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Reddit is searching for something, but I don't think they've introduced a single feature that makes it better since they added subreddits. They've added and rem
by sorenjan 6y ago
Reddit is searching for something, but I don't think they've introduced a single feature that makes it better since they added subreddits. They've added and removed community chat rooms [0], they still have some other kind of chat that I don't know if anyone uses, when I happen to visit new Reddit there's some kind of streaming broadcasts that I don't see anyone liking. And of course the redesign, but I suspect that their metrics show that a majority of users like it, so it's just old users like med that are put off by it. Recently they introduced Topics [1], but it's not supported by the API, so you need to use their apps.
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/jwme40/deprecating_community_chat_rooms/ https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/jwme40/deprecating...
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/kb99yk/introducing_a_new_way_to_explore_reddit_using/ https://old.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/kb99yk/introduci...
- sida 6y agoAs sad as this is, this seems to be true. I am thinking hard about what reddit has introduced. Cannot come up with anything. I do like their mobile app though
- saurik 6y agoI mean, a sizable enough number of us continue to use old.reddit.com that it seems like they realize they can't force us onto the new design and are relegated to maintaining the old one for essentially forever... which to me says something incredible about just how badly their design failed.
- notyourwork 6y ago> forever I suspect a Reddit PM is watching a usage of old.reddit.com metric and waiting for it to hit a certain threshold before canning it. Perhaps the migration has taken longer than they planned but I have no doubt in time old.reddit.com will be retired.
- pletsch 6y agoI expect features to just stop working on old.reddit as we get further away from the redesign, whether it be updates internally or full new features. This will continue until it gets unusable and then they'll kill it because 'nobody uses it!'
- lapetitejort 6y agoI noticed polls don't work on old reddit. Then don't even show in the feed. If you visit the poll directly it expands as some sort of embedded new reddit.
- teraflop 6y agoThey've already started taking small steps in this direction. For example, about a year and a half ago they added the option for subreddit moderators to "lock" an individual comment to prevent others from replying to it (previously it was only possible to lock entire threads). They deliberately avoided exposing this functionality through the old Reddit UI. https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/brgr8i/moderators_you_may_now_lock_individual_comments/ https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/brgr8i/moderators_...
- AndrewKemendo 6y agoOn mobile they already limit how many comments you can view and force you to sign in otherwise.
- KMnO4 6y agoSigning in doesn’t remove the limit. They want you to download their app.
- dorkinspace 6y agoWith the recent new features they have been adding, I would consider old.reddit not supporting them as a feature rather than a bug. As others have said, none of the new features they have added have been desirable.
- 6y ago
- breitling 6y agoRecently learned about Teddit.net on HN. That's now my go-to... Better than old.Reddit.com However, teddit is limited to browsing. Can't reply / comment on it
- erichurkman 6y ago> However, teddit is limited to browsing. Can't reply / comment on it Maybe a feature, not a limitation.
- somehnguy 6y agoIt's definitely a limitation. I subscribe and participate in a number of smaller/niche/hobby related subreddits. Not being able to participate makes it completely useless for people like me. There are great places and discussions on reddit once you filter out all the popular subs.
- SkyPuncher 6y agoI agree. I visit Reddit and HN to engage with other people. If I just wanted to read, I'd directly subscribe to a select set of blogs.
- mskslal 6y agoThe redesign was a massive success. The goal was to turn reddit into a typical social media property, and it worked. Real conversation was pushed aside into niche subreddits, and was replaced by typical social media filler crap, like r/funny and pics and wholesomememes, etc. It was bad before, but I just feel like the redesign made it 100x worse. Try opening the reddit homepage, new design, no account, and tell me with a straight face that that is a place where serious, well-thought discussion happens. The content on the front page is exactly what I would expect to see on my Facebook timeline or on the Instagram explore page, which I see now was Reddit's goal from the start.
- snarfy 6y agoIt would be interesting to sort the highest rated comments and group them based on if they originated from old reddit or new. I suspect all of the high quality content comes from old.reddit.com.
- bobthepanda 6y agoThis has always been a thing; way before all of this, default subs had the same effect, to the point where subs that were getting big would actively jockey to not become default and get ruined by popularity.
- madeofpalk 6y ago> Try opening the reddit homepage, new design, no account, and tell me with a straight face that that is a place where serious, well-thought discussion happens. This has nothing to do with the new design. If Reddit was ever a place for “serious, well thought discussion”, it hasn’t been that way for the past 10 years.
- intotheabyss 6y agoIt really depends on the subreddits. The smaller and more engaged the community, the better the discussions. As subreddits scale in size, the discussions get proportionally worse.
- rchaud 6y ago
- jackson1442 6y agoI think the redesign worked exactly as well as it was supposed to. Looking at this graph for a subreddit with approx. 4 million subscribers, the unique pageviews are quite high on the redesign. The official mobile app, however, blows them both out of the water. https://i.imgur.com/o80v09J.png https://i.imgur.com/o80v09J.png
- wongarsu 6y agoGiven how much they were pushing to convert everyone to the new design, and how undiscoverable the old design is to new users, I'm very surprised that the new design has only twice the unique pageviews of the old design.
