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The smartest thing reddit has done was learn from Digg. They've done a FUCKLOAD of dumb stuff. A truly phenomenal amount. Some of the issues stem from just gr

The smartest thing reddit has done was learn from Digg. They've done a FUCKLOAD of dumb stuff. A truly phenomenal amount. Some of the issues stem from just growing and having your crowd change and EVERY marketing company out there working to control your content, but they have very impressively managed to make a baffling number of stupid decisions. But, you can opt out. It's dumb that you need to, it's dumb that they don't understand what they have, and that they're making what's currently failing (yet another facebook), and yet there's still a large variety of ways to make it not totally fucking awful. You can still just go to the subreddits you tolerate and ignore the rest, you can still browse in old mode, and you can block most of the ads and nonsense pretty trivially. It was very very smart of them to leave in that option, which while the most obvious fucking thing in the world to a person, is a near miracle for a company. Not forcing the new design (and a couple of other anti user practices) is one of the best decisions they ever made, and if you've EVER worked in a company rolling out a redesign that's supposed to up engagement and revenue, you have got to understand just how fucking rare anything like that is. I do wonder when it'll all go to shit finally, and I wonder what will take it's place (i've looked for the reddit of digg for reddit, and haven't seen much potential), but right now every day they don't force the redesign is a damn near miracle in a company of that size.

labrador 4y ago
the day the get rid of old.reddit.com I'll be gone looking for something more to my liking. The retro reddit is the best reddit.
- derwiki 4y ago
  I finally switched to a 3rd party app (Apollo) and _gee_ is it nice to use reddit without an actively hostile UI.
- permo-w 4y ago
  I first started using reddit in around 2015, so I never experienced the old reddit design when it was default. I tried old.reddit.com the other day, but I found it almost unbearable. not being used to it, I found it ugly and messy and overloaded with text. it loads twice as fast, though, and doesn't prioritise images over information, so I see the upside, but I do think a lot of the commentary here is nostalgia and just what people are used to
  - adamjb 4y ago
    The redesign was in 2018 so I'm not sure about that timeline
    - permo-w 4y ago
      the first few years I used the app
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - xtracto 4y ago
    I find your comment so funny, and it is right in a lot of regards. A very long time ago I was an avid slashdot reader (I had a 5 digit account long lost). I briefly went to Digh fir bit, and remember very early on visiting this "reddit" thing that was the new nerd thing. I remember loading the page, browsing a bit and moving on because of the ugly unusable UI that it had (not even sure if it has subs at that time). Fast forward all these years later, and I'm active on reddit but exclusively use the old.reddit version. The new one feels overloaded with stuff and my brain cant handle it. As you very well say, it's mostly a matter of our brains getting used to it. Now I go to slashdot And their comments system seems so broken. When at the time it was pretty good. The one thing I miss is the ability to quickly post as AnonymousCoward, instead of the throwaway account bullshit
  - Eji1700 4y ago
    > doesn't prioritise images over information This is, to me, the clincher. Is old reddit perfect? God no (i sometimes block certain elements to clean it up), but the information density is vastly better. I read/scan quickly and don't care much about images. I can very quickly see if there's anything of interest on the page i'm on, and then move on to something else, or queue up a few comment threads to read through in other tabs. If there's an image, it's usually trivial to quickly zoom in to look at it rather than even bothering to load it again (hit or miss depending on quality). It's obviously not perfect, but I don't think it's just nostalgia. I legit desire something fundamentally different that what new reddit is trying to offer. I'm looking for a website i wouldn't mind quickly browsing from the terminal using keyboard hotkeys, not something that I swipe forever on my phone with. Even on the phone though I prefer old reddit (was best on firefox for mobile with blockers but i'm back on apple so i need to look into my options.) Someone like me just wants more text based/information dense screens that can be quickly navigated and then drilled into if i desire more information/content.

labrador 4y ago

the day the get rid of old.reddit.com I'll be gone looking for something more to my liking. The retro reddit is the best reddit.

derwiki 4y ago
I finally switched to a 3rd party app (Apollo) and _gee_ is it nice to use reddit without an actively hostile UI.
permo-w 4y ago
I first started using reddit in around 2015, so I never experienced the old reddit design when it was default. I tried old.reddit.com the other day, but I found it almost unbearable. not being used to it, I found it ugly and messy and overloaded with text. it loads twice as fast, though, and doesn't prioritise images over information, so I see the upside, but I do think a lot of the commentary here is nostalgia and just what people are used to
- adamjb 4y ago
  The redesign was in 2018 so I'm not sure about that timeline
  - permo-w 4y ago
    the first few years I used the app
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- xtracto 4y ago
  I find your comment so funny, and it is right in a lot of regards. A very long time ago I was an avid slashdot reader (I had a 5 digit account long lost). I briefly went to Digh fir bit, and remember very early on visiting this "reddit" thing that was the new nerd thing. I remember loading the page, browsing a bit and moving on because of the ugly unusable UI that it had (not even sure if it has subs at that time). Fast forward all these years later, and I'm active on reddit but exclusively use the old.reddit version. The new one feels overloaded with stuff and my brain cant handle it. As you very well say, it's mostly a matter of our brains getting used to it. Now I go to slashdot And their comments system seems so broken. When at the time it was pretty good. The one thing I miss is the ability to quickly post as AnonymousCoward, instead of the throwaway account bullshit
- Eji1700 4y ago
  > doesn't prioritise images over information This is, to me, the clincher. Is old reddit perfect? God no (i sometimes block certain elements to clean it up), but the information density is vastly better. I read/scan quickly and don't care much about images. I can very quickly see if there's anything of interest on the page i'm on, and then move on to something else, or queue up a few comment threads to read through in other tabs. If there's an image, it's usually trivial to quickly zoom in to look at it rather than even bothering to load it again (hit or miss depending on quality). It's obviously not perfect, but I don't think it's just nostalgia. I legit desire something fundamentally different that what new reddit is trying to offer. I'm looking for a website i wouldn't mind quickly browsing from the terminal using keyboard hotkeys, not something that I swipe forever on my phone with. Even on the phone though I prefer old reddit (was best on firefox for mobile with blockers but i'm back on apple so i need to look into my options.) Someone like me just wants more text based/information dense screens that can be quickly navigated and then drilled into if i desire more information/content.