5 ms·

I still find it fascinating how bad the "new reddit" was and still is. It is so badly coded there was an entire subreddit dedicated to finding bugs for a year

I still find it fascinating how bad the "new reddit" was and still is. It is so badly coded there was an entire subreddit dedicated to finding bugs for a year or two that they simply shut down after a megathread analysed the amateurish spaghetti code that made up the frontend; race conditions, code duplication and library hell was everywhere. It's still super sluggish and the pop-over functionality is still so laughably brittle that it's a mystery to me how this was coded by a professional team. * Details on the "holy shit" (as one user puts it) React code here: https://old.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/spbylv/reddits_new_ui_is_made_in_react_and_is_slow/ https://old.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/spbylv/reddits_new...

legohead 4y ago
New reddit makes me feel flustered and annoyed. So much crap on the screen, and the content is just 1 thing at a time. With old reddit I can quickly scan titles for what I want to look at. Maybe you can fiddle with new reddit UI, I haven't given it much of a chance -- I just stay with what works.
- jtr1 4y ago
  There is a dropdown menu just above the list of posts. "compact" mode will give you what you're looking for.
  - MereInterest 4y ago
    Perhaps you’re in a different segment of an A/B test, but the only display-related options there are dark mode, or requesting the desktop site.
    - jtr1 4y ago
      I've had it for several years at this point.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  Digg committed suicide and reddit filled the vacuum, and was actually great for a while (it hasn't been for a long long time, but it was great when it started). Fingers crossed something good will arise to fill this vacuum?
  - scottyah 4y ago
    I was on the digg to reddit move, and hn has replaced reddit for me now. I still enjoy the compact views with longer, more thoughtful posts. I worry about when more reddit-type content hits this site and maybe new management changes the styling.
  - simonblack 4y ago
    I prefer HN to reddit overall. But what I like about reddit is that you can select the subreddit(s) of your choice and get rid of all that other extraneous stuff. That doesn't appear to be available in HN. Having said that, I use my browser bookmarks to select those subreddits, rather than actually subscribing to them.
- game_the0ry 4y ago
  When you see "modern" looking sites (with the font style, ui orientation, etc) and it feels more disorienting than old reddit (more text, cleaner beaks between section, etc) its bc the new site is catering to mobile view ports, not just desktop. Old reddit is great on desktop, but new reddit looks more like an app.
  - marak830 4y ago
    Old Reddit was better on mobile too. I don't need an app, I have a browser -.-
    - game_the0ry 4y ago
      I see where you are coming from, but the new ui is more appealing to the typical user. That being said, the "old school" reddit users (probably includes you, me, and many people on hacker news) would still prefer the old ui. This stuff has been A/B tested - these changes do not tend to be arbitrary.
      - MereInterest 4y ago
        The problem isn’t in a lack of testing, but in the metrics used when testing. If the A/B testing prioritizes “time on site”, then a design that shows you the user discussions you want to see and clearly indicates when nothing further has been posted will score lower than a site that intersperses ads into user content and fills a feed with “suggested for you” garbage. I certainly believe the new interfaces have been A/B tested, and don’t think the changes are arbitrary. But I also don’t think the changes are beneficial for users, nor do I think that was the goal.
adam_arthur 4y ago
It amazes how a client UI, which could be easily implemented by a single good engineer manages to come out so terrible with a supposed tech company backing it. And its not like it hasn’t been iterated upon… they continue to change it and never for the better. Speaks volumes about Reddit’s (lack of) engineering talent. Seriously don’t get why they don’t just contract it out to a talented person
- burnte 4y ago
  Too many people put in "teams" that should be a couple people, and too many graphic design people calling themselves "UX engineers" and making things "pretty" by some weird modern design metric rather than usability.
throw10920 4y ago
