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old.reddit users are like 2% of pageviews now, 5-10% of uniques (Source - traffic stats for a mid-sized sub), they could just phase it out. By contrast the off

old.reddit users are like 2% of pageviews now, 5-10% of uniques (Source - traffic stats for a mid-sized sub), they could just phase it out. By contrast the official mobile app has become the overwhelming way that people consume the site's content. Edit: added uniques

uncletammy 4y ago
Don't forget that you can use new.reddit.com while logged in with your account that is configured to show you the old layout. This skews the numbers on how many people will bail once they drop support for the old layout. I'll definitely be part of that exodus and it will surely be bigger than 2%.
lrem 4y ago
That's exactly the kind of calculation that led to phasing out Google Reader. How did that go? ;)
- talkin 4y ago
  It never ‘led to’. That just happens to be the publicly communicated reason; RSS had to go for strategic reasons.
carom 4y ago
I'd be really curious on that breakdown of comment/posting volume. Reddit has a lot of lurkers.
Nextgrid 4y ago
I wonder how many of these users are contributors? I could imagine that these 2% might be power users that could be contributing significantly more than a casual user on the new UI?
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  I would presume that, especially since those users are disproportionately at a computer where it's simply easy to contribute.
  - alpaca128 4y ago
    Only Reddit knows how much old UI users contribute, user activity in online communities is very unevenly distributed. In the end running the old version probably doesn't cost Reddit much, nobody expects them to update or maintain it and so they have no reason to shut it down as long as it keeps working. It isn't worth the inevitable backlash.
    - faeriechangling 4y ago
      Yeah I generally agree with that, I just think reddit is at the point of not giving a shit if they break the old.reddit site, and that somebody in every meeting is probably calling for them to axe it entirely, and if they actually did that it wouldn't kill the site even if it would be bad for it. I honestly think one of the biggest issues with axing old reddit is that old reddit users are disproportionately moderators (even though new reddit has unique mod tools). Reddit survives off of unpaid labour, it may be a bit wise to rock the apple cart too much.
    - romwell 4y ago
      >Only Reddit knows how much old UI users contribute, user activity in online communities is very unevenly distributed. Which is why they don't phase https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com out. They know the contributors use the "old" reddit. Also the reason why they don't publish those stats. Too ashamed.
- lhnz 4y ago
  Yes, based on this, it is possible that the quality of conversation could get worse.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    I feel pretty strongly that the quality suffering is also a reflection of the type of engagement the new layout encourages.
- swarnie 4y ago
  Does it make a difference if they contribute or not? All you really want them to do is view the ads.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    You need some content to put next to the ads to encourage users to go there.
    - swarnie 4y ago
      Its Reddit, the bots will just repost something from a few days ago. For the vast majority reddit is just the 15 or so default subs ran by a tiny number of power mods regurgitating content. Has been for years now.
      - bigDinosaur 4y ago
        It's easy to forget how strong the filter bubble is on Reddit. I very rarely encounter any of the gigantic subs and to me, the quality of discussion is fairly good. But geez, if everything devolves to r/politics then I'm out, permanently.
KptMarchewa 4y ago
Does that include RES where I access reddit via normal URL but it still displays old experience?
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  Not sure, their traffic stats page isn't super informative. It just has a breakdown of old reddit / new reddit / mobile web / official app. 3rd party apps are not counted.
  - aynsof 4y ago
    Are these analytics coming from Reddit themselves? Call me paranoid, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that they were massaging numbers to make it seem like fewer users were hitting old reddit.
    - faeriechangling 4y ago
      They are coming from Reddit's own analytics. I do find it interesting how many more pageviews they see on mobile vs uniques?
wrboyce 4y ago
To add another statistic, I'm seeing 3500 uniques from old reddit and nearly 15k from new reddit (plus 3000 mobile web and nearly 90k from "Reddit Apps") last month; the subreddit has ~1.5m subscribers and is heavily image based.
sph 4y ago
How many are on New Reddit? From a cursory research, the subreddit stats are split in "Reddit Apps", Mobile Web, Old Reddit and New Reddit. Since 72% of Reddit users are on mobile [1], the difference is smaller than your comment suggests. 1: https://backlinko.com/reddit-users#reddit-statistics https://backlinko.com/reddit-users#reddit-statistics
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  My breakdown of page views (sampled for 2 months) is 78% - official mobile app 14% - new reddit 6% - mobile web 2% - old reddit ??% - 3rd party mobile apps (not counted) Uniques are basically the same way but skewed towards the desktop more than mobile.
throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
>By contrast the official mobile app has become the overwhelming way that people consume the site's content. because it's forced down people's throat. you can't read anything there except possibly for the default subs populated with shills and redditors. you get "unreviewed content, please install our botnet to proceed" popup as soon as you scroll down half a screen past the op
- d_tr 4y ago
  If I want to read something on Reddit on my phone I just use Chrome's "Desktop site" option. Everything about these nags is idiotic to the point of insulting the user's intelligence. The randomness, the timing, and the messages themselves. What is the browser for then? Is a browser such as Chrome not enough for a fucking forum in 2022? This circlejerk is completely out of control.
  - nannal 4y ago
    > insulting the user's intelligence. If it's true that the majority of users are using the app, does that not suggest that it's effective?
