18 ms·

I have a different take: The main problem with reddit is in how badly it's bungled its several different redesigns over the last few years, and how it's slowly

I have a different take: The main problem with reddit is in how badly it's bungled its several different redesigns over the last few years, and how it's slowly ruined its users' experience in misguided attempts to drive mobile traffic to its app. Right now, here's the process for browsing a subreddit on mobile without the (ads and tracking loaded) reddit app: 1. Navigate to subreddit. Find out which of two (non-NSFW) or three (NSFW) "experiences" reddit decides to give me on mobile. 2. Depending on experience, jump through hoops including random "get the app!" prompts, failures to load content, failures to load nested comments, and outright refusal to display all the content in a thread unless I install the app. 3. If on an NSFW subreddit, and on about 50% of "unapproved" non-NSFW subreddits: Be blocked from viewing any additional content by an unremovable prompt. (Often, content loads in before the prompt, so you enjoy about 30 seconds of looking at your content before it's blocked.) 4. Give up, and go to old.reddit.com, which is ugly and not designed for mobile, but at least works okay. Desktop isn't much better, but I have long had browser extensions installed that redirect everything to old.reddit.com on most of my browsers, so it becomes less of an issue. If reddit took away my ability to use old.reddit.com, I'd probably stop browsing the site within weeks.

