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Reddit is the worst for this. I hate the disgusting, low class UX design where they let you read about 10-15 seconds of a page before locking you out. Though

Reddit is the worst for this. I hate the disgusting, low class UX design where they let you read about 10-15 seconds of a page before locking you out. Though I think Pinterest takes the cake for being just the ugliest example of this.

alex1138 2mo ago
spez is a problem. And if it's not spez, then enlighten me. But they've taken years of built up network effects and absolutely wrecked it. It's so hostile when companies do this. They just ignore their users, straight up. That should be a firable offense. The customer is NOT 'always right', but you can meet them halfway Fail upwards. That's all they know how to do
- afavour 2mo ago
  > They just ignore their users, straight up. Existing Reddit users aren’t affected by this regi wall UX because they’re already logged in. And as much as I hate the UX too… Reddit user numbers have grown a ton in the last few years. It’s difficult to make the argument that these changes are a failure.
  - nerdsniper 2mo ago
    People who aren’t logged in are still (very arguably) users, IMHO. They see ads, and make Reddit money with their eyeballs.
  - trompetenaccoun 2mo ago
    What kind of users though? OnlyFans models, porn addicts, LLMs and child groomers... maybe. I could be ignorant because I'm not the target user for their brave new vision but no one I know uses reddit anymore. And with the locking of old.reddit and forcing sign-ups they probably lost the last few old timers who were still there for what was supposed to be an open forum to freely exchange ideas.
  - throw0101a 2mo ago
    > Existing Reddit users aren’t affected by this regi wall UX because they’re already logged in. I am an existing Reddit user, but don't want to be logged in everywhere and always. Sometimes I had a few free moments and wanted to kill some time, so until recently I could go to Old Reddit on my mobile phone and just see what the 'general human zeitgeist' was discussing: from something serious in /r/worldnews to some pop culture news story.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    If you actually look at the content of Reddit it's obvious they're almost all bots.
  - chanux 2mo ago
    In my experience, they keep aggressively logging me out. Maybe it's just me but not really worth time to figure out as of now.
  - alightsoul 2mo ago
    Yeah they have grown because it's the only thing Google ever shows when you want people's opinions or search for something and want to see what people say. The only forum or community they ever show is reddit and nothing else, not even Twitter nor Instagram nor anything else.
    - pbhjpbhj 2mo ago
      Twitter, Instagram, Facebook are all closed [too, like Reddit], Google SERPs should have preferred reddit as a source people could access. I don't see it that much; probably country or personal search effects.
      - alightsoul 2mo ago
        Don't you hate it when Google filters results based on the country of your IP address?
- AlexandrB 2mo ago
  > The customer is NOT 'always right', but you can meet them halfway Reddit users are not customers. The advertisers and AI labs are the customers because they're the ones paying. The users are the cattle in the pen being sold to the advertisers and the monkeys at the typewriters whose output gets sold as AI training data.
  - alex1138 2mo ago
    I understand this, but the distinction is academic The people using their product. The people who, if the product were shit from day 1 - as Reddit wasn't - would have never signed up for it. Who have been effectively and literally lied to
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      It's not day 1, so it's irrelevant what would've happened on day 1.
      - alex1138 2mo ago
        What is your point. The product has been ruined and I'm saying that by 'customers' I just meant users
        Wolfbeta 2mo ago
        “Users” is a misnomer that sheepishly cloaks the relationship with a little feint of dignity. You are not the customer merely because you use the thing. Where the service is free, your attention, metadata, and by extension, susceptibility to influence are the value being sold; the advertisers are the customers. As the saying goes: “If it’s free, you’re the product.”
        inigyou 2mo ago
        My point is exactly what I wrote.
chrysoprace 2mo ago
Old Reddit is now completely unusable without an account. Maybe it's time for me to finally stop using it.
- hedora 2mo ago
  Do database dumps of it still exist? Maybe it’s time to just download it and Wikipedia, then point an LLM / vectordb at it.
  - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
    See if https://github.com/Tryhard-cs/reddit-download-tool https://github.com/Tryhard-cs/reddit-download-tool works, the readme enumerates the data sources it pulls from. Perhaps the way to solve for X is having a scraper serve the data via torrent and/or IPFS vs centralized systems like nitter and xcancel.
  - novok 2mo ago
    Yes they do, there are archives that are up to date for the month.
- throwaway85825 2mo ago
  Old reddit on the tor onion domain still works for me.
  - pbhjpbhj 2mo ago
    All the time? It wasn't working for me using tor-browser, nor Brave. I was only a reader of Reddit. I'm on fediverse/Lemmy, mainly https://old.lemmy.world https://old.lemmy.world which feels very familiar! I've not taken the effort to understand fediverse yet, but it feels very old-internet.
- ryandrake 2mo ago
  Interesting--I'm still using old.reddit.com with no problem, without an account. Maybe the change is not broadly rolled out?
mlmonkey 2mo ago
Reddit seems to have let this AI demand go to their heads. I had multiple Reddit accounts, simply because I did not want my more "professional" account linked to the other accounts (some for more controversial opinions, some for more adult talk, etc.) Apparently that's a problem for them. So they banned most of my accounts. If I really was up to no good, I'd have used VPNs, etc. to hide my activities. But I just wanted to segregate my personas. e.g. I like discussing local SF and California politics, and often times take controversial positions. I don't want my activities as a respectable(?) member of the Linux Kernel group to be colored through my activities in these other groups. But now I can't do that. Oh, and back in the day Reddit (when it wanted to pad its user numbers) didn't care for an email address or a phone number. Now, 15 years later, it suddenly wants to confirm the email address! And don't even get me started on the moderation at Reddit. Typical example: "Hey! We deleted your comment. If you have any questions about it, email the mods." except ... they deleted the comment and now I don't even know what was wrong with it! :-D
- inigyou 2mo ago
  You're lucky you only got email address. I got selfie+ID. No thank you.
- jmalicki 2mo ago
  Interesting, because multiple accounts for the same person is explicitly allowed by Reddit: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204535759-Is-it-ok-to-create-multiple-accounts https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204535759-I...
  - novok 2mo ago
    What is written and what is done in practice is always different. "Anti-fraud" and "security" are things you can drive a truck through.
    - jmalicki 2mo ago
      Which is why, like often in these stories, there is probably more to it.
MYEUHD 2mo ago
> Reddit is the worst for this. I hate the disgusting, low class UX design where they let you read about 10-15 seconds of a page before locking you out. When this happens I use uBlock origin to remove that popup and the grey background behind it. Scrolling and loading more comments remains usable (unlike Facebook)
rplnt 2mo ago
(as a logged-in user) I just stopped using it the day they banned 3rd party apps and I don't miss it a bit. I visit some communities still, but only on PC with old reddit. Once that is gone, I'm gone as well.