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    I put .compact at the end of the URL for mobile viewing: https://www.reddit.com/.compact https://www.reddit.com/.compact
    - username923409 4y ago
      the same result can be achieved by replacing www. with i. (for some reason it redirects on desktop, it works on mobile though)
      - snowwrestler 4y ago
        I love that there are like 5 different ways to get around Reddit’s new site design.
rolandog 4y ago
Does usage by third-party apps get bundled with the official mobile app?
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  No, they're not tracked at all.
GuB-42 4y ago
It may be one of these cases where most users are on the new Reddit, but "old" has the most valuable users. That is: top posters, moderators, etc... that is, the reason people go to Reddit in the first place.
goodguyamerikan 4y ago
Except not everything is about percentages. It's the same calculation Ballmer (big fan otherwise) did to let windows terminal rot. You need to multiply this with their effectiveness. Are those people looking at ads and making money for reddit directly? Probably 99% of them have adblock and res installed. But those are also likely to be the kind of users who would build bots and extensions for your website and help its growth.
- fendy3002 4y ago
  Well the thing is those who use new layout are more likely casual users that have no res or adblock installed, compared to old reddit users.
- tarboreus 4y ago
  A lot of people who actually create content or administer subs are on the old site, I have to guess.
throwaway6734 4y ago
Anecdotally I would stop using Reddit if they for rid of old reddit. The new design is shit
dspillett 4y ago
> the official mobile app has become the overwhelming way that people consume the site's content By virtue of them making it unpleasant to use the site on a mobile device other ways. Of course “most people using Reddit on mobile do so via the app” masks the fact that a fair few, including myself, simply no longer use Reddit on mobile at all. Though I assume we are a small enough minority that they don't care about losing us in the push to force the rest towards the app.
- can16358p 4y ago
  Only mobile? The "new" (several years now but anyway) interface on web is super bloated. I'n not talking about ads, I get it, you serve ads and monetize, but the interface is sluggish to scroll smoothly, I can literally feel a complete lag almost close to a second when clicking a link, all on a newest MacBook Pro that keeps running smoothly at 120Hz at any other website other than reddit. Seriously, they are killing themselves for no reason. Whoever greenlighted the new web should be fired immediately, if not already.
  - BigJ1211 4y ago
    I'd recommend using [Apollo](https://apolloapp.io/ https://apolloapp.io/) on iOS and Apple silicon MacOS devices. I use that almost exclusively these days, as their web interface is absolute ass by comparison (their own reddit app is as well)
    - dspillett 4y ago
      To be frank, if a service makes using their stuff unpleasant for me, I'll just try not use the service rather than installing third-party apps. In fact there is very little “try” involved in this case, avoiding Reddit on mobile completely and only occasionally bothering on desktop when it comes up in specific searches or passed on links, doesn't leave me feeling I'm missing out on anything useful.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Indeed I don't think the new UI was caused by a desire to increase engagement. All the dark patterns and annoyances can trivially be implemented on the old UI, up to the slowness if needed (just add sleep(500) on every HTTP endpoint). I believe the problem is that there's a significant frontend/JS team (along with managers, etc) that needed something to do so a rewrite was planned. It probably started with good intentions (and the initial MVP/prototype probably was lightning-fast), but now once all the bloat is they ended up with a pile of shit, but bonuses have been paid, people have been hired/promoted and can brag about this new "achievement" on their resumes, so turning back while saving face is impossible.
tarsinge 4y ago
Yeah, there is no such thing as migration, Reddit is reddit.com. Yes the new interface is awful, buggy, etc... But that's what Reddit is. The majority of Reddit users only know the new interface. Can you use old.facebook.com or old.youtube.com? Were they better before? Maybe, but that's irrelevant it's the past, old.reddit.com is a special easter egg for old timers at that point.
SyzygistSix 4y ago
That makes sense as the newer design seems to encourage the more superficial and judgemental type of engagement and conversation that dominates the site. Other than small subreddit communities, the quality has been dismal for a while. At this point I would consider moving a valuable community that I was invested in and considered worth saving to one of the reddit alternatives.
- scarab92 4y ago
  Are the niche subreddits still a safe haven from the superficial glib comments that dominate the default subs? They used to be, but there's so much cross pollination that I no longer find them tolerable either.
joepie91_ 4y ago
That approach to customer retention is exactly how you sink companies.
throw0101a 4y ago
Some folks may have "Use new Reddit as my default experience" unchecked under Preferences (waaaaay at the bottom, under "beta options"): * https://old.reddit.com/prefs/ https://old.reddit.com/prefs/
BeFlatXIII 4y ago
How do those percentages change when only considering the top 10% of users?
romwell 4y ago
>old.reddit users are like 2% of pageviews now, 5-10% of uniques (Source - traffic stats for a mid-sized sub), they could just phase it out. Yes, let's just phase it out, and drive away people who actually contribute to that forum by adding the comments and posts that are reason d'etre of reddit. Go figure, you didn't include posts, comments, and karma breakdown in that analysis.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  To be clear, I’m getting my stats from Reddit, who provides no information on those topics.
  - romwell 4y ago
    Yes, but without this information one can't arrive at the conclusion that it's OK to phase out https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com The information you provided may not serve as a basis for such conclusion.

