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> To quit Reddit, I wanted the Pavlok to deliver a painful shock every time I visited Reddit That's a bit...extreme. Fortunately Reddit is doing a great job d

> To quit Reddit, I wanted the Pavlok to deliver a painful shock every time I visited Reddit That's a bit...extreme. Fortunately Reddit is doing a great job diminishing its own usability. When Reddit enables their paid API and locks out 3rd party clients in the process, there will be greater friction to browse. When they eventually kill old.reddit.com that'll be the nail in the coffin.

gaoshan 3y ago
I agree that Reddit is doing a good job of harming its usability (and the overall experience with mods that wield the ban hammer for the slightest disagreements, for example) I do not understand this sentiment for old reddit. I've been on the site for over 15 years and while I do pine for the old days (when comments and content were of much higher quality) the old UI holds no such sway over me.
- Matheus28 3y ago
  New UI feels very sluggish. For whatever reason it just struggles performance-wise.
- rat9988 3y ago
  With RES it's it's truely nice to use the old UI.
  - Eji1700 3y ago
    Yep. It's mostly a information to screen usage ratio thing. There's so much useless "noise" on modern reddit, even if your customize it. Res + old reddit is much better at letting you see what you want to see and move on. That said, I'm at the point where i'm just converting everything to rss feed readers. I'm sure that's going to be blown up eventually as well, but in the meantime it's probably the best way to just get whatever information you want, quickly, and not be stuck navigating websites.
- r00fus 3y ago
  Well, for starters, old.reddit.com on mobile safari doesn't put an overlay telling you to use the app instead when you get a deep link. Also it loads much faster. Imagine if HN were re-done with a lot more glitz and current HN was turned into old.news.ycombinator.com? I bet a lot of HNers would prefer the old interface especially if there were some annoying UI patterns in the new one.
  - panxyh 3y ago
    That’s an idea for a HN April Fools joke.
- rhn_mk1 3y ago
  It works without JS.
- lovich 3y ago
  Have you used the “new” ui directly? For me the gallery links somehow manage to crash Firefox on mobile more often than not. Links to comment threads also load only 2 threads deep and I have to constantly click on load more buttons to continue the conversation. On top of all that there’s a ton of space wasted on the sides to just have the thread be in the center? If I was using Reddit solely to view images it might be an improvement but it’s nearly unusable if you are using it primarily to read comments
simse 3y ago
Reddit has one of the worst frontends I have ever seen. Not even from a "SPAs are evil"-standpoint. It's just awful. That has deconditioned me very effectively.
- Arrath 3y ago
  Once old.reddit.com stops working, I'm done.
  - disqard 3y ago
    Same here!
- irrational 3y ago
  On mobile, every single page load asks if I want to use the app instead. I really don’t, but I probably should start using one of the third party apps. I would never use their own app.
- glonq 3y ago
  The RES plugin helps with some stuff, but yeah just accessing simple things like "my recent posts, comments, and messages" seems unnecessarily clumsy. Also, stop asking me to buy coins reddit. I ain't doing that.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  Twitter is equally awful. I wish I understood the commercial reasons for having such bad UIs, especially when the UI has been better in the past. Is it just bad statistics, or are these terrible UIs actually increasing revenue/profit?
animesh 3y ago
They are on a path slowly killing third party reddit apps. Recent announcement on this. (An Update Regarding Reddit’s API https://redd.it/12qwagm https://redd.it/12qwagm) Copied from a third party app (sync) dev's comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/comments/12qwwjh/an_update_regarding_reddits_api_changes_to_how/jguy0oc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/comments/12qwwjh/an_upda... It looks like they'll be no more free access so every third party app will have to charge a subscription that goes to Reddit (monthly and with no costing provided yet)
- irrational 3y ago
  Clearly Reddit is going the way of many previous platforms. What will be the next platform I wonder?
  - uni_rule 3y ago
    I hope there is at least some centrality to the next "cool place". All the new projects are decentralized (as in the communities are isolated from each other, not in infrastructure) to the point of being like a giant ant farm, it makes it impossible to find things and also makes whatever genuine information they give out really tenuous because you never know how long the particular instance of a platform or chat server or whatever you are looking at will remain up. Really I just hope all the shit you begrudgingly need to add "site:reddit.com" to in order to get actual search results for is still usable. Watching the site genuinely burn would make me actively worse at troubleshooting tech.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      21h since you commented and I'm amazed nobody has come along to tell you how ChatGPT is going to kill both Reddit and Google and mean you won't even need to troubleshoot anything anymore. So yeah, that, apparently.
  - Euphorbium 3y ago
    Reddit is just apollo backend. They could easily build the backend themselves.
InvisibleUp 3y ago
They already killed the lightweight mobile version at i.reddit.com last month or so. I wouldn't be surprised if old.reddit.com is on the chopping block within the next few years.
- jug 3y ago
  I think the new design at https://sh.reddit.com/ https://sh.reddit.com/ (for desktop PC) is aimed at this. It's supposed to be better performant than the current design and dealing with criticized decisions like the heavy layered design, but I think another way to view it is that it's supposed to finally kill old.reddit.com once released, probably in a year or so.
  - jwestbury 3y ago
    That's unfortunate. This design still lacks information density. I use old.reddit because I don't need my front page covered in preloaded photos, videos, etc., and I like to be able to see things in a dense format, no scrolling required.
muh_gradle 3y ago
Agree. I think reddit will eventually die like Digg in a few years. I've been on reddit for 15 years now. It's been getting steadily worse.
- raffraffraff 3y ago
  And the users have been getting steadily worse too...
slg 3y ago
It will be a little poetic if Reddit ends up new Digging itself considering new Digg was one of the first big influxes of users to Reddit.
thefz 3y ago
Reddit's suicide happened way before the redesign. It's the silo communities, the rampant excessive moderation, the brigading, the drama, the immaturity all over.
RF_Savage 3y ago
They did recently break i.reddit.com. It was very nice and fast on mobile.

gaoshan 3y ago

I agree that Reddit is doing a good job of harming its usability (and the overall experience with mods that wield the ban hammer for the slightest disagreements, for example) I do not understand this sentiment for old reddit. I've been on the site for over 15 years and while I do pine for the old days (when comments and content were of much higher quality) the old UI holds no such sway over me.

