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It is pretty offensive that they say "reddit works better on the app" when the only reason for that is that they broke everything on mobile (on purpose?) in a s
by sixo 6y ago
It is pretty offensive that they say "reddit works better on the app" when the only reason for that is that they broke everything on mobile (on purpose?) in a series of badly-implemented redesigns.
I'm never going to install it, and I have all but stopped reading it because these prompts are so obnoxious. That's probably +$ for Reddit though.
I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only _themselves_, and then expect users to engage with it because it exists. Users are able to identify when something is valuable to them. If you make it valuable they will use it. Consider the difference on an ecommerce site between a comment section vs a few company-picked "testimonials" above the fold. _Everyone_ knows the testimonials are garbage. Maybe your conversion goes up a tick the first time you put them on the site, but when a repeat viewer sees the same ones again they're going to roll their eyes and register you as untrustworthy. Whereas a (reasonably-managed, honest) comment section provides loads of information that's actually valuable to the consumer.
- trash3 6y agoWhat's equally absurd is that I assumed they ruined the web experience with their redesign in order to make it mobile compatible. It just goes to show they're ruining both web and mobile experience to pigeonhole users into environments where they can force feedback loops of their users so they have to spend more time in either platform.
- aeyes 6y agoWait, you are saying that they redesigned their web experience for mobile usability to then show users a popup that they should use the app?
- amelius 6y agoOur only hope now is that Google downranks them, until they fix the web interface.
- saagarjha 6y agoMobile "compatible". In reality it's pretty bad on mobile too.
- bschne 6y ago> (...) and then expect users to engage with it because it exists. This is indeed a troubling trend, so many annoying popups, banners, and notifications only seem to serve to forcefully try and push a small percentage of users towards some feature. If adoption is poor, it's probably because it's not wanted. Of course, in some SaaS contexts, it makes a lot of sense to keep users informed of features that might be of benefit to them and they may have otherwise not discovered, but that's a completely different game from just shoving stuff down their throats.
- ShorsHammer 6y agoI use Redreader on android. The experience is magnitudes better than the "real" app It's free and opensource, available on f-droid or if you are so inclined google playstore. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/
- PlotCitizen 6y agoIn a similar vein, I use Apollo for iOS[1] and it's also magnitudes better. The official reddit app is starting to catch up, but it's designed with advertisers in mind, whereas you can use a different app and pay for ads to go away, or use the old, web version with a blocker. [1] https://apolloapp.io/ https://apolloapp.io/
- comprev 6y agoApollo is among the best. The developer Christian is super engaged with his user base, and the local animal shelter. He has donated $10,000s to them through fundraising!
- jackietreehorn 6y agoI second this. Big fan of Apollo and I have bought it as well.
- vocatus_gate 6y agoReddit Is Fun app gang represent!
- namiller2 6y agoI use Alien Blue, but that doesn't stop the popup from showing when you browse to a Reddit page on Safari.
- intsunny 6y agoRedreader is awesome. The interface is a little clumsy, it is open source and verifiably not making unrequested connections to the Internet is amazing.
- toxican 6y agoI don't know why anyone would bother with the first party app when there are a bunch of really nice 3rd party ones with all sorts of additional features. All the one's I've used have been free with premium versions that only cost a few bucks. Which of course leaves me wondering how long it is before reddit pulls the plug on their API and forces people to use the busted mobile site or their app.
- SwiftyBug 6y agoI hope they don't do it. If this happens I probably won't Reddit anymore. Apollo is not only the best Reddit client I've ever used, but is actually the most well-crafted iOS app I ever had the pleasure to use.
- squeaky-clean 6y agoI keep thinking Reddit just needs to buy Apollo already. But there's no way they could do that and not ruin the the app within 6 months.
- digitalengineer 6y agoLink for the lazy: https://apolloapp.io/ https://apolloapp.io/
- esperent 6y agoSlide is a good Android alternative https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.ccrama.redditslide https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.ccrama.redd...
- Causality1 6y agoThe same thing happened to Imgur where they slowly stripped features from the mobile site to force users onto the app, culminating in preventing mobile users from even logging in at all.
- cma 6y agoThe worst part about mobile apps is it destroys tabbed browsing.
- AmericanOP 6y agoThe most enraging thing is Reddit took over video hosting themselves, but simply declined to have a mobile/text share option. Links from any 3rd party service show up in the phone as the content i want to share. Reddit? You try to send someone a Reddit video link and they get affronted by a pop up banner to download the mobile app when they click through. WTF! I sent a reddit link to a video to my dad, once. He replied 'cant open it.' So f* off reddit. Allow rehosting or change your content policies. Stop making the internet worse.