alex1138 2mo ago

spez is a problem. And if it's not spez, then enlighten me. But they've taken years of built up network effects and absolutely wrecked it. It's so hostile when companies do this. They just ignore their users, straight up. That should be a firable offense. The customer is NOT 'always right', but you can meet them halfway Fail upwards. That's all they know how to do

afavour 2mo ago
> They just ignore their users, straight up. Existing Reddit users aren’t affected by this regi wall UX because they’re already logged in. And as much as I hate the UX too… Reddit user numbers have grown a ton in the last few years. It’s difficult to make the argument that these changes are a failure.
- nerdsniper 2mo ago
  People who aren’t logged in are still (very arguably) users, IMHO. They see ads, and make Reddit money with their eyeballs.
- trompetenaccoun 2mo ago
  What kind of users though? OnlyFans models, porn addicts, LLMs and child groomers... maybe. I could be ignorant because I'm not the target user for their brave new vision but no one I know uses reddit anymore. And with the locking of old.reddit and forcing sign-ups they probably lost the last few old timers who were still there for what was supposed to be an open forum to freely exchange ideas.
- throw0101a 2mo ago
  > Existing Reddit users aren’t affected by this regi wall UX because they’re already logged in. I am an existing Reddit user, but don't want to be logged in everywhere and always. Sometimes I had a few free moments and wanted to kill some time, so until recently I could go to Old Reddit on my mobile phone and just see what the 'general human zeitgeist' was discussing: from something serious in /r/worldnews to some pop culture news story.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  If you actually look at the content of Reddit it's obvious they're almost all bots.
- chanux 2mo ago
  In my experience, they keep aggressively logging me out. Maybe it's just me but not really worth time to figure out as of now.
- alightsoul 2mo ago
  Yeah they have grown because it's the only thing Google ever shows when you want people's opinions or search for something and want to see what people say. The only forum or community they ever show is reddit and nothing else, not even Twitter nor Instagram nor anything else.
  - pbhjpbhj 2mo ago
    Twitter, Instagram, Facebook are all closed [too, like Reddit], Google SERPs should have preferred reddit as a source people could access. I don't see it that much; probably country or personal search effects.
    - alightsoul 2mo ago
      Don't you hate it when Google filters results based on the country of your IP address?
AlexandrB 2mo ago
> The customer is NOT 'always right', but you can meet them halfway Reddit users are not customers. The advertisers and AI labs are the customers because they're the ones paying. The users are the cattle in the pen being sold to the advertisers and the monkeys at the typewriters whose output gets sold as AI training data.
- alex1138 2mo ago
  I understand this, but the distinction is academic The people using their product. The people who, if the product were shit from day 1 - as Reddit wasn't - would have never signed up for it. Who have been effectively and literally lied to
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    It's not day 1, so it's irrelevant what would've happened on day 1.
    - alex1138 2mo ago
      What is your point. The product has been ruined and I'm saying that by 'customers' I just meant users
      - Wolfbeta 2mo ago
        “Users” is a misnomer that sheepishly cloaks the relationship with a little feint of dignity. You are not the customer merely because you use the thing. Where the service is free, your attention, metadata, and by extension, susceptibility to influence are the value being sold; the advertisers are the customers. As the saying goes: “If it’s free, you’re the product.”
      - inigyou 2mo ago
        My point is exactly what I wrote.

