifications - you can save bandwidth by putting static assets / the framework in the app and only load content
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  - much harder to block ads in apps than in browsers.
  - jaynetics 7y ago
    Good point. I use DNS66 which blocks ads in both so I forgot about that.
    - gruez 7y ago
      I'm surprised that'd even work considering that all the reddit ads are first-party.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sneak 7y ago
  Geolocation. BLE beacon reception. Detection of other apps installed.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > you can save bandwidth by putting static assets / the framework in the app and only load content Is the browser cache that unreliable? Especially when you can use localstorage or something fancier to hold a few megabytes of code.
7y ago

jjcm 7y ago

More and more I think the whole ad-driven approach to sites is just unsustainable, as eventually they're incentivised to have dark patterns like this in order to drive up revenue and engagement. I'm working on my own alternatives, but all I really want is a premium reddit like community that focuses on UX and gives some of my subscription back to the creators.

dehrmann 7y ago
> eventually they're incentivised to have dark patterns like this in order to drive up revenue and engagement. I think you'd still see sites drive engagement, even for paid offerings. Look at Netflix and autoplay. You're almost asking for something like a media outlet that values the greater good over pretty much everything else.
- jjcm 7y ago
  Fair, but I think Netflix's approach is less nefarious than other platforms. At the end of the day Netflix wants you to do two things: value their platform and spread the word. With things like instagram and facebook, it's different - their objective is to get you as addicted to the platform as possible, collect as much data as they can, and use it as a platform to surface ads. They simply have more drivers that are at odds with what's beneficial to the user.
  - dean177 7y ago
    Anyone care to explain why they downvoted this?

blhack 7y ago

What a strange thing to be this user hostile. When stuff like this happens, people look for alternatives, and even if they don’t switch immediately, this really erodes any loyalty they have to your brand/service. I think Facebook is experiencing a similar thing. A frustrating amount of my network has quit, which makes planning events more difficult (and is frustrating). The difference for Facebook is that they have enough money to just buy wherever people move to. Reddit doesn’t have that. At this point I think a lot of people are actively looking for (and probably finding) replacements. I’m actually surprised Reddit still makes their public api so easily available without any keys. I wonder how long until somebody just scrapes the content and uses that to help get over the network problem and start a competitor.

themagician 7y ago
Facebook gave up on its original userbase long ago when it found out there was a near endless supply of older boomers that can barely use a computer and would would click on everything and anything. Facebook is designed for, and in fact is designed to prey on, the computer illiterate.
- catalogia 7y ago
  > would click on everything and anything. Particularly ads. I don't think it's necessarily computer illiteracy specifically to blame here, though it's certainly a factor. The elderly are also targeted by telephone scammers, presumably because they tend to be more trusting/naive. Even snail-mail becomes an issue for some old folks; my grandmother has trouble differentiating junk mail from legitimate mail, it can sometimes take her several minutes to realize she can throw away a junkmail flier. I have the deepest contempt for the people who work in these sort of industries. They must know what they're doing.
  - themagician 7y ago
    My parents fall prey to a new Facebook scam every couple weeks. I can’t even keep up with it anymore. Scam isn’t even the right word. More like “scheme”. Everything from anti-aging pills to travel clubs to worse. Between this garbage and the fake news nonsense Facebook is an absolute disease at this point. Honestly, someone should start a campaign to ask Mark Zuckerberg to just delete it. Cash out and delete it for the good of humanity.

rahuldottech 7y ago

Browsing Reddit is so much easier in a mobile browser - at least for me. Allows me to open multiple pages in new tabs and browse them when convenient. Also makes sharing articles or pages to other places easier. I've tried the apps - but nothing beats the browser for me. If they kill the mobile website, I'll just stop using Reddit.

falcolas 7y ago
Have you tried Narwhale? The UX is pretty incredible for everyday use. Some of the cornercases (subbing, unsubbing) are less intuitive, but it’s my daily driver for mobile use of Reddit.

a3n 7y ago

"Delete Reddit. Hit the gym." (No need to lawyer up.)

