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All Meta properties generally don't care about (or have active disdain for) the web version. As others have said, this is to drive people to the app, where the

All Meta properties generally don't care about (or have active disdain for) the web version. As others have said, this is to drive people to the app, where they can collect orders of magnitude more data and where it is more difficult to block ads or trackers. The desktop version of Facebook constantly lags behind the app and has weird bugs in Firefox where it will stop loading content, and when anything works on the mobile version of the website I'm honestly surprised.

wpietri 5y ago
And not just Meta! I browse Reddit mostly via Firefox on my tablet. It's very unreliable. And every day it has this sad, "This page looks better in the app" banner at the bottom. I just can't imagine asking an engineer, "Hey, can you make your web app continuously talk trash about how much your work sucks?" And it's the same deal with Twitter. All sorts of bugs on mobile Firefox, some of them which I've been tripping over daily for years. When I worked at Twitter some years back, the web version was the red-headed stepchild of the clients. The engineers on it were nice and smart, but the team was underresourced and the client was treated as secondary to the mobile apps.
- jmrm 5y ago
  Reddit actual web interface is really bad in every web browser, mobile or computer. The only difference is that in the computer it can have a lot more of resources to waste. Boost, Relay and BaconReader are pretty good to browse Reddit in Android phones, and I know Apollo or narwhal are also good for iOS.
- mtberatwork 5y ago
  This is odd because the web version is almost always the first experience for a new user of the platform.
MereInterest 5y ago
Not just that, but it actively and blatantly lies to users. For the past few years, facebook has displayed the red number overtop the "Messenger" section. The desktop website correctly shows that no, it's been quite some time since anybody sent an direct messages. The mobile website will not display the non-existent messages, and instead tells the user to install the Messenger application.
Zanfa 5y ago
That would definitely explain why facebook.com still has had the exact same unread messages counter bug from 2014 that they used as a case-study for the React/Flux announcement video[1]. They just don't care. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYkdrAPrdcw&t=887s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYkdrAPrdcw&t=887s

wpietri 5y ago

And not just Meta! I browse Reddit mostly via Firefox on my tablet. It's very unreliable. And every day it has this sad, "This page looks better in the app" banner at the bottom. I just can't imagine asking an engineer, "Hey, can you make your web app continuously talk trash about how much your work sucks?" And it's the same deal with Twitter. All sorts of bugs on mobile Firefox, some of them which I've been tripping over daily for years. When I worked at Twitter some years back, the web version was the red-headed stepchild of the clients. The engineers on it were nice and smart, but the team was underresourced and the client was treated as secondary to the mobile apps.

jmrm 5y ago
Reddit actual web interface is really bad in every web browser, mobile or computer. The only difference is that in the computer it can have a lot more of resources to waste. Boost, Relay and BaconReader are pretty good to browse Reddit in Android phones, and I know Apollo or narwhal are also good for iOS.
mtberatwork 5y ago
This is odd because the web version is almost always the first experience for a new user of the platform.

MereInterest 5y ago

Not just that, but it actively and blatantly lies to users. For the past few years, facebook has displayed the red number overtop the "Messenger" section. The desktop website correctly shows that no, it's been quite some time since anybody sent an direct messages. The mobile website will not display the non-existent messages, and instead tells the user to install the Messenger application.

Zanfa 5y ago

That would definitely explain why facebook.com still has had the exact same unread messages counter bug from 2014 that they used as a case-study for the React/Flux announcement video[1]. They just don't care. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYkdrAPrdcw&t=887s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYkdrAPrdcw&t=887s