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Slack has a fun dark pattern - they purposefully remove functionality from their web app to make you install their native app. The web app has a workspace swit

• Mixtape 5y ago
  Reddit is just as guilty of this. If you want to see all the comments on a thread on their mobile site, you're pushed to install their official app and presumably create an account when doing so. As far as I can tell, the best workaround is to use the desktop site.
  • Trasmatta 5y ago
    Not just the website, but the old.reddit version. The new Reddit design is a disaster in terms of usability. I also disable all custom subreddit styles, because so many of them are horrible.
    • rvbissell 5y ago
      r/mildlyinfuriating's custom style is a work of art.
  • ryandrake 5y ago
    Also Zoom. Their web version seems to no longer work on Safari/Mac and Firefox/Mac, so they essentially force you onto native or don't use it.
    • noisem4ker 5y ago
      I don't know about macOS specifically, but elsewhere it can be defeated. The link to join from the browser appears if you dismiss the initial offer to open the app and force a retry. It's absolutely disgusting. https://gauginggadgets.com/join-zoom-meeting-without-installing-zoom/ https://gauginggadgets.com/join-zoom-meeting-without-install...
  • est31 5y ago
    I use i.reddit.com. I think it was their old mobile site. Works like a charm.
  • bogwog 5y ago
    And on iOS at least, whenever you visit the site you'll get a popup that blocks the page with two options: continue in mobile app, or continue in safari. It's basically "install our shitty app, or keep using the web version?", except it's worded and displayed in a confusing/misleading way with what seems to be an attempt to mimic a system dialog.
    • jdgoesmarching 5y ago
      Not to mention how awful their AMP pages (redundant, blame grammar) are already. Searching for topics on Reddit is a nightmare, you’re stuck with their awful native search, their awful mobile app, or the awful mobile site.
      • bashinator 5y ago
        And yet through the miracle of scrolling and screen zooming I’m somehow able to use old.reddit.com just fine even on my relatively small iPhone X
        • emayljames 5y ago
          i.reddit.com FTW!
  • pahn 5y ago
    i can recommend teddit, that's reddit without the annoying stuff: https://teddit.net/ https://teddit.net/
  • armchairhacker 5y ago
    For iOS, I recommend Apollo (https://apolloapp.io/ https://apolloapp.io/). A reddit client that isn't from Reddit.
    • catillac 5y ago
      Thank you! I almost universally use the mobile website but it just keeps getting worse, presumably on purpose. I installed the official app but it’s very bad. I’ll download this one now!
      • joshstrange 5y ago
        You will still have the annoyance of search results only opening the official client but Apollo is a great app made by a single developer who has put a lot of time and effort into the app. He (Christian) is also very active on the /r/apolloapp subreddit and communicates upcoming features/bug fixes. Apollo does have an option to scan your Copy/Paste buffer so when you open the app, and if there is a reddit link in your buffer, it can open it for you. The downside is you will always see "Apollo read the clipboard" (or whatever the iOS message is) when you open Apollo. Another workaround is to create (or use an existing [0]) iOS shortcut. The way this works is you will pretend you are sharing the reddit page and then click on the shortcut and it will launch Apollo and open the page you are on. The shortcut is pretty basic, just uses some string replacement and Apollo's url scheme to achieve it. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/9ijiji/siri_shortcut_to_open_a_reddit_link_in_apollo/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/9ijiji/siri_shor...
        • tommit 5y ago
          Just to add to this: I can highly recommend Apollo as well, it's the official app in my mind. Nothing else even comes close. Also, there is no need for a shortcut. If I open the sharing menu, "Open in Apollo" is already present and I never needed to add the shortcut.
  • the_pwner224 5y ago
    Long pressing and opening in a new tab works for expanding child comment threads (but not for viewing all 500+ commends under a post). Once that stops working, I'll have to always use old.reddit on my phone, which won't be great UI on mobile - but I suppose it can't be too hard to make a Stylus stylesheet to make it usable. And once old.reddit is gone, well, that's the end of Reddit for me.
    • jimktrains2 5y ago
      i.reddit.com is the old mobile site.
      • the_pwner224 5y ago
        Unfortunately it has no way to expand image/video previews without navigating to a different page. Makes it a lot harder to use for me.