tux2bsd 4y ago
- noasaservice 4y ago
  So you're against treating people with respect and dignity? That's what your little "woke" slur means.
  - tux2bsd 4y ago
  - kfrzcode 4y ago
    No, xer right it's a cesspit of self-proclaimed wokensheep
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - tux2bsd 4y ago
      - glitchcrab 4y ago
        Oh stop being argumentative for the sake of it. You're presuming to know their gender - you don't. Therefore the correct pronoun in this instance is 'they'. Not everything is about wokeism.
        tux2bsd 4y ago
        > Not everything is about wokeism. It changed "they're" to "xer", looks like you're wrong.
        glitchcrab 4y ago
        Had you thought that they may have done that to troll you because you're being unnecessarily argumentative? And yes, I said 'they' because I do not presume to know their gender, unlike yourself it seems. Not because I am being 'woke'.
        tux2bsd 4y ago
        Of course it was trolling. You're not being woke, you are woke.
        glitchcrab 4y ago
        Yes, you're a fool.
        tux2bsd 4y ago
        No.
  - unconed 4y ago
    Woke refers to an ideology that, among other things, uses manipulative arguments, framing and emotional appeals to hide the fact that it is intellectual quicksand, serving people who want to morally elevate themselves without substance. Exactly like you just did.
    - Capricorn2481 4y ago
      You just described both sides of the political spectrum for the past four decades, but chose to use a word that frames it as a unique phenomenon that is only applicable to a very specific kind of person. The "woke" insult has even less substance than what it's desperately trying to criticize.
      - tux2bsd 4y ago
        > The "woke" insult That's one hell of self inflicted insult if that's how you feel. To quote myself: "Woke is used because we know who we're referring to, as do you."
    - bawolff 4y ago
      You're basically just calling people names that have no commonly agreed definition. Something something about glass houses and stones.
      - unconed 4y ago
        Why would it not have a definition? Here's one. "Woke": an extreme form of contradictory progressivism popularized in the 2010s, which favors censorship and ostracization over intellectual engagement. The idea that you can't define it is an example of the dynamics at play. The notion that non-woke people know exactly what's going on is unbearable to the woke. It implies that they are not at all "changing the status quo", but that they are the status quo. That their rebellious ideology is in fact the norm in corporate HR departments and colleges everywhere. That their behavior is in no way welcome, or positive, or empathetic, and is really just a LARP of the social causes of the late 20th century, divorced from principle and fact.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- zorpner 4y ago
  Can you be more specific about what you mean by "woke"?
  - tux2bsd 4y ago
    - jq-r 4y ago
      Woke people also drink H2O, eat bread, and use a computer. Just like you.
      - tux2bsd 4y ago
  - Akronymus 4y ago
    Seeing injustices in every single thing. For example, feeling the need to constantly call out microagressions or constantly having to advertise that they are virtuous people.
    - tux2bsd 4y ago
      Douglas Murray - What it Means to be Woke [3m30s] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_APjzWh5d0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_APjzWh5d0o
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  We won't agree on whether reddit becoming politically more leftist is a good thing or not. But setting aside whether we want it to be, I'm not convinced the evidence is compelling that that's what's happened, or that if it has, that a community which wasn't "woke" wouldn't suffer all the other problems reddit suffers. Blaming politics you don't like is convenient, but not always helpful or accurate.
  - tux2bsd 4y ago
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Why? The poster expressed an opinion. Seems like they are living an opinionful life. Don't mistake people disagreeing with you for people failing to hold an opinion. Those are two very different things.
      - tux2bsd 4y ago
- bawolff 4y ago
  If there is one thing about reddit, its that its not politically contiguous - different parts have different cultures.
  - pseudo0 4y ago
    Decent niche subreddits still exist, but there has been significant concentration of moderation power in a small clique [0]. And that doesn't include the widespread use of alts for mod accounts. Multiple times now I have seen good subreddits go to shit after a new mod gets parachuted in on the "advice" of reddit staff, and then threads suddenly start getting closed with "y'all can't behave" as the justification. The number of subreddits I bother to check has dwindled down to 2-3, and when those are gone I will stop using the site entirely. [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchRedditDie/comments/gkkfg5/updated_and_sanitized_six_powermods_control_118/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchRedditDie/comments/gkkfg5/upda...
- spamuel 4y ago
  I'm going to disagee (kind of) - Reddit mods aren't woke. I think that reddit mods used the woke moment as a casus belli to consolidate power on the platform. The same thing is going on right now politically and culturally in the United States. There is an excusable reason to publicly and overtly eject people who do not have allegiances to specific hierarchies of power in institutions. And in this moment those hierarchies are doing what they can to purge their domain of the dissidents. The language of wokeness (and wokeness is very language-driven) is a tribal marker. Its use or rejection signals friend and foe. Even states are engaging in these purges by passing laws that their loyalists will endure if it means driving out the people not in the tribe. I can state prominent "left" and "right" wing examples of this, but for the sake of civility I will not. Edit: I say the mods aren't woke but cynical because while they embrace wokeness, they are not like the radical academics that wokeness sprang from. People who did a lot of reading, and have very esoteric knowledge and reasoning for the things wokeness represents. Most of the reddit mods seem to have just adopted that mantle for purposes of friend-enemy distinction.
  - tux2bsd 4y ago
    - spamuel 4y ago