- adrianN 6y agoI have a greasemonkey script to filter out such posts. There is enough content without them. https://pastebin.com/5fFyiiM7 https://pastebin.com/5fFyiiM7
- vorticalbox 6y agoNice I'm not the only one still using grease monkey :)
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoIt's also useful to auto-redirect to old.reddit without having to log in.
- dimator 6y agoOn top of this, v.reddit.com is abysmal. Videos stop streaming, the cursor is impossible to use, I don't know how its allowed to exist in its current state.
- ORioN63 6y agoVideos show the wrong duration, sometimes, as well. A couple of weeks ago, someone was asking for the full video of what looked like a 10s clip (which also played just 10s). Someone else replied, that it was literally the post. He got downvoted to hell (like below 100). He was right. After checking his comment, I went to the video and by seeking I got it to show the whole 2m and something. This was not the first time this issue has appeared for me. v.reddit.com is abysmal. I agree.
- TheKarateKid 6y agoWhat's even more frustrating is the dark UX design they implemented. If you make it past their "Continue" pop-up which shows you multiple versions with the options reversed (to work against impulse memory skips), if you touch ANYTHING on the page after that point, it will STILL open up in the app. What's worse is that once it opens, that post is now permanently in your account's history. Reddit provides NO WAY to remove things from your account history.
- minusSeven 6y agoReddit is now in a position where they pull a Digg and not suffer the consequences of Digg meaning they can be considered too big to fail. I guess this can allow them to pull whatever they want. Break api used by Android developer. Shove meaningless prompts on users face.
- KKKKkkkk1 6y agoMIT economists Acemoglu and Robinson wrote a book "Why Nations Fail" that analyzes why countries at similar starting points can have extremely divergent paths in terms of economic development. One example is South and North Korea. Their conclusion is that some countries have established extractive institutions, while others inclusive. The extractive ones exclude the population from the decision making process and seek to divvy up and redistribute the scarce available resources, while the inclusive ones seek to involve the broadest possible strata of the population in the decision making and wealth-producing activities. Looks like Reddit is turning into the North Korea of social websites.
- boring_twenties 6y agoYou have been banned from /r/pyongyang
- maerF0x0 6y agoWhat does it say about the United States?
- dimitar 6y agoThe extractive rent-seeking (slavery being the most extractive economic and political institution possible) South was significantly lagging even before the rebellion, which was crushed by the United States whose other regions had more inclusive economic institutions. In more recent times the authors compare two towns across the US-Mexico border: Nogales, AZ to to Nogales, Mexico. Even thought the language and ethnicity is mostly the same (95% Hispanic), with same climate and what not - Nogales in the United States has three times the GDP per capita of Nogales, Sonora. The difference is more inclusive economic and political institutions in the United States - while Mexico has suffered under one party rule for decades.
- monoideism 6y ago> while Mexico has suffered under one party rule for decades Yet now we suffer under two-party rule.
- Chris2048 6y ago> then expect users to engage with it because it exists Kinda like saying something must be done because it is "company policy"; passing the buck in the hope you don't question it, and realise company policy is also decided by the company. It exists, because they decided it does.
- kibwen 6y agoThere's an option in your reddit settings to force them to serve you the old design rather than the redesign, which is remembered for future sessions. The old design isn't "mobile friendly", i.e. it requires a bunch of zooming in and out, but other than that it's completely functional, unlike the redesign which simply doesn't even work on mobile.
- a_e_k 6y agoThe old mobile design is still there. You can add .compact to the end of any Reddit URL to get it.
- clickok 6y agoFurthermore, over the long term it can change the texture of the Reddit community. What sort of person quits using Reddit after becoming frustrated with yet another imposed hassle? What sort of person stays, or is retained by pop-up notifications and whatever other tedious blandishments their app/redesign provides? There are other sites with similar features and layout to Reddit (Voat, Ruqqus, Saidit, Raddle, communities.win, etc.) but none are really in competition to be "the front page of the Internet". This is because Reddit has a huge community with varied interests which provides self-perpetuating advantages. For example: the activity level is generally higher; if you start a subreddit for a niche topic you have a chance at finding an audience; great comments/submissions will garner thousands of upvotes rather than a few dozen (smaller sites have a proportionately tinier vote ceiling, making it hard to differentiate between "good" and "amazing"). I can see increased retention/monetization maybe leading to a larger user-base in the short term, but if it makes good content less likely to crop up, or leads to less discerning users (ingenious effortposts lose out to low-effort pandering memes), or even if it just narrows the interests/hobbies represented on there, then over time it will destroy Reddit's main source of value.
