22 ms·

My feelings exactly. We're all stuck with the official Reddit and Twitter clients now. They're not even good. We know they're not good, but they're now the only

by apozem 3y ago

My feelings exactly. We're all stuck with the official Reddit and Twitter clients now. They're not even good. We know they're not good, but they're now the only place to experience Reddit and Twitter. It's like enterprise software for a whole social network.

TechBro8615 3y ago
I wish the Twitter client were half as good as Apollo. I really miss the ability to navigate the stack by swiping as intuitively as I can with Apollo. In Twitter the best I can hope for is a stack of depth two.
unshavedyak 3y ago
Twitter pushed me onto Mastodon a while back and i imagine Reddit will do the same. Funny enough, i have exactly one of the clients mentioned in this discussion - Tweetbot - on Mastodon. Ie the app made by the same devs.
gtsteve 3y ago
I just don't think I'll use Reddit anymore. It was a nice place to catch up with my interests but the only way in which I used it was via Apollo. The one thing that made Reddit unique compared to all its competitors was its developer community and they have deliberately torpedoed it. All good things have to end but this was avoidable.
- dwayne_dibley 3y ago
  Where to next though? is there anywhere else like it?
  - zucked 3y ago
    You’re on it, buddy :P
    - p-e-w 3y ago
      Indeed. And it even has the same features (centralized, ultimately beholden to commercial interests) that destroyed Reddit! But don't worry, that's not going to happen here. You don't need a decentralized non-profit community, trust me. It's going to work out this time. Really.
      - peruvian 3y ago
        Ironically Reddit also gives users way more control over their data than this place.
      - _fat_santa 3y ago
        I'm not sure if you're being entirely serious but I disagree. HN is special because while it's a popular (relatively speaking) social media site, it's also run by a company that isn't in the social media business. YC is not concerned with how to make HN revenue generating, they just want to push people to where the real money is made for them: their startup accelerator. With that said it's in YC's best interest to keep users happy, only change what is requested and generally keep the status quo. Unfortunately for a company like Reddit that is a social media site and has to make money with their social media product, keeping users happy at all costs is not in their best interest (though that has yet to be seen).
    - KingMob 3y ago
      Unfortunately, HN has nowhere near the diversity of communities and viewpoints as a place like reddit did.
      - some_random 3y ago
        Yeah it's a bizarre claim. I've described HN as a single, usually really good, subreddit before but it's absolutely not a replacement for the entire site.
    - ff10 3y ago
      Well, as it stands HN is like just another good subreddit.
  - busymom0 3y ago
    I am the developer of HACK, hacker news app for iOS, android and MacOS. I have been working on a decentralized link + text sharing site called AvocadoReader for last few weeks. I am hoping to have an extremely early beta next week. I shared some implementation details here if people want to read more: https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13x0hzo/been_working_on_this_decentralized_reddit https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13x0hzo/been_wor...
    - alwayslikethis 3y ago
      Not commenting on your app, but I think the real reason mobile clients are needed for Reddit is that they intentionally try to break the mobile web experience to force their app down your throat. In contrast, HN.. doesn't. The mobile website is pleasant to use, if you are okay with the rather small text buttons.
      - busymom0 3y ago
        That's a perfectly fair point. I personally think HN is one of the best designed sites out there. Being extremely minimal is one of the best designs. I hope that never changes. I built HACK specifically to be able to be notified when people reply to me. That's one of my selling points.
        the_gipsy 3y ago
        iOS has "unblocked" browser notifications now, hasn't it?
        busymom0 3y ago
        That’s only if hacker news decides to implement it. And based on their motto, I doubt they will.
