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Also most people don’t really care about the API/3rd party app thing. It doesn’t impact them and it looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks with no lives g

by rblatz 3y ago

Also most people don’t really care about the API/3rd party app thing. It doesn’t impact them and it looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks with no lives getting worked up over nothing. I’ve been on Reddit since the digg migration and I’ve never felt the need for an app, old.reddit.com and Adblock works perfectly fine on the phone. Better than Reddit’s mobile site.

emptyfile 3y ago
Yeah that's the whole reason why subs are shutting down. Because the mods care, even if their users don't.
- kzrdude 3y ago
  Users like a good riot though
- riku_iki 3y ago
  but users are main contributors of content. Should they be asked at least?
  - throw16180339 3y ago
    I'm not sure about other subs, but we asked our users about continuing the blackout.
    - riku_iki 3y ago
      one of my favorite subs didn't ask
evertedsphere 3y ago
old.reddit.com isn't going to be around for much longer, is the thing
ndnxncncnfjdjd 3y ago
That's all well and good for now, but surely you can see that old.reddit.com is likely also on the chopping block?
- blahyawnblah 3y ago
  Where did you see that?
  - bbor 3y ago
    Seems self-explanatory. They're fighting for profitability, prioritizing mass-appeal, prioritizing ads, and maintaining two UIs in an advertising business sounds like a huge hassle. I'm too lazy to edit the URL so I don't even know - does old.reddit.com even support the giant image ads?
    - upon_drumhead 3y ago
      It does not
      - scheeseman486 3y ago
        If they shut out third party apps from official APIs, that isn't game over. Those apps can still scrape HTML and while the new reddit frontend is modern and can easily combat this, old.reddit is an unmaintained static target. They presumably know this or if they don't, they soon will. To avoid allowing app devs to run around the API changes they have to either continue maintaining the front end or cut the dead weight. Given their decision making lately, I'm going for the latter.
    - gingerrr 3y ago
      I don't know if many people can answer this question, bc nearly all folks I've seen using old. also use adblock so we don't see them anyway :P
      - bbor 3y ago
ShellfishMeme 3y ago
I wouldn't call the user experience "perfectly fine" though. It's about as "perfectly fine" for exploring the content on a phone as pasta with ketchup is perfectly fine for eating. You won't starve but you also aren't really having a good time.
- boredtofears 3y ago
  Strongly disagree. It's just a plain old HTML website pretty much the same as hacker news (no coincidence that it's built in the same era). Completely fine for reading purposes and mostly free of all the UX "optimizations" for ads and such.
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    HN adjusts to a mobile viewport. old.reddit.com is literally reading a desktop site on a phone screen. It works, but it's not a good experience, nor is it on par with HN.
  - kitsunesoba 3y ago
    HN is fine on desktop but I don't really enjoy it on mobile much. Tiny tap targets, font sizes and spacing seem a bit "off", etc, and so I use a third party client. Have similar feelings about old reddit on mobile. What it comes down to is that yeah they're better than new reddit, but that's not much of a bar to clear and if I'm going to be spending extended periods of time using a site/service the experience needs to be good not just passable.
    - nullindividual 3y ago
      There are some good HN mobile clients. On iOS I use (and purchased) Octal [0]. I find this particular mobile experience far superior to the HN website. [0] https://github.com/dangwu/Octal https://github.com/dangwu/Octal
danudey 3y ago
It doesn't affect them directly, but the moderation tools a lot of subreddits need are built into third-party apps because Reddit refuses to build mod tools itself, and when those stop working then the job of moderating large and active subreddits will become vastly more cumbersome and frustrating, and far less efficient. Maybe this issue only affects 0.1% of users, but those 0.1% of users do a lot for the site that depends on functionality that Reddit is unable or unwilling to provide. It also seems as though a lot of moderators of larger subreddits are starting to see how little their users understand and appreciate the amount of work that goes into moderating a subreddit. When those mod tools are gone and their jobs get harder, they're going to get shat on even more than they already do by those users, because of the issue that those users said was just "a bunch of dorks with no lives getting worked up over nothing". Curious to see how this all shakes out.
- fny 3y ago
  Are these moderation tools any better on other platforms?
  - reddit_refugee3 3y ago
    What platforms? No, seriously, what platforms, I'm looking for a reddit alternative.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Moderation is a maddening and thankless job but there’s always someone else who wants the privilege.
- ForRealsies 3y ago
  [dead]
- throw16180339 3y ago
  > It doesn't affect them directly, but the moderation tools a lot of subreddits need are built into third-party apps because Reddit refuses to build mod tools itself, and when those stop working then the job of moderating large and active subreddits will become vastly more cumbersome and frustrating, and far less efficient. I checked yesterday and some widely used mod bots are already down. https://www.reddit.com/user/Blank-Cheque https://www.reddit.com/user/Blank-Cheque took all their bots down 10 days ago until the third-party apps change is reverted. • AssistantBOT, AssistantBOT1 - This was broken by the Pushshift API cutoff. It's widely used for tracking sub usage statistics. The author is working on fixing it, but the last update was three weeks ago. • Flair_Helper (Blank-Cheque) - This makes removing posts easier, especially on mobile. I haven't used it in anger. • FloodgatesBot (Blank-Cheque) - This applies posting limits for users. There are a couple competitors, but I'm not sure how many are still running. • Quality_Vote (Blank-Cheque) - This is used to allow users to remove unpopular posts. It can save a lot of moderation work in the right kind of sub. • SafestBot (Blank-Cheque) - This is widely used by subs to ban spam and troll accounts. SaferBot, it's only alternative, was closed to additional subs some time ago.