> I still find it fascinating how bad the "new reddit" was and still is. Leading theory is that it's to push their mobile app (which is probably almost as bad). The prerequisite for this is that they have a large enough userbase with enough of a network effect that relatively few users will move over the website crippling, the ads, or the mobile app (which I think is plausible). Perhaps it's time to build an alternative on top of some federated protocol (not necessarily ActivityPub), then make a "bridge" between the two where you can add commends to a Reddit post on $ALTERNATIVE that compliant hybrid clients can render inline, which would allow you to bootstrap an alternative off of Reddit's existing userbase.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  It has to be deliberate. I browse old.reddit.com, but old. seems to constantly kick you over to www. against your efforts, so I often get to see the www. trainwreck. Whenever I see www. I can't believe that a competent developer can actually make a site that bad, unless they were doing so deliberately. The latest egregious www. bug is that videos with sound go silent after 2-3 seconds (desktop safari). I don't remember any time in the past when reddit's video player worked 100%, despite video being a solved problem for what, 10 years? So this isn't be a surprise. What's surprising is how bad their developers managed to make the product, and how it gets worse over time rather than better.
  - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
    I have a redirector extension in my browser that changes all requests to www.reddit.com/* to old.reddit.com/star so I literally never see it on my home machine. I am always startled by how awful it is the few times I ever open a reddit link at work
- kenhwang 4y ago
  New Reddit is for ads. If you turn off adblock and compare old and new, you'll probably notice that there's more prime screen space for "recommended" content with media support. There's still the sidebar carried over from old that can be used for basic media ads and the banner for sponsored posts. In-feed sponsored posts are also a carry over, but the new feed has fully expanded thumbnails instead of mostly text which allows for autoplaying media ads (which is one of the most profitable ad formats). Old in-feed ads are primarily text. New homepage has the trending thumbnails up top which works well with the same ad format as the sidebar. New comments section truncates comments and has more fully expanded thumbnail recommended content below, which is another placement for in-feed ads. Awards are much more prominently displayed everywhere, which is another monetization feature since they can be bought or earned from advertising. The technical currently unrealized benefit with all the constant rerenders is the ability to bypass adblock rules by dynamically changing the underlying layout until the ad renders successfully. Of course the web version being bad to funnel people into first party Reddit apps also helps their advertising angle because you can't easily adblock in app and 3rd party Reddit apps don't render ads.
livelielife 4y ago
oh, but I bet it was "cost-effective" bugs can be ironed out (or just teach your users to put up with them, to drive costs further down)
greenie_beans 4y ago
ironic that you'd not link to the old.reddit version
mrguyorama 4y ago
They don't WANT the website to be good because they want to push you to the apps.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  The problem is that the official reddit app is even worse. Nearly everything about reddit that redditors complain about is solved by using a 3rd party app or by using old.reddit.com, optionally with RES.
  - anthk 4y ago
    Redreader in FDroid.
- UberFly 4y ago
  Yup, but I think the website sucks because it's built to cater to their terrible app. Funny thing is half a dozen independent app makers have done it better. Hopefully Reddit doesn't try to block them at some point.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    If it is ever a threat to their revenue, they will 100% block the apps.
princevegeta89 4y ago
The entire strategization plan of Reddit as a product seems to be a box of hot shit right now. While the new UI in my POV seems to be shitty and slow, they also crammed in many shady practices like "this content is only available on the Reddit app", "this content loads better/faster on the Reddit app", "Open this page in: Reddit App, Chrome (magically assume all browsers are Chrome and that the users are foolish to not notice lol)", and... there are buttons everywhere that keep nagging "Use Reddit App". Fuck your app Reddit, I am never gonna install your app just because you nag so much. I will use Relay for Reddit instead.
- deergomoo 4y ago
  I genuinely feel a little bad for the Reddit mobile web team. Imagine working on a product that announced at every opportunity that it’s total dogshit and you should use something else.
  - MagnumOpus 4y ago
    The do it intentionally. Don’t feel bad for them, they get paid hundreds of thousands each to fuck up your user experience and waste your time and that of a million other people.
    - klipklop 4y ago
      Zero sympathy for Reddit and devs. I solved the hostile front end issue by never looking at Reddit anymore. You can't really trust that website anyways due to past privacy problems: https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-edit-comments https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev... Seriously think carefully about what you look at or post on Reddit.
- __loam 4y ago
  Apollo is the best way to use reddit on iOS and it was written by one guy.