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
Life is better without Reddit.

bravoetch 7y ago

It appears the only business model left is to sell your users. Looking forward to this phase of the internet being over already.

thaumaturgy 7y ago

Reddit has been a/b testing behavior like this for months. Multiple different popups with variations on "view this in the app"; in some cases the popup is on every single page load, sometimes only once. They started blurring images on select subreddits with a message that you could only view the sub in their app. Okay, I know they're chasing one of two things here: a higher level of revenue from the advertising they can embed in the app, or some app-download metric that can be converted somehow somewhere to more money. But for users like me, they have a couple of significant problems. First, that if I were at all motivated to use their stupid app in the first place, I would've already done, which means that these attempts to force the issue mean they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, and ohwow that looks bad. And two, I don't trust them. There is absolutely no way I am ever going to give them that level of access to my device just so I can browse their website. And every step of their behavior here only reinforces my decision. They aren't tempting me into using their app with irresistible new features that really can't be provided by a regular ol' mobile website. Instead, they're showing me just what kind of behavior I should expect from their app by playing these dirty little games. On the plus side, all this has caused my Reddit time to fall off a cliff and I'm cruising through books at double last year's rate now.

archon810 7y ago
Yup. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092 https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_reddit_to_keep_reading_an_account_is_now/ https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_redd...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dleslie 7y ago
I've started using third party apps to access Reddit.
- mcraiha 7y ago
  But you still need to install an app. Some people do not want to install apps to their mobile devices. And they do not want to register to get read only access. They just want to browse the content.

archon810 7y ago

Previously in December 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092 https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_reddit_to_keep_reading_an_account_is_now/ https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_redd...

9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago

The best way to avoid this nonsense is to use an app: but a third-party one, not Reddit's junk. A lot of people swear by rif, aka/fka reddit is fun.

viklove 7y ago

This is why I started developing an alternative to Reddit a few years ago. It was clear from their leadership that they would continue to move towards satisfying their newly acquired VCs (for example Tencent), and do so by selling out their users in every way possible. Platforms like Reddit do not care about giving their users the best possible experience, and that is no longer the basis of the decisions they make. The only way for a discussion platform to stay true to its users is if it does not rely on revenue from other sources. I wrote a blog post about this a few days back (shameless plug): https://www.plebia.io/blogs/site/uDIkCFPp2b8+Online-Discussion-Platforms-Have-Changed https://www.plebia.io/blogs/site/uDIkCFPp2b8+Online-Discussi...

pferde 7y ago
Looks good so far. A suggestion, though - if you really can't make the site work at least a little bit with javascript disabled, at least have a basic landing/about page display for js-less browsers. Simply put - give me a reason to consider unblocking your site, dangle the carrot in front of me.
- viklove 7y ago
  Yeah that's a fair point, thanks for the feedback!
dvh 7y ago
I just made gamedev "sub" there, let's see where it gets. - consider shorter url, instead of /forum/gamedev /p/gamedev or something so it can be referenced in text like on Reddit - I never liked any dark theme so I hope It can be made light - in submit form allow me to prefil link from url parameter and title too so that I can easily post from rss reader - add rss feeds
- viklove 7y ago
  I know the dark theme can be a bit alienating to some -- thanks for the feedback!

jonplackett 7y ago

The whole web feels like a hostile user experience these days. Every site you visit you must... - figure out how to disagree to ad tracking (Sometimes imposible if you want to use the site) - decline cookies - decline to receive their newsletter - Decline to download their app - decline to receive notifications. It’s painful and ridiculous.

adrianN 7y ago
Or you browse with NoScript and UBlock and just don't visit the sites that break.
- jonplackett 7y ago
  I’ve got UBlock, but you still have to deal with the UI. No script breaks too much stuff doesn’t it?
  - adrianN 7y ago
    For me Noscript fixes about as much stuff as it breaks.

willberman 7y ago

Instagram only allows you to see a portion of a user's photos before forcing you to login. It does this on both mobile and browser. I'm not a big application design junkey, but it's behavior like this that makes me appreciate the simplicity of hacker news. A few standard concepts implemented in their most basic form. No changes in the name of more user engagement. I understand that Reddit and Instagram's primary motive is to make money, but these sorts of "features" remove me from their pool of potential customers. I'd like to see a move towards a purely data based web where I get to choose how the data is displayed. I know a semantic web paired with a standard set of user interface components chosen by the user wouldn't be as profitable as the current internet, but I would prefer it.

