9 ms·

I was part of this test - I've refused to install the app for years (I prefer websites and the option to open tabs for later browsing). It was extremely annoyi

by john-n 3y ago

I was part of this test - I've refused to install the app for years (I prefer websites and the option to open tabs for later browsing). It was extremely annoying for a site I've used for 12+ years to treat me like that. It did massively cut my usage of Reddit (which I would consider to be quite high), I primarily access it from my phone and I all but stopped using it for the week or so I was in the "experiment".

stevenhubertron 3y ago
Was in the same test hated it. Went to Android before Apple had default launcher selection.
japhyr 3y ago
I would love to know the conversion rate that resulted from that test, it must have been absolutely abysmal.
- comte7092 3y ago
  I’ve already been ignoring the extremely annoying spammy pop ups telling me to download the app for years. I’m not downloading the app. I am just not doing it. Period.
  - wtetzner 3y ago
    I always treat those popups as a reminder to switch to old.reddit.com. The annoyance of having to do that then reminds me why I don't use reddit much.
  - zuppy 3y ago
    if you happen to be using safari on ios, someone just created an extension for cleaning up the mobile web version: https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/sink-it-for-reddit/id6449873635?l=ro https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/sink-it-for-reddit/id644987363...
    - jackdh 3y ago
      Now that they have extension support in IOS, I'm surprised RES has not been ported across.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- eastbound 3y ago
  Worse than the conversion rate, Google will most certainly deindex the Reddit pages if they are not available as webpages. But surely Reddit has already calculated that “[search query] + Reddit” is traffic they don’t care about?
  - Implicated 3y ago
    I’d venture to bet that they respond to google with a different version of the page, without the pop up.
    - RobotToaster 3y ago
      Isn't that also something Google delists pages for?
      - Nextgrid 3y ago
        Used to. Nowadays Google is equally user-hostile and is happy to accommodate its peers.
      - jonathantf2 3y ago
        I think most news sites with paywalls do this? If you change your UserAgent to Googlebot you can bypass them.
- tazjin 3y ago
  People refusing to use their app etc. are likely a minority. Most people are completely used to being bullied into submission by tech companies, and will happily follow along. I'd assume their goal with this isn't to convert the stragglers, it's to just close the gates to them so that they disappear from ad-view related statistics. Edit: Further to this point, the Apollo app which everyone was talking about the other day has 50000 (fifty thousand!) paid users. Reddit has hundreds of millions of monthly users. They don't care about this minority of users, they just want the shitstorm to pass so they can move on. They also don't care that there's likely a small minority of users creating most actual good content, but it doesn't matter because the site can be floated entirely by meme spam bots and porn posts and still be massively profitable.
  - emeril 3y ago
    I'm personally not confident if the signal to noise ratio took a turn for the worse (re: spam and porn posts), the site would be as a profitable/popular anymore What I'm curious about is why didn't (and maybe they did as I'm not particularly well read in this situation) reddit just buy the apollo app for like $1M/$5M/etc. and then just modify it so it injects whatever tracking they want instead of creating this giant far more costly shitstorm? Further, maybe the 50k paid users but perhaps there were many unpaid users using it less intensely?
baby 3y ago
> I prefer websites and the option to open tabs for later browsing The number of times I lost a post because when I switched app or didn’t use my phone for a while reddit would just reset to the home page… I think they really didn’t realize how much the shitty UX would enrage people against them.
- wanderingstan 3y ago
  This is what keeps me on old.reddit. The new web version and the app are always losing my place.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    They need to shut that down. Even better, they should make a desktop app and force users to use that instead of the website. If they really believe in their forced-app strategy, they should bet the farm on it, not just on mobile, but everywhere.
    - SllX 3y ago
      Would be faster to just shut down the corporation and give the money back to the shareholders, whatever they have anyway, but your approach is not without merit, mostly in that I think it would be funny at this point.
      - midoridensha 3y ago
        That's basically why I'm advocating what I posted, that and also because I think it'd be a great chapter in tech history, showing how doubling down on a stupid user-hostile decision can destroy a company (assuming it does). Then, 30 years from now, people will still talk about how Reddit self-destructed when they decided they needed to control the user experience and forced everyone to use their app. Rationally, your approach is of course better, but the current narcissistic execs aren't going to do anything like that, whereas I can certainly see them doing something as stupid and out-of-touch as forcing everyone to use their app on both mobile and desktop.
weard_beard 3y ago
This is how I discovered old.reddit.com still works. And it has none of the broken javascript or A/B app pushing code in it.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  old.reddit.com is the only reason I haven't given the place up. When it goes, so will I.
- devjab 3y ago
  I was on reddit before they tried updating their designs, the only reason I'm still there is because they still have the old.reddit.com frontend available. I even use it on mobile where it's not exactly practical. It's not because I have some sort of aversion to change, well, I guess I'm really uninterested in downloading apps considering I didn't even bother to try things like Apolle to see what the fuzz was about, but their various attempts at redesigns have been so bad that I would rather use old.reddit.com than them on mobile, even though it's impractical. On a computer I see no benefits from any of the redesigns compared to old.reddit.com. I work a lot with Typescript and also React myself, and I love the language, so it's not because I dislike that sort of thing, but I think a list of links with comments just works better without being put into a virtual DOM or even just JS. HN is the perfect example of that, there has been a lot of hobby JS frontends from people, but they all work worse than the real deal and somewhat hilariously they work better than reddit's professional attempts. Now I get why reddit wants to move away from the page-reload. They want a lot of the SoMe interactivity, like their silly chat and so on, but I'm not sure who would ever want a Facebook with total strangers instead of people you actually talk with. I sure don't.
- labster 3y ago
  I signed up for Reddit last year, finally. I’m a happy user of old.reddit.com. And if it goes, I go. I survived a decade without an account, and it would be easy enough to go back that way. My opinion is not that important to share.
- rampant_ai 3y ago
  Old Reddit with a Stylus theme is how I've been using it for years. I'd occasionally switch to the new site just to check it's progress and while it has gotten a bit better in the last year or so, little nitpicks eventually drive me back to old.
OkGoDoIt 3y ago
Yelp started doing this years ago. They slowly cut access to their mobile site that used to work perfectly well. Sure I could install the app, but the obvious disrespect to the user pretending that the mobile site didn’t work perfectly well and that you have to install the app was so frustrating that I just stopped using Yelp altogether. And that’s saying something, seeing as I own a local theater venue and refusing to engage with Yelp hurts be more than it hurts them. But screw it, I hate being bullied by these platforms.
TheFragenTaken 3y ago
Fortunately their app is compatible with the ReVanced project (think YouTube Vanced). It's terrible you have to recompile apk's to get a useful experience (sans ads, sharing tracking, other restrictions), but for me it's currently the only viable way to use Reddit.
- phatfish 3y ago
  Revanced is the only way to stay sane while using Youtube and Twitch on mobile. The adverts and other spam are more obnoxious than cable TV. I just hope it flies under the radar enough that Google don't start banning accounts for using it. I don't log in to the Youtube app for this reason, but I'm sure there is a line in a EULA somewhere that means they could if they wanted to. Which reminds me, i need to backup all my email...
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  I use Revanced too but let's face it we're talking about 1% of users at best.
- Narushia 3y ago
  If you are tired of patching the APKs yourself, you can just use pre-built APKs for less work: https://github.com/revanced-apks/build-apps/releases https://github.com/revanced-apks/build-apps/releases
bjoli 3y ago
I stopped using reddit when the .compact interface was removed. No I go back once in a while but if this goes through I will probably simply never visit.
- jacurtis 3y ago
  You can still use old.reddit.com, which is vastly superior and faster than the modern reddit. It also loads videos and images inline (when you click for them to load) and it de-emphasizes comments. This allows you to work like the compact feed where you scroll through posts and only go into comments sections if you _really_ want to. It is a good alternative.
  - jghn 3y ago
    It's funny because I also sing the praises of old.reddit.com but would describe it/my preferences in a totally different manner. My preference would be for reddit to be as close to HN in UI format as possible, perhaps with some minor thumbnails for visual content. What I like about the old UI is that I find it emphasizes the post titles instead of content. I *don't* feel inundated with images & videos, besides the little thumbnail. I usually just want to skim titles, not look at visual content, and I find that impossible in the new UI. And I find that it's easier to get at/see the comments than in the new UI.