      Some people genuinely believe in these things. I met a lot of lefty weirdos at house parties in California who would explain these ideas to me with nothing but love, even though they knew I did not agree. But we still drank and ate together and enjoyed the party. I would call them "woke", but not malintentioned. The people using these things as cudgels are not the same as the people who just believed they were describing the dynamics of the world. It seems similar to me as the difference between early Christians, and the much later elites who would go on to sell indulgences while imprisoning and hacking off the heads of people who wouldn't agree submit to the regime in both thought and action. Maybe I'm splitting too fine a hair.
thematrixturtle 4y ago
Just use a third-party app like RIF, and you'll get a fast, minimalist, customizable interface plus privacy.
endtime 4y ago
I use the app Joey on Android, works great. I still use old.reddit.com on desktop, and probably always will.
- toastal 4y ago
  Infinity is good and on F-Droid unlike other mentioned options
- Angostura 4y ago
  Apollo on iOS.
- speps 4y ago
  Boost is excellent too https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayayo.reddit https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayay...
- winternett 4y ago
  redditp.com is my usual go to... No comments or likes, just the content... You can alter the url to show subs only (e.g. redditp.com/r/#) and it works without a log-in, provided v.reddit doesn't go unresponsive (which happens a lot no matter what).
ars 4y ago
https://i.reddit.com/ https://i.reddit.com/ is the good one for mobile.
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  I didn't even realize this still functioned. Thanks.
a_e_k 4y ago
> 4. Give up, and go to old.reddit.com, which is ugly and not designed for mobile, but at least works okay. I use i.reddit.com for this. (Thank goodness it still works.)
- happymellon 4y ago
  Oh wow, i.reddit.com. I had forgotten about that one.
- sph 4y ago
  It's pretty buggy and unmaintained, when you scroll down entries past #20 start repeating.
sannysanoff 4y ago
stopped using reddit after they introduced new design. My browser struggles scrolling it smoothly (in most compressed mode). Too complex DOM they put there. Lack of programming skills.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  The tech aspect is problematic but to me it shows they don't understand what made reddit special. It's was that borked website that made people have nice convos and spaces(if you don't look at r/donald etc). The programming/UX was almost irrelevant, it was the social spirit behind that made it interesting.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    It’s especially ironic given that Reddit owed much of its early popularity to the Digg exodus after a similarly myopic redesign. Nothing changes.
    - agumonkey 4y ago
      oh I forgot that part. It might a long chain of second system effect.. who's the new reddit ? :)
multjoy 4y ago
If you use iPhone, then use Apollo. If you use Android, then Sync. The official apps have always been dire.
- Markoff 4y ago
  I find Boost for Reddit way better than Sync (used both), but in the end it's about personal preference, there are 1-2 other decent clients, though Boost and Sync are probably ahead of competition.
- Macha 4y ago
  Note that the API doesn't provide third party clients with access to newer features like polls, chat or the new inbuilt subreddit reaction emoji. So I think that's a precursor to reddit limiting then further in the medium term
  - dvngnt_ 4y ago
    good
- mnahkies 4y ago
  I find https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit good on Android too
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rg111 4y ago
Just use Infinity[0][1]. Fully FOSS, private, and all ads removed. [0]: https://f-droid.org/packages/ml.docilealligator.infinityforreddit/ https://f-droid.org/packages/ml.docilealligator.infinityforr... [1]: https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit
gardnr 4y ago
I switched to using a self-hosted libreddit[1] instance for these same reasons. It's a death knell when someone creates an alternative frontend for your website because the usability is so bad. Libreddit did just that for Reddit. It fixes/removes all the bullshit that Reddit introduced in the last 10 years. [1] https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit
- Akronymus 4y ago
  Along with libreddit I use nitter for twitter. (Because twitter doesnät work at all with JS disabled and gives log in popups if it is enabled)
ewindal 4y ago
> Give up, and go to old.reddit.com, which is ugly and not designed for mobile, but at least works okay. Wait, are you kidding? I thought you were talking about using it on desktop. New reddit is literally unusable on mobile. This is what it looks like for me (https://imgur.com/a/pa07d2c https://imgur.com/a/pa07d2c). New reddit isn’t just unusable, it is literally nonfunctional. I can only imagine it’s been deliberately destroyed to drive people away from the web over to the app. They do something similar with links. All links from new reddit have their underscores "escaped" with \. Basically they corrupt the URL. If you’re on old reddit, you get these bad links and have to fix them yourself, but new reddit does it for you, of course.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Yep I quit after I couldn't browse some video game sub in the browser because it was marked "NSFW". Having to manually go in and change the subdomain is doable, but gets obnoxious over and over again especially as I hate mobile text editing.
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  This is one problem I personally haven't had, but I completely believe you that it's happening given all the other nonsense.
lapcat 4y ago
If I may self-promote, my mobile Safari extension StopTheMadness can stop the NSFW and "get the app" popups on Reddit. It can also automatically redirect to old.reddit.com. https://apps.apple.com/app/stopthemadness-mobile/id1583082931 https://apps.apple.com/app/stopthemadness-mobile/id158308293...
amp108 4y ago
> Right now, here's the process for browsing a subreddit on mobile without the (ads and tracking loaded) reddit app: 1. Use rif is fun for Reddit (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu.android.reddit&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu....), or other third-party apps.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