        the_gipsy 3y ago
        What I mean is that you don't have to build an iOS app anymore just for notifications.
  - rakoo 3y ago
    There's a list here: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13x9sy7/now_that_reddit_are_killing_3rd_party_apps_on/jmibrsy/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13x9sy7/now_that... Note that all of these are still centralized, so still subjects to similar issues. Once again selfhosting is the best xay forward
  - coded 3y ago
    digg :)
johnnyanmac 3y ago
"We're" not stuck unless your career is in social media, in which case yes, they will still be the most popular sites and the best way to reach people. But for the rest of us, there's always a choice to foster a new community. Whether there is enough for that, and if a server is ready for that load, are big questions to answer though
- anlaw 3y ago
  And that’s fine. We need less low effort rage bait, viral influencer influence on the economy. The reach of contrived political philosophy, fiat economic hustle, and pop culture gabber can be constrained; the obsolescence of /. , MySpace, and the like did not destroy reality. Now we know the outcome of the social media experiment. Utter dumpster fire. It occurs to me people made a whole lot of small business work before handing sacks of cash to cloud SaaS We need less adminisphere in all contexts so we can screw up again, let the wrong people helicopter us with banal AI bots, make lizard brain m sedate until it gets bored with AI bots. Then we’ll trot out a new copium for the masses and they can lean back again, super proud of their commitment to whatever hallucinated ideology they believe they’re serving. All while waving off the ecological impact, because reality is just a big graph, mmmk
- cbzoiav 3y ago
  If you work in social media, you can probably afford a subscription based enriched app that pays the API fees. It's the normal users that suffer. Hopefully that suffering will hit Reddits usage/cash flows enough to make them u turn.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    You certainly can redirect people to a website/app for a more tailored platform. But it's not the 2000's anymore where sites feature forums, comments sections, and other community features encouraging users to stay in their environment. At best, the ones that remain use middleware liks Disqus or Discord (and that is a whole other tangent that I could rant about all day) or simply encourage users to share on Reddit/TWitter. They still can, but most sites these days are fine going where the people go, and linking to their custom stuff.
ryanSrich 3y ago
I have no idea why, but I can only stand to use reddit in "old" mode. Even on mobile. It's completely 100% unusable in any other format. I've tried to use their app and standard mobile website, but I can't make heads or tails of the hierarchy of content.
- Guereric 3y ago
  Any tips on using old reddit on a phone? Constantly zooming in to press unfriendly-for-tap buttons make it a chore, compared to Apollo.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    That’s the way. The alternative is the god awful updated site or their app. I hope you like adverts.
    - ta8903 3y ago
      There could be a userscript for a better reddit UI if someone cared but looks like nobody does. There's also Reddit Enhancement Suite but I don't think you can use it on mobile.
- UberFly 3y ago
  If you don't use old mode in a mobile browser, they block off 1/3 of your screen with "Are you sure you don't want to use the Reddit App?" Pretty sure I don't Reddit.
- chaxor 3y ago
  Wasn't there something called `teddit` that was written in nim that did a better job of removing all the js crap that makes reddit terrible? I would imagine everyone will just move to that if possible. Although perhaps that may also be affected by their idiotic API charge junk.
  - coded 3y ago
    Yep https://teddit.net/ https://teddit.net/ although it’s quite slow. There are other alternatives out there too.
websap 3y ago
Decentralization doesn't seem like a bad idea now? Only if there was a way to host websites where no central authority ever owned the data and the people who ran relays got paid in some form of cryptographically secure crypto currency. Frontend clients that made requests would need to pay in the same token to avoid abuse.