  • GordonS 5y ago
    Can confirm that you cannot use the app with logging in with a Reddit account. Just yesterday, I got tired of the annoying "use the app or login" messages when tapping to view more comments on a post, so I caved and installed the app - given the language of the nag, I thought I wouldn't have to login, and the Reddit UX of constant full-page reloads just to view more comments is such a joke I figured the app had to be better. But no, you have to login with a Reddit account to use the app :/
  • swiley 5y ago
    I'm so thankful for the Reddit redesign, I had a serious problem spending way too much time on that site. Now it's almost completely unusable.
    • celeritascelery 5y ago
      Same here! I deleted the app and use the web app because it so much more painful so I don’t spend near the time on it.
    • ratww 5y ago
      Same. It's impossible to use on a phone, so I haven't even logged in months.
    • kwyjobojoe 5y ago
      Now reddit have gone from blocking 'adult' content on mobile browser to flagging stuff as 'unknown content' and trying to force you to install app. I was trying to research a vinyl cutter purchase instore with spotty coverage and every bloody reddit page would be blocked within seconds of loading with this stupid unknown content crap.
    • hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      So is letting you know about old.reddit.com a bad thing?
      • foolfoolz 5y ago
        if they removed old reddit i would stop using the site
        • Clampower 5y ago
          So I’m in the same boat but I’ve noticed an interesting dark pattern they use now to discourage old Reddit. I often land in a comment section of a specific post, and then want to see more of the subreddit by clicking the link of the subreddit in the top of the page. Since about a month now, every subreddit shows me it’s only available through the app. I used to then preface the url with old. however now they’ve somehow done it that I will see the specific (locked) subreddit page, but the url will just be Reddit.com with nothing else, effectively making it impossible to add the old. before the url.
  • xwdv 5y ago
    After installing the official app I can’t remember why I was so resistant to installing it in the first place. Why do you resist?
  • gsmo 5y ago
    On mobile, reddit.com/.compact is an option. It's pretty stripped down but has some solid pros: it's fast, it has evenly sized (height) posts, the comments are easy to view. The post links with in-reddit photos/video do direct to the bad site, unfortunately. Another con (or pro) is infinite scrolling.
  • eulers_secret 5y ago
    On Reddit's mobile web page, after clicking the 'continue in browser' button, go to hamburger menu -> settings -> "Ask to Open In App" and uncheck the checkbox. Removes all the 'reminders'.
  • eightails 5y ago
    Has anyone else noticed reddit on mobile browsers being ridiculously slow? My experience is that the page loads fine, but then there's 10 seconds or so of loading animation before the page displays. Requesting desktop site makes it load immediately. I'm 95% sure they just have a timer they make you sit through in an effort to get you onto their app.
    • aitchnyu 5y ago
      Just opened a Reddit page on Desktop and it has 7.77mb resources and 97 requests and 4 seconds till DOM loads. Its bloated, probably to boost app downloads. Imgur also features fighter plane levels of bloat to show an image and comments.
• raverbashing 5y ago
  Oh so taken from the same page as the Reddit App it seems
• godelski 5y ago
  I'm just impressed how bad slack is on mobile. Either I'm getting messages on my computer and phone (on phone after I've responded on the computer) or not at all.
  • yaml-ops-guy 5y ago
    I've been having this problem with push notifications for quite a few apps, but Slack just seems to genuinely do whatever the hell it wants, regardless of whatever I've set preferences to.
    • godelski 5y ago
      Yeah I know what you mean. Like sometimes I'll get messages hours after they are sent. Even when my main computer is off so would be considered "away". Now I just have to frequently check slack and that in itself feels like a dark pattern.
  • whymauri 5y ago
    Same here... no clue what's happened over the last few years. Slack used to be pretty reliable when I first used it.
• chestervonwinch 5y ago
  Can you explain why this is a dark pattern? How does slack benefit from you using the native app vs. the web app?
  • jackson1442 5y ago
    I mean I personally keep Slack on my Dock since it's open pretty frequently. This integrates it even more into my workflow since I can quickly check and see if I have any unreads/etc. making it more grating to switch to another chat app. Maybe it's not a "dark pattern" but it certainly is a method to increase adoption.