kibwen 3y ago
> old.reddit.com and Adblock works perfectly fine on the phone old.reddit.com may not be long for this world. i.reddit.com and reddit.com/.compact were both removed earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35283379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35283379 (The irony now of that top comment, "99.5% of my usage is through the iOS client Apollo"...)
- labster 3y ago
  Right now, 100% of my usage is old.reddit.com and 0% of my usage is on the new design. These numbers won’t change if they remove old reddit — I’ll just stop using the site.
  - okdood64 3y ago
    > I’ll just stop using the site. I keep hearing this repeated by people who use the site. Honestly, no they won't. At least the vast majority of them. There's literally no viable replacement.
    - kibwen 3y ago
      For tech people, you're looking at the viable replacement. For other people, if they're deliberately going out of their way to avoid the redesign after all these years, they may replace it with nothing (and be happier, as most people find they are when they quit social media).
blendergeek 3y ago
> old.reddit.com and Adblock works perfectly fine on the phone. Better than Reddit’s mobile site. What if I told you that Reddit is going to do away with 'old.reddit.com' next?
- aniforprez 3y ago
  In spez's AMA, he said "old reddit is not going anywhere" Years ago, when announcing the new website, he said "the API is not going anywhere" old reddit is 100% on the chopping block
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- globular-toast 3y ago
  [flagged]
- larperdoodle 3y ago
  [flagged]
- rblatz 3y ago
  Either I switch to the new interface and be grumpy about it for a few weeks until I get used to it, or I stop going on Reddit and spend less time mindlessly consuming content? Or maybe I spend more time on TikTok/Instagram short form video? I’m not really worried about the bad spez taking away my reddits.
indymike 3y ago
> Also most people don’t really care about the API/3rd party app thing. It doesn’t impact them and it looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks with no lives getting worked up over nothing. This may be a case where certain people are more important than most people. > looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks It appears the "dorks" are the certain people who have been making Reddit work for most people.
- goostavos 3y ago
  Are they? Despite everyone saying this, Reddit seems to be humming along. I log onto the front page and have something of the "normal" reddit experience. For instance, "heh. Look at that fish, that's crazy". I mindlessly scroll past all the "REDDIT IS BEING BAD" posts the same way I scroll past Youtube drama posts, or "How Elon is ruining Twitter" drama posts. I'm here to look at funny pictures. Maybe I'm in a reverse sub-bubble, but outside of the tech circles complaining, the protest still seems to be "what protest?"
  - bamfly 3y ago
    > Maybe I'm in a reverse sub-bubble, but outside of the tech circles complaining, the protest still seems to be "what protest?" My wife noticed day-1 of the protests (I know because she asked me for the TL;DR of WTF is happening) and she doesn't move in tech circles, and the subs she likes (liked?) are all pop-culture stuff. Pretty sure she's just not been using reddit since then, as all of what she cared about is gone. Other non-tech friends of mine also noticed within 24 hours of the protests starting, with similar "well, damn, guess I'll find somewhere else to waste time" reactions. But, all of the people I know who use reddit use it only for a few subs, and hardly ever visit the site's front page except by accident. I don't know anyone who's like "I'll just go to the Reddit homepage and look for something interesting that it's decided to promote", though I'm sure such users exist (and may even be the majority, for all I know).
    - goatlover 3y ago
      You realize this is anecdotal and not statistical evidence of the larger population of Reddit users, right? What percentage are like your friends, versus how many continue to use Reddit, or will go right back when things return to normal, one way or another?
actionablefiber 3y ago
I also love old.reddit.com with RES, but I have no illusion that Reddit likes it too. It seems likely to me that the same factors that motivate Reddit to do away with high-quality, user-oriented third party frontends will also motivate it to do away with old.reddit.com and RSS.
emodendroket 3y ago
I mean I like Apollo but I’m not going to waste my time getting involved in aimless slacktivism if the overlords of Reddit have decided they no longer want to do something that makes no business sense. I’ll just move on to their official app, I guess.
bastardoperator 3y ago
Agreed. I'd argue most don't even know what an API is. Eventually super moderators will end this standoff and reddit subreddits will be restored, the masses wont even care like they don't now.
comte7092 3y ago
Users aren’t leading the blackout, mods are. This is a fundamental issue with your analysis. Reddit mods are integral to the site’s operations, and they aren’t employees they can just order around.
weaksauce 3y ago
i used to think old reddit was great and all i needed on the ipad until someone convinced me to try apollo... it’s simply 1000x better in all regard. stupidly fast and clean.
bnralt 3y ago
Yeah, the biggest issue for me as a Reddit user is despotic mods. And frankly, this shut down is another good example of how problematic they are. There was important information these past few days I couldn't get to because mods locked it away behind this blackout. A handful of mods had polls, but for most subs the mods just decided they were going to lock away all the user created content, and did so without the community having a say. Which is ironic, because that's the same thing they're complaining about Reddit corporate doing.
cwkoss 3y ago
Reddit official app and new website both suck, majority of my friends use reddit, but none of them use official clients - all third party apps or old.reddit.