Matheus28 3y ago
New UI feels very sluggish. For whatever reason it just struggles performance-wise.
rat9988 3y ago
With RES it's it's truely nice to use the old UI.
- Eji1700 3y ago
  Yep. It's mostly a information to screen usage ratio thing. There's so much useless "noise" on modern reddit, even if your customize it. Res + old reddit is much better at letting you see what you want to see and move on. That said, I'm at the point where i'm just converting everything to rss feed readers. I'm sure that's going to be blown up eventually as well, but in the meantime it's probably the best way to just get whatever information you want, quickly, and not be stuck navigating websites.
r00fus 3y ago
Well, for starters, old.reddit.com on mobile safari doesn't put an overlay telling you to use the app instead when you get a deep link. Also it loads much faster. Imagine if HN were re-done with a lot more glitz and current HN was turned into old.news.ycombinator.com? I bet a lot of HNers would prefer the old interface especially if there were some annoying UI patterns in the new one.
- panxyh 3y ago
  That’s an idea for a HN April Fools joke.
rhn_mk1 3y ago
It works without JS.
lovich 3y ago
Have you used the “new” ui directly? For me the gallery links somehow manage to crash Firefox on mobile more often than not. Links to comment threads also load only 2 threads deep and I have to constantly click on load more buttons to continue the conversation. On top of all that there’s a ton of space wasted on the sides to just have the thread be in the center? If I was using Reddit solely to view images it might be an improvement but it’s nearly unusable if you are using it primarily to read comments

simse 3y ago

Reddit has one of the worst frontends I have ever seen. Not even from a "SPAs are evil"-standpoint. It's just awful. That has deconditioned me very effectively.

Arrath 3y ago
Once old.reddit.com stops working, I'm done.
- disqard 3y ago
  Same here!
irrational 3y ago
On mobile, every single page load asks if I want to use the app instead. I really don’t, but I probably should start using one of the third party apps. I would never use their own app.
glonq 3y ago
The RES plugin helps with some stuff, but yeah just accessing simple things like "my recent posts, comments, and messages" seems unnecessarily clumsy. Also, stop asking me to buy coins reddit. I ain't doing that.
pessimizer 3y ago
Twitter is equally awful. I wish I understood the commercial reasons for having such bad UIs, especially when the UI has been better in the past. Is it just bad statistics, or are these terrible UIs actually increasing revenue/profit?

animesh 3y ago

They are on a path slowly killing third party reddit apps. Recent announcement on this. (An Update Regarding Reddit’s API https://redd.it/12qwagm https://redd.it/12qwagm) Copied from a third party app (sync) dev's comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/comments/12qwwjh/an_update_regarding_reddits_api_changes_to_how/jguy0oc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/comments/12qwwjh/an_upda... It looks like they'll be no more free access so every third party app will have to charge a subscription that goes to Reddit (monthly and with no costing provided yet)

irrational 3y ago
Clearly Reddit is going the way of many previous platforms. What will be the next platform I wonder?
- uni_rule 3y ago
  I hope there is at least some centrality to the next "cool place". All the new projects are decentralized (as in the communities are isolated from each other, not in infrastructure) to the point of being like a giant ant farm, it makes it impossible to find things and also makes whatever genuine information they give out really tenuous because you never know how long the particular instance of a platform or chat server or whatever you are looking at will remain up. Really I just hope all the shit you begrudgingly need to add "site:reddit.com" to in order to get actual search results for is still usable. Watching the site genuinely burn would make me actively worse at troubleshooting tech.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    21h since you commented and I'm amazed nobody has come along to tell you how ChatGPT is going to kill both Reddit and Google and mean you won't even need to troubleshoot anything anymore. So yeah, that, apparently.
- Euphorbium 3y ago
  Reddit is just apollo backend. They could easily build the backend themselves.

InvisibleUp 3y ago

They already killed the lightweight mobile version at i.reddit.com last month or so. I wouldn't be surprised if old.reddit.com is on the chopping block within the next few years.

jug 3y ago
I think the new design at https://sh.reddit.com/ https://sh.reddit.com/ (for desktop PC) is aimed at this. It's supposed to be better performant than the current design and dealing with criticized decisions like the heavy layered design, but I think another way to view it is that it's supposed to finally kill old.reddit.com once released, probably in a year or so.
- jwestbury 3y ago
  That's unfortunate. This design still lacks information density. I use old.reddit because I don't need my front page covered in preloaded photos, videos, etc., and I like to be able to see things in a dense format, no scrolling required.

muh_gradle 3y ago

Agree. I think reddit will eventually die like Digg in a few years. I've been on reddit for 15 years now. It's been getting steadily worse.

raffraffraff 3y ago
And the users have been getting steadily worse too...

slg 3y ago

It will be a little poetic if Reddit ends up new Digging itself considering new Digg was one of the first big influxes of users to Reddit.

thefz 3y ago

Reddit's suicide happened way before the redesign. It's the silo communities, the rampant excessive moderation, the brigading, the drama, the immaturity all over.

RF_Savage 3y ago

They did recently break i.reddit.com. It was very nice and fast on mobile.