    • lima 5y ago
      You can do this with a browser like Chrome by creating a shortcut with "Open As Window".
  • wolpoli 5y ago
    One major benefit of native app over web app is their ability to send notifications to get the user's attention.
    • lima 5y ago
      Web apps can send notifications just fine, even in the background.
      • ericwood 5y ago
        This is not the case on iOS: https://caniuse.com/notifications https://caniuse.com/notifications
  • cma 5y ago
    I don't know that they do, but they could potentially read your local files as part of telemetry, gps, nearby wifi network ssids and MAC addresses, etc.
  • 5y ago
• zepto 5y ago
  Does this mean that all apps that can’t also be used via the web are a ‘dark pattern’? I ask because I can easily imagine that if most customers are using apps, they might choose to remove functionality from the website rather than maintain it, just because it’s not worth it.
  • dec0dedab0de 5y ago
    If it's something that makes more sense as a website, then yes. I would go so far as to say any app that doesn't work offline is likely a dark pattern
    • ryandrake 5y ago
      If they really don’t want people to use it on the web they should simply turn down the web site and tell people to use the app or GTFO. Instead they keep it up but cripple it and then repeatedly beg the user to something they clearly don’t want to do.
      • zepto 5y ago
        Companies discontinue or reduce support for products they don’t want to continue investing in all the time. Some users are obviously going to be unhappy about this. It’s not a dark pattern.
    • zepto 5y ago
      How is this a dark pattern? It really just seems like a design disagreement. If we’re going to call any design we don’t like a ‘dark pattern’, then the term becomes meaningless. I mean to many people here commercial software is all a ‘dark pattern’ because they prefer FOSS. But this isn’t what ‘dark patterns’ means. Generally it’s about tricking people into agreeing to things based on false beliefs, or making things hard to cancel. I don’t see how it has anything at all with what features are placed in what products as long as there is no deception.
      • dec0dedab0de 5y ago
• swiley 5y ago
  Discord does this as well. If they detect a mobile user agent they disable the button to hide the member list which makes group chats unusable. If you just change your user agent the button re-appears and you don't even need the app unless your browser doesn't handle voice and you need that.
  • judge2020 5y ago
    For reference: https://i.judge.sh/hot/Flare/chrome_eC7WqUYKPX.png https://i.judge.sh/hot/Flare/chrome_eC7WqUYKPX.png https://i.judge.sh/mealy/Sparkle/chrome_5RItK5j3Yl.png https://i.judge.sh/mealy/Sparkle/chrome_5RItK5j3Yl.png Edit: Doing some digging, on the iOS user agent, the `toolbar` portion is null, while with the Chrome windows user agent it's set to include the entire element: https://i.judge.sh/flickering/Twilight/chrome_q978GUiwQ8.png https://i.judge.sh/flickering/Twilight/chrome_q978GUiwQ8.png https://i.judge.sh/pleasant/Coco/chrome_cNh0eBIHQL.png https://i.judge.sh/pleasant/Coco/chrome_cNh0eBIHQL.png This looks to be the function that determines it: https://i.judge.sh/qualified/Velvet/chrome_CxUBug0q1P.png https://i.judge.sh/qualified/Velvet/chrome_CxUBug0q1P.png So it's just a 'if mobile' check - maybe it breaks on some mobile screens (on a iphone 5/SE you end up being unable to view the channel name, not that it's an enjoyable experience anyways https://i.judge.sh/brave/Flare/chrome_nW26bTRXDe.png https://i.judge.sh/brave/Flare/chrome_nW26bTRXDe.png) or maybe it's a motive to get you to use the mobile app. This is just the desktop UI with some `if mobile` checks probably thrown in by a small number developers that want to support mobile browser support but aren't getting paid to do it.
• aero-glide2 5y ago
  Reddit does that too for the mobile website. So the job of some programmers is to literally provide a worse experience for their users. Sad life.
• Hnrobert42 5y ago
  Reddit wants you in the app, so it’s harder to block ads. Slack doesn’t make money from ads like Reddit. So while Slack might prefer you use the app and make the web version less appealing, I’m not sure this qualifies as a “dark pattern.” Certainly not one that should be regulated.