by rblatz 3y ago

emptyfile 3y ago

Yeah that's the whole reason why subs are shutting down. Because the mods care, even if their users don't.

kzrdude 3y ago
Users like a good riot though
riku_iki 3y ago
but users are main contributors of content. Should they be asked at least?
- throw16180339 3y ago
  I'm not sure about other subs, but we asked our users about continuing the blackout.
  - riku_iki 3y ago
    one of my favorite subs didn't ask

evertedsphere 3y ago

old.reddit.com isn't going to be around for much longer, is the thing

ndnxncncnfjdjd 3y ago

That's all well and good for now, but surely you can see that old.reddit.com is likely also on the chopping block?

blahyawnblah 3y ago
Where did you see that?
- bbor 3y ago
  Seems self-explanatory. They're fighting for profitability, prioritizing mass-appeal, prioritizing ads, and maintaining two UIs in an advertising business sounds like a huge hassle. I'm too lazy to edit the URL so I don't even know - does old.reddit.com even support the giant image ads?
  - upon_drumhead 3y ago
    It does not
    - scheeseman486 3y ago
      If they shut out third party apps from official APIs, that isn't game over. Those apps can still scrape HTML and while the new reddit frontend is modern and can easily combat this, old.reddit is an unmaintained static target. They presumably know this or if they don't, they soon will. To avoid allowing app devs to run around the API changes they have to either continue maintaining the front end or cut the dead weight. Given their decision making lately, I'm going for the latter.
  - gingerrr 3y ago
    I don't know if many people can answer this question, bc nearly all folks I've seen using old. also use adblock so we don't see them anyway :P
    - bbor 3y ago

ShellfishMeme 3y ago

I wouldn't call the user experience "perfectly fine" though. It's about as "perfectly fine" for exploring the content on a phone as pasta with ketchup is perfectly fine for eating. You won't starve but you also aren't really having a good time.