krtkush 7y ago
> Instagram only allows you to see a portion of a user's photos before forcing you to login. It does this on both mobile and browser. For the curious, adblockers can get rid of the annoying pop-ups.
- willberman 7y ago
  I just tried, and I can only use my adblocker to block the element that requests I login. My scrolling is still stopped, and I can't see anymore of a user's photos. Am I missing something?
  - krtkush 7y ago
    I'm a Firefox desktop user. I use all of uBlock origin's annoyance filters and it works for me.
  - mkl 7y ago
    IIRC there's an "overflow: hidden" style on <body> or something like that. Delete it and the site seems to work fine.
  - whatsmyusername 7y ago
    Scroll till you hit the modal, then ublock zapper it. If you permablock it with the picker the scroller will break. They have something from the modal logic tied into the scrolling logic.

krtkush 7y ago

I believe that there will be a point in time when reddit APIs will no longer be open and third party apps will be completely dysfunctional or severely limited. The platform is going the way of twitter and facebook.

tobr 7y ago

Is it just my perception or are aggressive “signup walls” and the like becoming more common? I feel like it was very frowned upon when Quora and Pinterest did it. But now Reddit, Instagram and even Dribbble are very aggressive about refusing to let you do nearly anything without an account. This has some negative consequences for their logged in users too. For example, many small shops and restaurants seem to use Instagram instead of a traditional website. I wonder if they are aware that plenty of people can’t see their menus etc? I find Dribbble’s wall especially ironic. For the longest time it would be hard to get a Dribbble account - you had to know someone with an invite. And now they refuse to even tell you who designed which image unless you create an account. (Isn’t that rather problematic from a copyright perspective?)

acdha 7y ago
It’s a stage in the bubble process: these companies were funded well beyond their real revenue prospects and those unsustainable business models are also seeing ad rates which have been declining for many years. The investors expect returns which the market can’t deliver and that’s going to lead to more abuses until the users switch to a company earlier in the cycle. Reddit has had something like $550M in funding, with the last round in December 2019. It’s been around for 15 years so it’s unlikely to become profitable at the desired levels but everyone involved has a strong incentive not to recognize that.

bibyte 7y ago

I started seeing this a few days ago. What is even more exasperating is that the default Reddit doesn't support tabs and it is INSANELY slow. I can stream 4K content on YouTube comfortably but I have to wait multiple seconds to open a text thread. Maybe I should try the Boost client...

29083011397778 7y ago
If you're after tabs, there is, of course, a workaround. I use firefox on desktop and mobile, with extensions to redirect to old.reddit.com and i.reddit.com respectively. Because logins are saved, everything just... works. Opening links in a new tab included. At least until only Reddit's new design is allowed, and I stop using the site.
- bibyte 7y ago
  I can't edit it now but I was talking about the default Reddit app for Android, not the new mobile website. The website was pretty fast for me. But because of these new changes you can't even view a subreddit without using the app. I just installed Boost for Reddit and it is pretty fast. But thanks for letting me know about i.reddit.com, I didn't even know that exists. The old Reddit is still the best on desktops, I hope they don't kill it.

codeful 7y ago

i didnt find how to turn off notifications about trending topics on android app without going to android settings- so i uninstalled the app.It was enough for me.

thewhitetulip 7y ago

I gave up on read Quora when they forced logins I will give up on reddit if they do the same. Isn't visits a valid criteria? Why force a mobile app?

Freak_NL 7y ago
Browsers are agents of the user, apps are agents of the company behind the app. With a browser the user can install extensions and do things that benefit them, in an app you get exactly what the app owner gives you. If monetization is your only purpose, you would choose apps exclusively if your users are willing to accept it.
- majewsky 7y ago
  > Browsers are agents of the user The most-used browsers, too, are agents of the company making them.
  - gsich 7y ago
    Compared to most company apps: yes, they are at least somewhat user focused.
- tobr 7y ago
  > Browsers are agents of the user, apps are agents of the company behind the app. Alas, browsers are also apps.
duiker101 7y ago
I think the engagement and ad revenue is higher in the mobile app. fewer ad block and more places to put them.
codedokode 7y ago
A website cannot silently read a phone number and list of nearby WiFi access points for geolocation, scan local drive for interesting files, show annoying notifications every hour to return user back to the app.

dt3ft 7y ago

Shameless plug: I started building 20-things.com as a similar-feature community but with goal to never use dark patterns. More competition is good. I posted a Show: HN but it seems to have been buried/blocked as it got no attention whatsoever. I would love to hear your feedback/thoughts/ideas.