legohead 4y ago

New reddit makes me feel flustered and annoyed. So much crap on the screen, and the content is just 1 thing at a time. With old reddit I can quickly scan titles for what I want to look at. Maybe you can fiddle with new reddit UI, I haven't given it much of a chance -- I just stay with what works.

jtr1 4y ago
There is a dropdown menu just above the list of posts. "compact" mode will give you what you're looking for.
- MereInterest 4y ago
  Perhaps you’re in a different segment of an A/B test, but the only display-related options there are dark mode, or requesting the desktop site.
  - jtr1 4y ago
    I've had it for several years at this point.
commandlinefan 4y ago
Digg committed suicide and reddit filled the vacuum, and was actually great for a while (it hasn't been for a long long time, but it was great when it started). Fingers crossed something good will arise to fill this vacuum?
- scottyah 4y ago
  I was on the digg to reddit move, and hn has replaced reddit for me now. I still enjoy the compact views with longer, more thoughtful posts. I worry about when more reddit-type content hits this site and maybe new management changes the styling.
- simonblack 4y ago
  I prefer HN to reddit overall. But what I like about reddit is that you can select the subreddit(s) of your choice and get rid of all that other extraneous stuff. That doesn't appear to be available in HN. Having said that, I use my browser bookmarks to select those subreddits, rather than actually subscribing to them.
game_the0ry 4y ago
When you see "modern" looking sites (with the font style, ui orientation, etc) and it feels more disorienting than old reddit (more text, cleaner beaks between section, etc) its bc the new site is catering to mobile view ports, not just desktop. Old reddit is great on desktop, but new reddit looks more like an app.
- marak830 4y ago
  Old Reddit was better on mobile too. I don't need an app, I have a browser -.-
  - game_the0ry 4y ago
    I see where you are coming from, but the new ui is more appealing to the typical user. That being said, the "old school" reddit users (probably includes you, me, and many people on hacker news) would still prefer the old ui. This stuff has been A/B tested - these changes do not tend to be arbitrary.
    - MereInterest 4y ago
      The problem isn’t in a lack of testing, but in the metrics used when testing. If the A/B testing prioritizes “time on site”, then a design that shows you the user discussions you want to see and clearly indicates when nothing further has been posted will score lower than a site that intersperses ads into user content and fills a feed with “suggested for you” garbage. I certainly believe the new interfaces have been A/B tested, and don’t think the changes are arbitrary. But I also don’t think the changes are beneficial for users, nor do I think that was the goal.

adam_arthur 4y ago

It amazes how a client UI, which could be easily implemented by a single good engineer manages to come out so terrible with a supposed tech company backing it. And its not like it hasn’t been iterated upon… they continue to change it and never for the better. Speaks volumes about Reddit’s (lack of) engineering talent. Seriously don’t get why they don’t just contract it out to a talented person

burnte 4y ago
Too many people put in "teams" that should be a couple people, and too many graphic design people calling themselves "UX engineers" and making things "pretty" by some weird modern design metric rather than usability.

throw10920 4y ago

> I still find it fascinating how bad the "new reddit" was and still is. Leading theory is that it's to push their mobile app (which is probably almost as bad). The prerequisite for this is that they have a large enough userbase with enough of a network effect that relatively few users will move over the website crippling, the ads, or the mobile app (which I think is plausible). Perhaps it's time to build an alternative on top of some federated protocol (not necessarily ActivityPub), then make a "bridge" between the two where you can add commends to a Reddit post on $ALTERNATIVE that compliant hybrid clients can render inline, which would allow you to bootstrap an alternative off of Reddit's existing userbase.