boredtofears 3y ago
Strongly disagree. It's just a plain old HTML website pretty much the same as hacker news (no coincidence that it's built in the same era). Completely fine for reading purposes and mostly free of all the UX "optimizations" for ads and such.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  HN adjusts to a mobile viewport. old.reddit.com is literally reading a desktop site on a phone screen. It works, but it's not a good experience, nor is it on par with HN.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  HN is fine on desktop but I don't really enjoy it on mobile much. Tiny tap targets, font sizes and spacing seem a bit "off", etc, and so I use a third party client. Have similar feelings about old reddit on mobile. What it comes down to is that yeah they're better than new reddit, but that's not much of a bar to clear and if I'm going to be spending extended periods of time using a site/service the experience needs to be good not just passable.
  - nullindividual 3y ago
    There are some good HN mobile clients. On iOS I use (and purchased) Octal [0]. I find this particular mobile experience far superior to the HN website. [0] https://github.com/dangwu/Octal https://github.com/dangwu/Octal

danudey 3y ago

It doesn't affect them directly, but the moderation tools a lot of subreddits need are built into third-party apps because Reddit refuses to build mod tools itself, and when those stop working then the job of moderating large and active subreddits will become vastly more cumbersome and frustrating, and far less efficient. Maybe this issue only affects 0.1% of users, but those 0.1% of users do a lot for the site that depends on functionality that Reddit is unable or unwilling to provide. It also seems as though a lot of moderators of larger subreddits are starting to see how little their users understand and appreciate the amount of work that goes into moderating a subreddit. When those mod tools are gone and their jobs get harder, they're going to get shat on even more than they already do by those users, because of the issue that those users said was just "a bunch of dorks with no lives getting worked up over nothing". Curious to see how this all shakes out.

fny 3y ago
Are these moderation tools any better on other platforms?
- reddit_refugee3 3y ago
  What platforms? No, seriously, what platforms, I'm looking for a reddit alternative.
emodendroket 3y ago
Moderation is a maddening and thankless job but there’s always someone else who wants the privilege.
ForRealsies 3y ago
[dead]
throw16180339 3y ago
> It doesn't affect them directly, but the moderation tools a lot of subreddits need are built into third-party apps because Reddit refuses to build mod tools itself, and when those stop working then the job of moderating large and active subreddits will become vastly more cumbersome and frustrating, and far less efficient. I checked yesterday and some widely used mod bots are already down. https://www.reddit.com/user/Blank-Cheque https://www.reddit.com/user/Blank-Cheque took all their bots down 10 days ago until the third-party apps change is reverted. • AssistantBOT, AssistantBOT1 - This was broken by the Pushshift API cutoff. It's widely used for tracking sub usage statistics. The author is working on fixing it, but the last update was three weeks ago. • Flair_Helper (Blank-Cheque) - This makes removing posts easier, especially on mobile. I haven't used it in anger. • FloodgatesBot (Blank-Cheque) - This applies posting limits for users. There are a couple competitors, but I'm not sure how many are still running. • Quality_Vote (Blank-Cheque) - This is used to allow users to remove unpopular posts. It can save a lot of moderation work in the right kind of sub. • SafestBot (Blank-Cheque) - This is widely used by subs to ban spam and troll accounts. SaferBot, it's only alternative, was closed to additional subs some time ago.

kibwen 3y ago

> old.reddit.com and Adblock works perfectly fine on the phone old.reddit.com may not be long for this world. i.reddit.com and reddit.com/.compact were both removed earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35283379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35283379 (The irony now of that top comment, "99.5% of my usage is through the iOS client Apollo"...)

labster 3y ago
Right now, 100% of my usage is old.reddit.com and 0% of my usage is on the new design. These numbers won’t change if they remove old reddit — I’ll just stop using the site.
- okdood64 3y ago
  > I’ll just stop using the site. I keep hearing this repeated by people who use the site. Honestly, no they won't. At least the vast majority of them. There's literally no viable replacement.
  - kibwen 3y ago
    For tech people, you're looking at the viable replacement. For other people, if they're deliberately going out of their way to avoid the redesign after all these years, they may replace it with nothing (and be happier, as most people find they are when they quit social media).