enjoyyourlife 7y ago

At least https://i.reddit.com/ https://i.reddit.com/ still works

seddin 7y ago
https://old.reddit.com/ https://old.reddit.com/ too.

vinc 7y ago

It's really sad to watch Reddit being slowly destroyed like that, one user-hostile feature after the other. All of it for short term gains. For me the threshold to leave will be when old.reddit.com will not be available anymore. At that point it'll be pretty easy. I already spend a lot less time on the website than before.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Macha 7y ago

They've also started growth hacking bullshit by A/B testing sending PM digests of subs they feel you haven't visited enough: https://www.reddit.com/r/beta/comments/dw7frl/community_reminders_notifications_on_direct/ https://www.reddit.com/r/beta/comments/dw7frl/community_remi...

neals 7y ago

Is there any way to sandbox Apps on Android?

hiq 7y ago
You can put them in some work profile: https://f-droid.org/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/ https://f-droid.org/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/

p2t2p 7y ago

Reddit is blocked on the level of /etc/hosts on all of my machines... so... :)

buboard 7y ago

reddit should be careful what they wish for. One of the things you get by switching to the app is you get stuck with the phone app crowd which likes phone app things, photos , 1 line comments etc, you'll get a bad instagram for college boys with lots of nsfw. OTOH , if reddit unravels we ll probably witness a lot of disparate forums springing up again, which may be good

MrPatan 7y ago

Delete your reddit account. It will make using reddit more annoying, so you'll use it less.

badrabbit 7y ago

If only reddit was run like HN. I heard of competition sites popping up but not sure what happened to them since.

alfiedotwtf 7y ago

If people wanted a new Reddit, which is to say a website in front of Usenet that is social and allows voting, what other features would you find interesting? I'm sure there's someone reading these comments who is looking for a side project, and this may be interesting to them... let's help them out.

corobo 7y ago
Features? No idea. The thing that’s needed though is content, the problem that these spinoff Reddits have is that they seem to think catching the runoff is a good idea to build a community. New reddit, whoever you may be, don’t populate yourselves with the communities that get banned from reddit.
rollinDyno 7y ago
I do not know if it makes financial sense, but I would be very interested in trying out a new Reddit with a more representative subreddit moderators. Currently, moderators are selected with little input from the community members. Because mods produce the content policies of a community, members don't have the most effective tools to effect the policies of their communities (where they can spend a lot of time and effort). Ideally, moderators would be selected by vote but that's a challenge of its own. I would still like to see more democratic forms of mod selection, it would also keep them accountable from abusing their power (arbitrary banning, censoring and/or taking bribes from corporations).

ferzul 7y ago

in the web brower, i can open anything in a new tab and come back six weeks later. in the app, i have one view, and if i ignore the app for an hour it reverts to the default state. isn't it obvious which one i want? yes! it's the one that takes features away from me and makes me miserable!

moonbug 7y ago

Reddit's sell of its app is so hard , I can only conclude it's packed full of deeply nefarious stuff.

foo101 7y ago

Is Reddit forgetting history? Users migrated from Digg to Reddit in large numbers due to UI changes that users did not appreciate.

newscracker 7y ago

Reddit has been trying many user hostile approaches and dark patterns to push its app. I’ve been terribly annoyed by this arm twisting, but I won’t use the app. I have reduced visiting reddit because of such annoyances. On mobile, sometimes closing the tab and reopening works, sometimes changing networks works, and the most recent one I’ve seen is to request for the desktop site, which has worked consistently even though it makes reading a bit more difficult. With iOS not allowing the user to set a default app, using a third party app like Apollo as an alternative to the browser isn’t convenient either. It’s either view/use the official reddit app or continue with the browser. I wonder if browsing with the Apollo or another app (like Narwhal) also throws the same message and restricts reading on the platform.

phreack 7y ago

Is there any reddit clone that's not a haven for communities that have been banned for reddit?

lokedhs 7y ago

A federated alternative to Reddit would be nice. Perhaps something that integrates with the Fediverse. Surely someone must ha e built something like this already?

XhPEC50ot 7y ago

good replacement for reddit?

XhPEC50ot 7y ago

ideas for reddit replacement?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

steinbitten 7y ago

Final straw for me when I read «This community is only available in the app". Such a anti-user thing to do so closed my account in protest. I primarily used reddit for programming and audio related news. Luckily I have ycombinator for my programming needs and gearslutz for my audio needs.