uncletammy 4y ago

Don't forget that you can use new.reddit.com while logged in with your account that is configured to show you the old layout. This skews the numbers on how many people will bail once they drop support for the old layout. I'll definitely be part of that exodus and it will surely be bigger than 2%.

lrem 4y ago

That's exactly the kind of calculation that led to phasing out Google Reader. How did that go? ;)

talkin 4y ago
It never ‘led to’. That just happens to be the publicly communicated reason; RSS had to go for strategic reasons.

carom 4y ago

I'd be really curious on that breakdown of comment/posting volume. Reddit has a lot of lurkers.

Nextgrid 4y ago

I wonder how many of these users are contributors? I could imagine that these 2% might be power users that could be contributing significantly more than a casual user on the new UI?

faeriechangling 4y ago
I would presume that, especially since those users are disproportionately at a computer where it's simply easy to contribute.
- alpaca128 4y ago
  Only Reddit knows how much old UI users contribute, user activity in online communities is very unevenly distributed. In the end running the old version probably doesn't cost Reddit much, nobody expects them to update or maintain it and so they have no reason to shut it down as long as it keeps working. It isn't worth the inevitable backlash.
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    Yeah I generally agree with that, I just think reddit is at the point of not giving a shit if they break the old.reddit site, and that somebody in every meeting is probably calling for them to axe it entirely, and if they actually did that it wouldn't kill the site even if it would be bad for it. I honestly think one of the biggest issues with axing old reddit is that old reddit users are disproportionately moderators (even though new reddit has unique mod tools). Reddit survives off of unpaid labour, it may be a bit wise to rock the apple cart too much.
  - romwell 4y ago
    >Only Reddit knows how much old UI users contribute, user activity in online communities is very unevenly distributed. Which is why they don't phase https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com out. They know the contributors use the "old" reddit. Also the reason why they don't publish those stats. Too ashamed.
lhnz 4y ago
Yes, based on this, it is possible that the quality of conversation could get worse.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  I feel pretty strongly that the quality suffering is also a reflection of the type of engagement the new layout encourages.
swarnie 4y ago
Does it make a difference if they contribute or not? All you really want them to do is view the ads.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  You need some content to put next to the ads to encourage users to go there.
  - swarnie 4y ago
    Its Reddit, the bots will just repost something from a few days ago. For the vast majority reddit is just the 15 or so default subs ran by a tiny number of power mods regurgitating content. Has been for years now.
    - bigDinosaur 4y ago
      It's easy to forget how strong the filter bubble is on Reddit. I very rarely encounter any of the gigantic subs and to me, the quality of discussion is fairly good. But geez, if everything devolves to r/politics then I'm out, permanently.