- vorpalhex 6y agoRuqqus is generally better as an alternative and has been doing a better job navigating the line between free speech and not letting neo nazis invade every sub. Like old school reddit, people do say inflammatory things to get reactions but usually get downvoted. There are also good tools for muting people.
- ericbarrett 6y agoI dunno, just went to the site and the front page is 80% alt-right conspiracy theories. Also, the second DDG result for “ruqqus” is a Qanon sub.
- suby 6y agoAgreed. I tried consistently visiting and posting for a week or two,and while I feel like the site has been getting more popular, it's not a place for adult conversations. What finally made me quit was a post of a meme involving Kamala Harris in a non-political section which was one of the most upvoted things I'd seen on the site, yet the meme itself was childish and racist. I dislike censorship, but if the initial source of people visiting a site which has these anti moderation policies are low quality, good luck climbing out of that hole. Smart people are attracted to smart people, so your initial userbase is paramount. This isn't a condemnation of all on ruqqus, but the majority are looking for a right wing echo chamber. The site is nowhere near as bad as voat, but give it a little time, it'll get there.
- dheera 6y agoWhenever any website says "works better in the app" I always roll my eyes and consider it to be really saying "we really just want to spy on your data (apps installed, wifi networks, geolocation, accelerometer to determine your life habits, ...)" For a site like reddit there is literally nothing they can't do with pure HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Also, I like Firefox on mobile because you can block ads and install other extensions.
- zamalek 6y ago> I'm never going to install it There are third-party apps. I have been using Sync (Android) for years, and it's bloody fantastic. I wonder when they will cut third-party apps off.
- northwest65 6y agoTake heart, they're actually doing you a favour. Once it becomes a hassle, you'll stop visiting, and along the way you'll wonder why you ever did. We should be thanking them for helping break the cycle of looking at a bottomless pit of drivel, our time on earth is not without end. Anything that helps you escape garbage companies run by garbage employees is good!
- tekknik 6y ago> I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only _themselves_, and then expect users to engage with it because it exists. Probably because most users don’t really care and those that do make excuses like “what else am I going to use?” or “I can’t stop using reddit, how will I stay in the loop?” or any one of many other excuses. If you want reddit to change, stop using them. Entirely.
- wst_ 6y agoI see a lot of HN users living in HN bubble completely forgetting that we are a minority of consumers. Most of Reddit audience is either not educated enough, don't have enough exposure to see the difference or simply don't care. Did we all forgot about eternal September already? So, unfortunately, no - users won't even notice this because they have no idea what's valuable to them and they will buy anything as long as it's packaged nicely. For the same reason they also won't vote with their wallets even when (as you say) "everyone" knows that testimonials are garbage.
- tutfbhuf 6y ago> I see a lot of HN users living in HN bubble completely forgetting that we are a minority of consumers. Most of Reddit audience is either not educated enough ... Actually, Reddit users are quiet educated. Source: https://social.techjunkie.com/demographics-reddit/ https://social.techjunkie.com/demographics-reddit/
- Timpy 6y ago> Users are able to identify when something is valuable to them. I strongly disagree with this. Users are just responding to dopamine sensors that have triggers that they don't understand. "Value" extracted can be detrimental to a person's well-being, even if they chose it for themselves. Gambling addicts at casinos, obese people at fast food restaurants, pay-to-win whales and the newest version of Candy Crush. Reddit is just a casino where you gamble with your time and win addicting emotions like novelty and outrage.
- sixo 6y agoThat's not what "valuable" means in this argument. Reddit is huge because Reddit's diverse and novel content is valuable to people, as in, it's valued by them, that is what that phrase means. Doesn't matter if _you_ think it is _actually good for them_ or if it "produces value" economically. Yeah, it hits dopamine buttons, so what. Using the same sense of value, Reddit's _app_ is not valuable to people relative to reddit-on-mobile which is why so many people in this thread agree with the claim.
- moonraker 6y agoAs someone who’s worked with the Marketing Dept. a lot in my prior role, the reason e-commerce sites (and possibly Reddit) do the things you mentioned is because they’re overly focused on new user/customer acquisition vs keeping current customers/users who know the the products’ value happy. There’s almost always a bit of political drama behind the decision too: Marketing gets to say that they’re acquiring new users in short term (thereby increasing their budget and clout in the Org) while destroying customer value in the long run