blendergeek 3y ago

> old.reddit.com and Adblock works perfectly fine on the phone. Better than Reddit’s mobile site. What if I told you that Reddit is going to do away with 'old.reddit.com' next?

aniforprez 3y ago
In spez's AMA, he said "old reddit is not going anywhere" Years ago, when announcing the new website, he said "the API is not going anywhere" old reddit is 100% on the chopping block
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
globular-toast 3y ago
[flagged]
larperdoodle 3y ago
[flagged]
rblatz 3y ago
Either I switch to the new interface and be grumpy about it for a few weeks until I get used to it, or I stop going on Reddit and spend less time mindlessly consuming content? Or maybe I spend more time on TikTok/Instagram short form video? I’m not really worried about the bad spez taking away my reddits.

indymike 3y ago

> Also most people don’t really care about the API/3rd party app thing. It doesn’t impact them and it looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks with no lives getting worked up over nothing. This may be a case where certain people are more important than most people. > looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks It appears the "dorks" are the certain people who have been making Reddit work for most people.

goostavos 3y ago
Are they? Despite everyone saying this, Reddit seems to be humming along. I log onto the front page and have something of the "normal" reddit experience. For instance, "heh. Look at that fish, that's crazy". I mindlessly scroll past all the "REDDIT IS BEING BAD" posts the same way I scroll past Youtube drama posts, or "How Elon is ruining Twitter" drama posts. I'm here to look at funny pictures. Maybe I'm in a reverse sub-bubble, but outside of the tech circles complaining, the protest still seems to be "what protest?"
- bamfly 3y ago
  > Maybe I'm in a reverse sub-bubble, but outside of the tech circles complaining, the protest still seems to be "what protest?" My wife noticed day-1 of the protests (I know because she asked me for the TL;DR of WTF is happening) and she doesn't move in tech circles, and the subs she likes (liked?) are all pop-culture stuff. Pretty sure she's just not been using reddit since then, as all of what she cared about is gone. Other non-tech friends of mine also noticed within 24 hours of the protests starting, with similar "well, damn, guess I'll find somewhere else to waste time" reactions. But, all of the people I know who use reddit use it only for a few subs, and hardly ever visit the site's front page except by accident. I don't know anyone who's like "I'll just go to the Reddit homepage and look for something interesting that it's decided to promote", though I'm sure such users exist (and may even be the majority, for all I know).
  - goatlover 3y ago
    You realize this is anecdotal and not statistical evidence of the larger population of Reddit users, right? What percentage are like your friends, versus how many continue to use Reddit, or will go right back when things return to normal, one way or another?

actionablefiber 3y ago

I also love old.reddit.com with RES, but I have no illusion that Reddit likes it too. It seems likely to me that the same factors that motivate Reddit to do away with high-quality, user-oriented third party frontends will also motivate it to do away with old.reddit.com and RSS.

emodendroket 3y ago

I mean I like Apollo but I’m not going to waste my time getting involved in aimless slacktivism if the overlords of Reddit have decided they no longer want to do something that makes no business sense. I’ll just move on to their official app, I guess.

bastardoperator 3y ago

Agreed. I'd argue most don't even know what an API is. Eventually super moderators will end this standoff and reddit subreddits will be restored, the masses wont even care like they don't now.

comte7092 3y ago

Users aren’t leading the blackout, mods are. This is a fundamental issue with your analysis. Reddit mods are integral to the site’s operations, and they aren’t employees they can just order around.

weaksauce 3y ago

i used to think old reddit was great and all i needed on the ipad until someone convinced me to try apollo... it’s simply 1000x better in all regard. stupidly fast and clean.

bnralt 3y ago

Yeah, the biggest issue for me as a Reddit user is despotic mods. And frankly, this shut down is another good example of how problematic they are. There was important information these past few days I couldn't get to because mods locked it away behind this blackout. A handful of mods had polls, but for most subs the mods just decided they were going to lock away all the user created content, and did so without the community having a say. Which is ironic, because that's the same thing they're complaining about Reddit corporate doing.

cwkoss 3y ago

Reddit official app and new website both suck, majority of my friends use reddit, but none of them use official clients - all third party apps or old.reddit.