tux2bsd 4y ago

noasaservice 4y ago
So you're against treating people with respect and dignity? That's what your little "woke" slur means.
- tux2bsd 4y ago
- kfrzcode 4y ago
  No, xer right it's a cesspit of self-proclaimed wokensheep
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tux2bsd 4y ago
    - glitchcrab 4y ago
      Oh stop being argumentative for the sake of it. You're presuming to know their gender - you don't. Therefore the correct pronoun in this instance is 'they'. Not everything is about wokeism.
      - tux2bsd 4y ago
        > Not everything is about wokeism. It changed "they're" to "xer", looks like you're wrong.
        glitchcrab 4y ago
        Had you thought that they may have done that to troll you because you're being unnecessarily argumentative? And yes, I said 'they' because I do not presume to know their gender, unlike yourself it seems. Not because I am being 'woke'.
        tux2bsd 4y ago
        Of course it was trolling. You're not being woke, you are woke.
        glitchcrab 4y ago
        Yes, you're a fool.
        tux2bsd 4y ago
        No.
- unconed 4y ago
  Woke refers to an ideology that, among other things, uses manipulative arguments, framing and emotional appeals to hide the fact that it is intellectual quicksand, serving people who want to morally elevate themselves without substance. Exactly like you just did.
  - Capricorn2481 4y ago
    You just described both sides of the political spectrum for the past four decades, but chose to use a word that frames it as a unique phenomenon that is only applicable to a very specific kind of person. The "woke" insult has even less substance than what it's desperately trying to criticize.
    - tux2bsd 4y ago
      > The "woke" insult That's one hell of self inflicted insult if that's how you feel. To quote myself: "Woke is used because we know who we're referring to, as do you."
  - bawolff 4y ago
    You're basically just calling people names that have no commonly agreed definition. Something something about glass houses and stones.
    - unconed 4y ago
      Why would it not have a definition? Here's one. "Woke": an extreme form of contradictory progressivism popularized in the 2010s, which favors censorship and ostracization over intellectual engagement. The idea that you can't define it is an example of the dynamics at play. The notion that non-woke people know exactly what's going on is unbearable to the woke. It implies that they are not at all "changing the status quo", but that they are the status quo. That their rebellious ideology is in fact the norm in corporate HR departments and colleges everywhere. That their behavior is in no way welcome, or positive, or empathetic, and is really just a LARP of the social causes of the late 20th century, divorced from principle and fact.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
zorpner 4y ago
Can you be more specific about what you mean by "woke"?
- tux2bsd 4y ago
  - jq-r 4y ago
    Woke people also drink H2O, eat bread, and use a computer. Just like you.
    - tux2bsd 4y ago
- Akronymus 4y ago
  Seeing injustices in every single thing. For example, feeling the need to constantly call out microagressions or constantly having to advertise that they are virtuous people.
  - tux2bsd 4y ago
    Douglas Murray - What it Means to be Woke [3m30s] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_APjzWh5d0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_APjzWh5d0o
ivraatiems 4y ago
We won't agree on whether reddit becoming politically more leftist is a good thing or not. But setting aside whether we want it to be, I'm not convinced the evidence is compelling that that's what's happened, or that if it has, that a community which wasn't "woke" wouldn't suffer all the other problems reddit suffers. Blaming politics you don't like is convenient, but not always helpful or accurate.
- tux2bsd 4y ago
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Why? The poster expressed an opinion. Seems like they are living an opinionful life. Don't mistake people disagreeing with you for people failing to hold an opinion. Those are two very different things.
    - tux2bsd 4y ago
bawolff 4y ago
If there is one thing about reddit, its that its not politically contiguous - different parts have different cultures.
- pseudo0 4y ago
  Decent niche subreddits still exist, but there has been significant concentration of moderation power in a small clique [0]. And that doesn't include the widespread use of alts for mod accounts. Multiple times now I have seen good subreddits go to shit after a new mod gets parachuted in on the "advice" of reddit staff, and then threads suddenly start getting closed with "y'all can't behave" as the justification. The number of subreddits I bother to check has dwindled down to 2-3, and when those are gone I will stop using the site entirely. [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchRedditDie/comments/gkkfg5/updated_and_sanitized_six_powermods_control_118/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchRedditDie/comments/gkkfg5/upda...
spamuel 4y ago
I'm going to disagee (kind of) - Reddit mods aren't woke. I think that reddit mods used the woke moment as a casus belli to consolidate power on the platform. The same thing is going on right now politically and culturally in the United States. There is an excusable reason to publicly and overtly eject people who do not have allegiances to specific hierarchies of power in institutions. And in this moment those hierarchies are doing what they can to purge their domain of the dissidents. The language of wokeness (and wokeness is very language-driven) is a tribal marker. Its use or rejection signals friend and foe. Even states are engaging in these purges by passing laws that their loyalists will endure if it means driving out the people not in the tribe. I can state prominent "left" and "right" wing examples of this, but for the sake of civility I will not. Edit: I say the mods aren't woke but cynical because while they embrace wokeness, they are not like the radical academics that wokeness sprang from. People who did a lot of reading, and have very esoteric knowledge and reasoning for the things wokeness represents. Most of the reddit mods seem to have just adopted that mantle for purposes of friend-enemy distinction.
- tux2bsd 4y ago
  - spamuel 4y ago
    Some people genuinely believe in these things. I met a lot of lefty weirdos at house parties in California who would explain these ideas to me with nothing but love, even though they knew I did not agree. But we still drank and ate together and enjoyed the party. I would call them "woke", but not malintentioned. The people using these things as cudgels are not the same as the people who just believed they were describing the dynamics of the world. It seems similar to me as the difference between early Christians, and the much later elites who would go on to sell indulgences while imprisoning and hacking off the heads of people who wouldn't agree submit to the regime in both thought and action. Maybe I'm splitting too fine a hair.

thematrixturtle 4y ago

Just use a third-party app like RIF, and you'll get a fast, minimalist, customizable interface plus privacy.

endtime 4y ago

I use the app Joey on Android, works great. I still use old.reddit.com on desktop, and probably always will.