- chanmad29 6y agoAm I missing something here? old reddit on iphone is just unusable- need to pinch zoom for everything. I so much prefer the new one at least on mobile.
- runawaybottle 6y agoI don’t think Reddit needs any major feature other than search. When I search google, I basically append ‘Reddit’ to my query. It’s where all the real answers are, there are no more websites (who would have thought, the real rival to google is Reddit).
- sorenjan 6y agoI don't either, but that's not how VC backed companies work. It's not good enough to stay usable for the current users, you need growth, and preferably as much as possible. I don't know what kind of service they're aiming for, but it's basically a meme feed now, with some political echo chambers thrown in.
- runawaybottle 6y agoI’ll address your last point. I think when you talk about scale, the fact will arise that a lot of the internet are just kids. Take a look at TikTok, at scale, you’re just going to get a lot of more kids using the thing. It’s probably one of the reasons we all gravitate to HN, because for better or worse, people here are working adults or on the cusp of it (college). I really cannot deal with a bunch of k-12/college kids discussing something. I have no clue how Reddit can solve this as they want growth (you need the kids).
- monkpit 6y agoOn the opposite side of that, why should Reddit make their search better if everyone already knows not to use it? Google works just fine. Spending the money to improve and code a new search function doesn’t gain them anything. They’d just lose money on the implementation.
- runawaybottle 6y agoI’d disagree. I get my best answers with a ‘Reddit’ tacked on to Google, or searching YouTube for an answers video. Their presentation would have to model the behavior in a way that feels fresh, but the raw value of their content is already validated. The situation right now is that people’s muscle memory is tied to the verb ‘googling’. Pushing ‘search.reddit.com’ will not appear different enough to people. They’d have to brand and present it uniquely. It’s a lot more ambitious than pushing their mobile Reddit app, so it’ll never happen.
- nmfisher 6y agoEh, to be honest I don’t mind the broadcasting. I’ve watched/listened to a few people for 10-20 minutes at a time. I know that’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve never been even the slightest bit interested in watching streams.
- conradfr 6y agoMultireddits is a good feature that has been introduced after subreddits, because there is a limit of how many different subreddits you get on your frontpage (wich goes up with gold IIRC). On of the worst thing they did (excluding the new design obviously) was removing the upvote/downvote counter.
- sorenjan 6y agoI think Reddit would be better if they removed the karma counters completely. They can still use votes as a signal for sorting, but having numbers attached to posts and comments seem to affect people's opinions on that content too much.
- mrits 6y agoFor sure. It's like going to interview someone with the previous interviewer telling you every has hated them so far.
- jedberg 6y agoFun fact, multireddits existed very early on after publicly created subreddit launched, they just didn't have a UI for a very long time. But you could always do multiple reddits with a + between them. That's how we constructed your front page on the backend, we just didn't expose the URL.
- conradfr 6y agoOh yeah I forgot about that, it still works!
- hatsunearu 6y agoThe live thread feature is alright. The stickers you can give out is a cool monetization. RPAN is pretty cool.
- jedberg 6y agoText only posts were launched after subreddits. That has lead to some of the best parts of reddit.
- CyberDildonics 6y agoDon't forget very awkward video clip hosting.
- cuddlybacon 6y ago> I don't think they've introduced a single feature that makes it better since they added subreddits I think they've added plenty. * Text only posts. * Polls. * Being able save individual posts instead of just threads. * Friends. I use it to follow a few people who make stuff outside of Reddit but post intermittently on their respective subreddits. I don't use it at all for following my actual friends. * Various features that prevent one subreddit from raiding others. np links are one, but there are others. * Subreddit CSS. * Mods being able to hide scores and the downvote button on their subreddit. It's a shame this isn't something done at the API level, as it means apps just ignore it. * Suggested comment sorting. Can mitigate the natural tendency for a group to become an echochamber. * Some of the features of reddit Gold are pretty good but considering you have to pay for them, they ought to be. * Buying rewards is probably the least bad monetization scheme they could have come up with. * While their image and video hosting is kinda crappy, it is there and it seems like imgur had to get less aggressive about forcing you to get an account.
- realbarack 6y agoI've been a Reddit user for about a decade and I really love RPAN, the streaming broadcast you refer to. I often find really interesting music made by talented artists, and I appreciate that the performances are done in a kind of off-the-cuff, low-key way.
- deepspace 6y agoYes, I have never been much into the whole streaming thing, but for some reason, for now at least, RPAN seems to be hitting just the right amateurish tone to keep me engaged. Though I dread the day when the people who made the new front page UI turn their attention to RPAN...
- subpixel 6y agoReddit is an example of a product I'd pay for less of. Give me basic functionality, simple UI, and no growth hacks. I'll give you an annual subscription.