Jupe 7y ago

With ~400 employees [1] and ~$100m in ad revenue [2], that's only about $250,000 / employee (seems like a lot, but take out unemployment taxes, health care contribution, corporate taxes, etc.). And then there's infrastructure, which I'm sure is relatively high given ~500m users per month. I'm sure there is MUCH more revenue to be extracted from an app (with access to so much on-device data) I guess, if the information on their site is truly worthy, then I'd buck for the Reddit Gold (Premium) [3]. Does anyone know if that works on the web, or you need the app? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit [2] https://www.emarketer.com/content/reddit-to-cross-100-million-in-ad-revenues-in-2019 https://www.emarketer.com/content/reddit-to-cross-100-millio... [3] https://www.reddit.com/premium https://www.reddit.com/premium

judge2020 7y ago
I don't see device data being worth anything unless you mean being able to serve ads based on that data, or at most being able to sell location data [again, for ad purposes].

hi5eyes 7y ago

old.reddit.com choose use desktop mode on ur phone browser zzzzzzzzzzzz

empath75 7y ago

The day they stop supporting the old ui is the day I stop using Reddit.

mrweasel 7y ago
I still can't use their new desktop design on my laptop. Apparently a 7 years old MacBook Pro isn't powerful enough to run neither Reddit nor Imgur particular well. I can do development, run an AppleTV emulator, VM's, a ton of Firefox tabs, and a stack of Python virtualenv's, just not the redesigned Reddit at a reasonable speed.

Kostic 7y ago

Very annoying. I've stopped using the mobile version for a while and then replaced the web version with the RedReader app from F-Droid.[0] Hopefully, APIs won't be closed. [0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/

cannabis_sam 7y ago

Just today I tried to open a post on /r/haskell in incognito mode (because there’s a markdown/commonmark mismatch on code sections between old and new reddit, and hey, I’m the dumb one insisting on the old version so I accept that I’m the one who has to work around this.) And then I get hit with the his garbage??? Seriously, the assholes at reddit responsible for this shit should resign in shame and vow to never touch a computer for the next ten years.

nvr219 7y ago

Apollo is the best app to browse Reddit.

motohagiography 7y ago

Reddit was a great place to engage with ideas, and then move on from them, but turning it into just another surveillance operation is where communities go to die. I still think I know how Reddit could make money, but it's possible they are too staid to get it. They may have also lost the plot politically, where a particular flavour of virtue is becoming a substitute for the growth and success they actually need to effect the change they want to. The music business is and always was a celebrity and micro-celebrity factory, and Reddit (and their main magazine empire investor) could be that for content. Imagine a record label like Time Warner happened to own every indie bar in every little city where bands played, got first option on every group that came through the doors, and could measure audience reaction in real time. That's what Reddit is, but for content. This pressuring users to give up PII sounds like there is a sea change happening at the corporate/financial level where they've been given a limited runway and need to show some short term traction, "or else." I've mostly kicked my reddit habit, and their strategy really resembles something they'd do if they're hitting a negative inflection point.

mighty_bander 7y ago

In depressing times like these, I like to remember that something like 30% of users have adblockers installed. It might seem like people will mindlessly go along with this sort of manipulation, but there is still a place for independent thought on the web. Not on facebook, Reddit, Instagram, or really any other big-name site, but you can find it if you look.

weare138 7y ago

It's ironic Reddit went through a major redesign that many of it's users complained about to make the site mobile friendly only to completely ruin the mobile UI/UX by constantly spamming users with prompts to install the app. Now the desktop users of the new site get all the annoyances of a mobile UI and mobile users can't use the site without an app. Brilliant!

pier25 7y ago

I think a better strategy would have been to have an ugly and outdated mobile site where users cannot install RES.

nialv7 7y ago

There is a federated alternative to Reddit in the works: https://github.com/dessalines/lemmy https://github.com/dessalines/lemmy Previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686972

wiseleo 7y ago

I hate websites that coerce the use of an inferior app. Trust immediately goes to zero.

norswap 7y ago

What really puzzles me: what do they gain by us using their app? Certainly it is marginal and can't offset the user/revenue loss from alienating users??

IndexPointer 7y ago

I hope someone comes along and makes a less hostile alternative to reddit soon...

estranhosidade 7y ago

/watchredditdie