KptMarchewa 4y ago

Does that include RES where I access reddit via normal URL but it still displays old experience?

faeriechangling 4y ago
Not sure, their traffic stats page isn't super informative. It just has a breakdown of old reddit / new reddit / mobile web / official app. 3rd party apps are not counted.
- aynsof 4y ago
  Are these analytics coming from Reddit themselves? Call me paranoid, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that they were massaging numbers to make it seem like fewer users were hitting old reddit.
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    They are coming from Reddit's own analytics. I do find it interesting how many more pageviews they see on mobile vs uniques?

wrboyce 4y ago

To add another statistic, I'm seeing 3500 uniques from old reddit and nearly 15k from new reddit (plus 3000 mobile web and nearly 90k from "Reddit Apps") last month; the subreddit has ~1.5m subscribers and is heavily image based.

sph 4y ago

How many are on New Reddit? From a cursory research, the subreddit stats are split in "Reddit Apps", Mobile Web, Old Reddit and New Reddit. Since 72% of Reddit users are on mobile [1], the difference is smaller than your comment suggests. 1: https://backlinko.com/reddit-users#reddit-statistics https://backlinko.com/reddit-users#reddit-statistics

faeriechangling 4y ago
My breakdown of page views (sampled for 2 months) is 78% - official mobile app 14% - new reddit 6% - mobile web 2% - old reddit ??% - 3rd party mobile apps (not counted) Uniques are basically the same way but skewed towards the desktop more than mobile.

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago

>By contrast the official mobile app has become the overwhelming way that people consume the site's content. because it's forced down people's throat. you can't read anything there except possibly for the default subs populated with shills and redditors. you get "unreviewed content, please install our botnet to proceed" popup as soon as you scroll down half a screen past the op

d_tr 4y ago
If I want to read something on Reddit on my phone I just use Chrome's "Desktop site" option. Everything about these nags is idiotic to the point of insulting the user's intelligence. The randomness, the timing, and the messages themselves. What is the browser for then? Is a browser such as Chrome not enough for a fucking forum in 2022? This circlejerk is completely out of control.
- nannal 4y ago
  > insulting the user's intelligence. If it's true that the majority of users are using the app, does that not suggest that it's effective?
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  I put .compact at the end of the URL for mobile viewing: https://www.reddit.com/.compact https://www.reddit.com/.compact
  - username923409 4y ago
    the same result can be achieved by replacing www. with i. (for some reason it redirects on desktop, it works on mobile though)
    - snowwrestler 4y ago
      I love that there are like 5 different ways to get around Reddit’s new site design.

rolandog 4y ago

Does usage by third-party apps get bundled with the official mobile app?

faeriechangling 4y ago
No, they're not tracked at all.

