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Reddit is fairly unique among large internet properties in that even as their "default" design has gotten shittier and shittier (in my opinion), it was possible

Reddit is fairly unique among large internet properties in that even as their "default" design has gotten shittier and shittier (in my opinion), it was possible to go back to older iterations via old.reddit.com or i.reddit.com. I wonder how much of a release valve for dissatisfaction these alternate UIs and third party apps represent. With 3rd party apps possibly going away now and i.reddit.com apparently dead (is old.reddit.com next?), I wonder how many angry redditors will come out of the woodwork. Then again, I'm sure reddit has analytics on this and has decided it's worth the backlash.

x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
When old.reddit.com goes away, so will I. The new UI is such trash that I can't stand looking at it for any extended period of time. That and the RedditIsFun app are the only things keeping me on reddit, UI-wise.
- rjbwork 4y ago
  Ditto. I have been using both old.reddit.com and RedditIsFun for 17 and 10 years, respectively. I can't imagine I'll stick around if either, and especially both, are removed. Certainly the removal of either will drastically lower my usage. Probably a good thing.
sofixa 4y ago
> I wonder how much of a release valve for dissatisfaction these alternate UIs and third party apps represent. With 3rd party apps possibly going away now and i.reddit.com apparently dead (is old.reddit.com next?), I wonder how many angry redditors will come out of the woodwork. I've seen a couple of subreddits publish their stats on user agents (moderators get access to this), and even on highly technical ones IIRC the old design and third-party apps are miniscule compared to the vast majority being the official app and current website. I'm fairly sure r/homelab was one of them, but Google seems to indicate that isn't the case.
- spondylosaurus 4y ago
  How much do you think these numbers are impacted by people who arrive at posts via search engine versus active subscribers to a community? We all know that adding "reddit" to the end of your search query is a quick path to getting human-authored (and reasonably decent) results, which I'd imagine applies double to the topics covered by technical subs. Probably safe to assume that people hitting Reddit via Google aren't opening those search results in a third-party app, and then there's the fact that the site defaults to the new layout for logged-out users. (In other words, I'd be curious to see breakdowns between subscriber traffic and non-subscriber traffic and doesn't-even-have-a-Reddit-account traffic, if those breakdowns even exist.)
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > Probably safe to assume that people hitting Reddit via Google aren't opening those search results in a third-party app Why not? Third part apps can be registered to open reddit.com links, so any mobile search would end up there.
    - spondylosaurus 4y ago
      Ah, I was mostly imagining desktop searches, but if you're on mobile then yeah that's a fair point.
  - distances 4y ago
    > Probably safe to assume that people hitting Reddit via Google aren't opening those search results in a third-party app I absolutely do, Reddit is basically unusable in a browser for me which also seems to be the consensus in this discussion. But probably fair to assume that for a large majority.

x3n0ph3n3 4y ago

When old.reddit.com goes away, so will I. The new UI is such trash that I can't stand looking at it for any extended period of time. That and the RedditIsFun app are the only things keeping me on reddit, UI-wise.

rjbwork 4y ago
Ditto. I have been using both old.reddit.com and RedditIsFun for 17 and 10 years, respectively. I can't imagine I'll stick around if either, and especially both, are removed. Certainly the removal of either will drastically lower my usage. Probably a good thing.

sofixa 4y ago

> I wonder how much of a release valve for dissatisfaction these alternate UIs and third party apps represent. With 3rd party apps possibly going away now and i.reddit.com apparently dead (is old.reddit.com next?), I wonder how many angry redditors will come out of the woodwork. I've seen a couple of subreddits publish their stats on user agents (moderators get access to this), and even on highly technical ones IIRC the old design and third-party apps are miniscule compared to the vast majority being the official app and current website. I'm fairly sure r/homelab was one of them, but Google seems to indicate that isn't the case.

spondylosaurus 4y ago
How much do you think these numbers are impacted by people who arrive at posts via search engine versus active subscribers to a community? We all know that adding "reddit" to the end of your search query is a quick path to getting human-authored (and reasonably decent) results, which I'd imagine applies double to the topics covered by technical subs. Probably safe to assume that people hitting Reddit via Google aren't opening those search results in a third-party app, and then there's the fact that the site defaults to the new layout for logged-out users. (In other words, I'd be curious to see breakdowns between subscriber traffic and non-subscriber traffic and doesn't-even-have-a-Reddit-account traffic, if those breakdowns even exist.)
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Probably safe to assume that people hitting Reddit via Google aren't opening those search results in a third-party app Why not? Third part apps can be registered to open reddit.com links, so any mobile search would end up there.
  - spondylosaurus 4y ago
    Ah, I was mostly imagining desktop searches, but if you're on mobile then yeah that's a fair point.
- distances 4y ago
  > Probably safe to assume that people hitting Reddit via Google aren't opening those search results in a third-party app I absolutely do, Reddit is basically unusable in a browser for me which also seems to be the consensus in this discussion. But probably fair to assume that for a large majority.