by apozem 3y ago

TechBro8615 3y ago

I wish the Twitter client were half as good as Apollo. I really miss the ability to navigate the stack by swiping as intuitively as I can with Apollo. In Twitter the best I can hope for is a stack of depth two.

unshavedyak 3y ago

Twitter pushed me onto Mastodon a while back and i imagine Reddit will do the same. Funny enough, i have exactly one of the clients mentioned in this discussion - Tweetbot - on Mastodon. Ie the app made by the same devs.

gtsteve 3y ago

I just don't think I'll use Reddit anymore. It was a nice place to catch up with my interests but the only way in which I used it was via Apollo. The one thing that made Reddit unique compared to all its competitors was its developer community and they have deliberately torpedoed it. All good things have to end but this was avoidable.

dwayne_dibley 3y ago
Where to next though? is there anywhere else like it?
- zucked 3y ago
  You’re on it, buddy :P
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    Indeed. And it even has the same features (centralized, ultimately beholden to commercial interests) that destroyed Reddit! But don't worry, that's not going to happen here. You don't need a decentralized non-profit community, trust me. It's going to work out this time. Really.
    - peruvian 3y ago
      Ironically Reddit also gives users way more control over their data than this place.
    - _fat_santa 3y ago
      I'm not sure if you're being entirely serious but I disagree. HN is special because while it's a popular (relatively speaking) social media site, it's also run by a company that isn't in the social media business. YC is not concerned with how to make HN revenue generating, they just want to push people to where the real money is made for them: their startup accelerator. With that said it's in YC's best interest to keep users happy, only change what is requested and generally keep the status quo. Unfortunately for a company like Reddit that is a social media site and has to make money with their social media product, keeping users happy at all costs is not in their best interest (though that has yet to be seen).
  - KingMob 3y ago
    Unfortunately, HN has nowhere near the diversity of communities and viewpoints as a place like reddit did.
    - some_random 3y ago
      Yeah it's a bizarre claim. I've described HN as a single, usually really good, subreddit before but it's absolutely not a replacement for the entire site.
  - ff10 3y ago
    Well, as it stands HN is like just another good subreddit.
- busymom0 3y ago
  I am the developer of HACK, hacker news app for iOS, android and MacOS. I have been working on a decentralized link + text sharing site called AvocadoReader for last few weeks. I am hoping to have an extremely early beta next week. I shared some implementation details here if people want to read more: https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13x0hzo/been_working_on_this_decentralized_reddit https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13x0hzo/been_wor...
  - alwayslikethis 3y ago
    Not commenting on your app, but I think the real reason mobile clients are needed for Reddit is that they intentionally try to break the mobile web experience to force their app down your throat. In contrast, HN.. doesn't. The mobile website is pleasant to use, if you are okay with the rather small text buttons.
    - busymom0 3y ago
      That's a perfectly fair point. I personally think HN is one of the best designed sites out there. Being extremely minimal is one of the best designs. I hope that never changes. I built HACK specifically to be able to be notified when people reply to me. That's one of my selling points.
      - the_gipsy 3y ago
        iOS has "unblocked" browser notifications now, hasn't it?
        busymom0 3y ago
        That’s only if hacker news decides to implement it. And based on their motto, I doubt they will.
        the_gipsy 3y ago
        What I mean is that you don't have to build an iOS app anymore just for notifications.
- rakoo 3y ago
  There's a list here: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13x9sy7/now_that_reddit_are_killing_3rd_party_apps_on/jmibrsy/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13x9sy7/now_that... Note that all of these are still centralized, so still subjects to similar issues. Once again selfhosting is the best xay forward
- coded 3y ago
  digg :)

johnnyanmac 3y ago

"We're" not stuck unless your career is in social media, in which case yes, they will still be the most popular sites and the best way to reach people. But for the rest of us, there's always a choice to foster a new community. Whether there is enough for that, and if a server is ready for that load, are big questions to answer though

anlaw 3y ago
And that’s fine. We need less low effort rage bait, viral influencer influence on the economy. The reach of contrived political philosophy, fiat economic hustle, and pop culture gabber can be constrained; the obsolescence of /. , MySpace, and the like did not destroy reality. Now we know the outcome of the social media experiment. Utter dumpster fire. It occurs to me people made a whole lot of small business work before handing sacks of cash to cloud SaaS We need less adminisphere in all contexts so we can screw up again, let the wrong people helicopter us with banal AI bots, make lizard brain m sedate until it gets bored with AI bots. Then we’ll trot out a new copium for the masses and they can lean back again, super proud of their commitment to whatever hallucinated ideology they believe they’re serving. All while waving off the ecological impact, because reality is just a big graph, mmmk
cbzoiav 3y ago
If you work in social media, you can probably afford a subscription based enriched app that pays the API fees. It's the normal users that suffer. Hopefully that suffering will hit Reddits usage/cash flows enough to make them u turn.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  You certainly can redirect people to a website/app for a more tailored platform. But it's not the 2000's anymore where sites feature forums, comments sections, and other community features encouraging users to stay in their environment. At best, the ones that remain use middleware liks Disqus or Discord (and that is a whole other tangent that I could rant about all day) or simply encourage users to share on Reddit/TWitter. They still can, but most sites these days are fine going where the people go, and linking to their custom stuff.

ryanSrich 3y ago

I have no idea why, but I can only stand to use reddit in "old" mode. Even on mobile. It's completely 100% unusable in any other format. I've tried to use their app and standard mobile website, but I can't make heads or tails of the hierarchy of content.

Guereric 3y ago
Any tips on using old reddit on a phone? Constantly zooming in to press unfriendly-for-tap buttons make it a chore, compared to Apollo.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  That’s the way. The alternative is the god awful updated site or their app. I hope you like adverts.
  - ta8903 3y ago
    There could be a userscript for a better reddit UI if someone cared but looks like nobody does. There's also Reddit Enhancement Suite but I don't think you can use it on mobile.
UberFly 3y ago
If you don't use old mode in a mobile browser, they block off 1/3 of your screen with "Are you sure you don't want to use the Reddit App?" Pretty sure I don't Reddit.
chaxor 3y ago
Wasn't there something called `teddit` that was written in nim that did a better job of removing all the js crap that makes reddit terrible? I would imagine everyone will just move to that if possible. Although perhaps that may also be affected by their idiotic API charge junk.
- coded 3y ago
  Yep https://teddit.net/ https://teddit.net/ although it’s quite slow. There are other alternatives out there too.

websap 3y ago

Decentralization doesn't seem like a bad idea now? Only if there was a way to host websites where no central authority ever owned the data and the people who ran relays got paid in some form of cryptographically secure crypto currency. Frontend clients that made requests would need to pay in the same token to avoid abuse.