ryandrake 4y ago
It has to be deliberate. I browse old.reddit.com, but old. seems to constantly kick you over to www. against your efforts, so I often get to see the www. trainwreck. Whenever I see www. I can't believe that a competent developer can actually make a site that bad, unless they were doing so deliberately. The latest egregious www. bug is that videos with sound go silent after 2-3 seconds (desktop safari). I don't remember any time in the past when reddit's video player worked 100%, despite video being a solved problem for what, 10 years? So this isn't be a surprise. What's surprising is how bad their developers managed to make the product, and how it gets worse over time rather than better.
- mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
  I have a redirector extension in my browser that changes all requests to www.reddit.com/* to old.reddit.com/star so I literally never see it on my home machine. I am always startled by how awful it is the few times I ever open a reddit link at work
kenhwang 4y ago
New Reddit is for ads. If you turn off adblock and compare old and new, you'll probably notice that there's more prime screen space for "recommended" content with media support. There's still the sidebar carried over from old that can be used for basic media ads and the banner for sponsored posts. In-feed sponsored posts are also a carry over, but the new feed has fully expanded thumbnails instead of mostly text which allows for autoplaying media ads (which is one of the most profitable ad formats). Old in-feed ads are primarily text. New homepage has the trending thumbnails up top which works well with the same ad format as the sidebar. New comments section truncates comments and has more fully expanded thumbnail recommended content below, which is another placement for in-feed ads. Awards are much more prominently displayed everywhere, which is another monetization feature since they can be bought or earned from advertising. The technical currently unrealized benefit with all the constant rerenders is the ability to bypass adblock rules by dynamically changing the underlying layout until the ad renders successfully. Of course the web version being bad to funnel people into first party Reddit apps also helps their advertising angle because you can't easily adblock in app and 3rd party Reddit apps don't render ads.

livelielife 4y ago

oh, but I bet it was "cost-effective" bugs can be ironed out (or just teach your users to put up with them, to drive costs further down)

greenie_beans 4y ago

ironic that you'd not link to the old.reddit version

mrguyorama 4y ago

They don't WANT the website to be good because they want to push you to the apps.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
The problem is that the official reddit app is even worse. Nearly everything about reddit that redditors complain about is solved by using a 3rd party app or by using old.reddit.com, optionally with RES.
- anthk 4y ago
  Redreader in FDroid.
UberFly 4y ago
Yup, but I think the website sucks because it's built to cater to their terrible app. Funny thing is half a dozen independent app makers have done it better. Hopefully Reddit doesn't try to block them at some point.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  If it is ever a threat to their revenue, they will 100% block the apps.

princevegeta89 4y ago

The entire strategization plan of Reddit as a product seems to be a box of hot shit right now. While the new UI in my POV seems to be shitty and slow, they also crammed in many shady practices like "this content is only available on the Reddit app", "this content loads better/faster on the Reddit app", "Open this page in: Reddit App, Chrome (magically assume all browsers are Chrome and that the users are foolish to not notice lol)", and... there are buttons everywhere that keep nagging "Use Reddit App". Fuck your app Reddit, I am never gonna install your app just because you nag so much. I will use Relay for Reddit instead.

deergomoo 4y ago
I genuinely feel a little bad for the Reddit mobile web team. Imagine working on a product that announced at every opportunity that it’s total dogshit and you should use something else.
- MagnumOpus 4y ago
  The do it intentionally. Don’t feel bad for them, they get paid hundreds of thousands each to fuck up your user experience and waste your time and that of a million other people.
  - klipklop 4y ago
    Zero sympathy for Reddit and devs. I solved the hostile front end issue by never looking at Reddit anymore. You can't really trust that website anyways due to past privacy problems: https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-edit-comments https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev... Seriously think carefully about what you look at or post on Reddit.
__loam 4y ago
Apollo is the best way to use reddit on iOS and it was written by one guy.