GuB-42 4y ago

It may be one of these cases where most users are on the new Reddit, but "old" has the most valuable users. That is: top posters, moderators, etc... that is, the reason people go to Reddit in the first place.

goodguyamerikan 4y ago

Except not everything is about percentages. It's the same calculation Ballmer (big fan otherwise) did to let windows terminal rot. You need to multiply this with their effectiveness. Are those people looking at ads and making money for reddit directly? Probably 99% of them have adblock and res installed. But those are also likely to be the kind of users who would build bots and extensions for your website and help its growth.

fendy3002 4y ago
Well the thing is those who use new layout are more likely casual users that have no res or adblock installed, compared to old reddit users.
tarboreus 4y ago
A lot of people who actually create content or administer subs are on the old site, I have to guess.

throwaway6734 4y ago

Anecdotally I would stop using Reddit if they for rid of old reddit. The new design is shit

dspillett 4y ago

> the official mobile app has become the overwhelming way that people consume the site's content By virtue of them making it unpleasant to use the site on a mobile device other ways. Of course “most people using Reddit on mobile do so via the app” masks the fact that a fair few, including myself, simply no longer use Reddit on mobile at all. Though I assume we are a small enough minority that they don't care about losing us in the push to force the rest towards the app.

can16358p 4y ago
Only mobile? The "new" (several years now but anyway) interface on web is super bloated. I'n not talking about ads, I get it, you serve ads and monetize, but the interface is sluggish to scroll smoothly, I can literally feel a complete lag almost close to a second when clicking a link, all on a newest MacBook Pro that keeps running smoothly at 120Hz at any other website other than reddit. Seriously, they are killing themselves for no reason. Whoever greenlighted the new web should be fired immediately, if not already.
- BigJ1211 4y ago
  I'd recommend using [Apollo](https://apolloapp.io/ https://apolloapp.io/) on iOS and Apple silicon MacOS devices. I use that almost exclusively these days, as their web interface is absolute ass by comparison (their own reddit app is as well)
  - dspillett 4y ago
    To be frank, if a service makes using their stuff unpleasant for me, I'll just try not use the service rather than installing third-party apps. In fact there is very little “try” involved in this case, avoiding Reddit on mobile completely and only occasionally bothering on desktop when it comes up in specific searches or passed on links, doesn't leave me feeling I'm missing out on anything useful.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Indeed I don't think the new UI was caused by a desire to increase engagement. All the dark patterns and annoyances can trivially be implemented on the old UI, up to the slowness if needed (just add sleep(500) on every HTTP endpoint). I believe the problem is that there's a significant frontend/JS team (along with managers, etc) that needed something to do so a rewrite was planned. It probably started with good intentions (and the initial MVP/prototype probably was lightning-fast), but now once all the bloat is they ended up with a pile of shit, but bonuses have been paid, people have been hired/promoted and can brag about this new "achievement" on their resumes, so turning back while saving face is impossible.

tarsinge 4y ago

Yeah, there is no such thing as migration, Reddit is reddit.com. Yes the new interface is awful, buggy, etc... But that's what Reddit is. The majority of Reddit users only know the new interface. Can you use old.facebook.com or old.youtube.com? Were they better before? Maybe, but that's irrelevant it's the past, old.reddit.com is a special easter egg for old timers at that point.

SyzygistSix 4y ago

That makes sense as the newer design seems to encourage the more superficial and judgemental type of engagement and conversation that dominates the site. Other than small subreddit communities, the quality has been dismal for a while. At this point I would consider moving a valuable community that I was invested in and considered worth saving to one of the reddit alternatives.

scarab92 4y ago
Are the niche subreddits still a safe haven from the superficial glib comments that dominate the default subs? They used to be, but there's so much cross pollination that I no longer find them tolerable either.

joepie91_ 4y ago

That approach to customer retention is exactly how you sink companies.

throw0101a 4y ago

Some folks may have "Use new Reddit as my default experience" unchecked under Preferences (waaaaay at the bottom, under "beta options"): * https://old.reddit.com/prefs/ https://old.reddit.com/prefs/

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

How do those percentages change when only considering the top 10% of users?

romwell 4y ago

>old.reddit users are like 2% of pageviews now, 5-10% of uniques (Source - traffic stats for a mid-sized sub), they could just phase it out. Yes, let's just phase it out, and drive away people who actually contribute to that forum by adding the comments and posts that are reason d'etre of reddit. Go figure, you didn't include posts, comments, and karma breakdown in that analysis.

faeriechangling 4y ago
To be clear, I’m getting my stats from Reddit, who provides no information on those topics.
- romwell 4y ago
  Yes, but without this information one can't arrive at the conclusion that it's OK to phase out https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com The information you provided may not serve as a basis for such conclusion.