toastal 4y ago
Infinity is good and on F-Droid unlike other mentioned options
Angostura 4y ago
Apollo on iOS.
speps 4y ago
Boost is excellent too https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayayo.reddit https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayay...
winternett 4y ago
redditp.com is my usual go to... No comments or likes, just the content... You can alter the url to show subs only (e.g. redditp.com/r/#) and it works without a log-in, provided v.reddit doesn't go unresponsive (which happens a lot no matter what).

ars 4y ago

https://i.reddit.com/ https://i.reddit.com/ is the good one for mobile.

ivraatiems 4y ago
I didn't even realize this still functioned. Thanks.

a_e_k 4y ago

> 4. Give up, and go to old.reddit.com, which is ugly and not designed for mobile, but at least works okay. I use i.reddit.com for this. (Thank goodness it still works.)

happymellon 4y ago
Oh wow, i.reddit.com. I had forgotten about that one.
sph 4y ago
It's pretty buggy and unmaintained, when you scroll down entries past #20 start repeating.

sannysanoff 4y ago

stopped using reddit after they introduced new design. My browser struggles scrolling it smoothly (in most compressed mode). Too complex DOM they put there. Lack of programming skills.

agumonkey 4y ago
The tech aspect is problematic but to me it shows they don't understand what made reddit special. It's was that borked website that made people have nice convos and spaces(if you don't look at r/donald etc). The programming/UX was almost irrelevant, it was the social spirit behind that made it interesting.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  It’s especially ironic given that Reddit owed much of its early popularity to the Digg exodus after a similarly myopic redesign. Nothing changes.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    oh I forgot that part. It might a long chain of second system effect.. who's the new reddit ? :)

multjoy 4y ago

If you use iPhone, then use Apollo. If you use Android, then Sync. The official apps have always been dire.

Markoff 4y ago
I find Boost for Reddit way better than Sync (used both), but in the end it's about personal preference, there are 1-2 other decent clients, though Boost and Sync are probably ahead of competition.
Macha 4y ago
Note that the API doesn't provide third party clients with access to newer features like polls, chat or the new inbuilt subreddit reaction emoji. So I think that's a precursor to reddit limiting then further in the medium term
- dvngnt_ 4y ago
  good
mnahkies 4y ago
I find https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit good on Android too
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

rg111 4y ago

Just use Infinity[0][1]. Fully FOSS, private, and all ads removed. [0]: https://f-droid.org/packages/ml.docilealligator.infinityforreddit/ https://f-droid.org/packages/ml.docilealligator.infinityforr... [1]: https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit

gardnr 4y ago

I switched to using a self-hosted libreddit[1] instance for these same reasons. It's a death knell when someone creates an alternative frontend for your website because the usability is so bad. Libreddit did just that for Reddit. It fixes/removes all the bullshit that Reddit introduced in the last 10 years. [1] https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit

Akronymus 4y ago
Along with libreddit I use nitter for twitter. (Because twitter doesnät work at all with JS disabled and gives log in popups if it is enabled)

ewindal 4y ago

> Give up, and go to old.reddit.com, which is ugly and not designed for mobile, but at least works okay. Wait, are you kidding? I thought you were talking about using it on desktop. New reddit is literally unusable on mobile. This is what it looks like for me (https://imgur.com/a/pa07d2c https://imgur.com/a/pa07d2c). New reddit isn’t just unusable, it is literally nonfunctional. I can only imagine it’s been deliberately destroyed to drive people away from the web over to the app. They do something similar with links. All links from new reddit have their underscores "escaped" with \. Basically they corrupt the URL. If you’re on old reddit, you get these bad links and have to fix them yourself, but new reddit does it for you, of course.

the_only_law 4y ago
Yep I quit after I couldn't browse some video game sub in the browser because it was marked "NSFW". Having to manually go in and change the subdomain is doable, but gets obnoxious over and over again especially as I hate mobile text editing.
ivraatiems 4y ago
This is one problem I personally haven't had, but I completely believe you that it's happening given all the other nonsense.

lapcat 4y ago

If I may self-promote, my mobile Safari extension StopTheMadness can stop the NSFW and "get the app" popups on Reddit. It can also automatically redirect to old.reddit.com. https://apps.apple.com/app/stopthemadness-mobile/id1583082931 https://apps.apple.com/app/stopthemadness-mobile/id158308293...

amp108 4y ago

> Right now, here's the process for browsing a subreddit on mobile without the (ads and tracking loaded) reddit app: 1. Use rif is fun for Reddit (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu.android.reddit&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu....), or other third-party apps.

deleted 4y ago

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deleted 4y ago

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