chrysoprace 2mo ago

Old Reddit is now completely unusable without an account. Maybe it's time for me to finally stop using it.

hedora 2mo ago
Do database dumps of it still exist? Maybe it’s time to just download it and Wikipedia, then point an LLM / vectordb at it.
- toomuchtodo 2mo ago
  See if https://github.com/Tryhard-cs/reddit-download-tool https://github.com/Tryhard-cs/reddit-download-tool works, the readme enumerates the data sources it pulls from. Perhaps the way to solve for X is having a scraper serve the data via torrent and/or IPFS vs centralized systems like nitter and xcancel.
- novok 2mo ago
  Yes they do, there are archives that are up to date for the month.
throwaway85825 2mo ago
Old reddit on the tor onion domain still works for me.
- pbhjpbhj 2mo ago
  All the time? It wasn't working for me using tor-browser, nor Brave. I was only a reader of Reddit. I'm on fediverse/Lemmy, mainly https://old.lemmy.world https://old.lemmy.world which feels very familiar! I've not taken the effort to understand fediverse yet, but it feels very old-internet.
ryandrake 2mo ago
Interesting--I'm still using old.reddit.com with no problem, without an account. Maybe the change is not broadly rolled out?

mlmonkey 2mo ago

Reddit seems to have let this AI demand go to their heads. I had multiple Reddit accounts, simply because I did not want my more "professional" account linked to the other accounts (some for more controversial opinions, some for more adult talk, etc.) Apparently that's a problem for them. So they banned most of my accounts. If I really was up to no good, I'd have used VPNs, etc. to hide my activities. But I just wanted to segregate my personas. e.g. I like discussing local SF and California politics, and often times take controversial positions. I don't want my activities as a respectable(?) member of the Linux Kernel group to be colored through my activities in these other groups. But now I can't do that. Oh, and back in the day Reddit (when it wanted to pad its user numbers) didn't care for an email address or a phone number. Now, 15 years later, it suddenly wants to confirm the email address! And don't even get me started on the moderation at Reddit. Typical example: "Hey! We deleted your comment. If you have any questions about it, email the mods." except ... they deleted the comment and now I don't even know what was wrong with it! :-D

inigyou 2mo ago
You're lucky you only got email address. I got selfie+ID. No thank you.
jmalicki 2mo ago
Interesting, because multiple accounts for the same person is explicitly allowed by Reddit: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204535759-Is-it-ok-to-create-multiple-accounts https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204535759-I...
- novok 2mo ago
  What is written and what is done in practice is always different. "Anti-fraud" and "security" are things you can drive a truck through.
  - jmalicki 2mo ago
    Which is why, like often in these stories, there is probably more to it.

MYEUHD 2mo ago

> Reddit is the worst for this. I hate the disgusting, low class UX design where they let you read about 10-15 seconds of a page before locking you out. When this happens I use uBlock origin to remove that popup and the grey background behind it. Scrolling and loading more comments remains usable (unlike Facebook)

rplnt 2mo ago

(as a logged-in user) I just stopped using it the day they banned 3rd party apps and I don't miss it a bit. I visit some communities still, but only on PC with old reddit. Once that is gone, I'm gone as well.