by john-n 3y ago

stevenhubertron 3y ago

Was in the same test hated it. Went to Android before Apple had default launcher selection.

japhyr 3y ago

I would love to know the conversion rate that resulted from that test, it must have been absolutely abysmal.

comte7092 3y ago
I’ve already been ignoring the extremely annoying spammy pop ups telling me to download the app for years. I’m not downloading the app. I am just not doing it. Period.
- wtetzner 3y ago
  I always treat those popups as a reminder to switch to old.reddit.com. The annoyance of having to do that then reminds me why I don't use reddit much.
- zuppy 3y ago
  if you happen to be using safari on ios, someone just created an extension for cleaning up the mobile web version: https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/sink-it-for-reddit/id6449873635?l=ro https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/sink-it-for-reddit/id644987363...
  - jackdh 3y ago
    Now that they have extension support in IOS, I'm surprised RES has not been ported across.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
eastbound 3y ago
Worse than the conversion rate, Google will most certainly deindex the Reddit pages if they are not available as webpages. But surely Reddit has already calculated that “[search query] + Reddit” is traffic they don’t care about?
- Implicated 3y ago
  I’d venture to bet that they respond to google with a different version of the page, without the pop up.
  - RobotToaster 3y ago
    Isn't that also something Google delists pages for?
    - Nextgrid 3y ago
      Used to. Nowadays Google is equally user-hostile and is happy to accommodate its peers.
    - jonathantf2 3y ago
      I think most news sites with paywalls do this? If you change your UserAgent to Googlebot you can bypass them.
tazjin 3y ago
People refusing to use their app etc. are likely a minority. Most people are completely used to being bullied into submission by tech companies, and will happily follow along. I'd assume their goal with this isn't to convert the stragglers, it's to just close the gates to them so that they disappear from ad-view related statistics. Edit: Further to this point, the Apollo app which everyone was talking about the other day has 50000 (fifty thousand!) paid users. Reddit has hundreds of millions of monthly users. They don't care about this minority of users, they just want the shitstorm to pass so they can move on. They also don't care that there's likely a small minority of users creating most actual good content, but it doesn't matter because the site can be floated entirely by meme spam bots and porn posts and still be massively profitable.
- emeril 3y ago
  I'm personally not confident if the signal to noise ratio took a turn for the worse (re: spam and porn posts), the site would be as a profitable/popular anymore What I'm curious about is why didn't (and maybe they did as I'm not particularly well read in this situation) reddit just buy the apollo app for like $1M/$5M/etc. and then just modify it so it injects whatever tracking they want instead of creating this giant far more costly shitstorm? Further, maybe the 50k paid users but perhaps there were many unpaid users using it less intensely?

baby 3y ago

> I prefer websites and the option to open tabs for later browsing The number of times I lost a post because when I switched app or didn’t use my phone for a while reddit would just reset to the home page… I think they really didn’t realize how much the shitty UX would enrage people against them.

wanderingstan 3y ago
This is what keeps me on old.reddit. The new web version and the app are always losing my place.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  They need to shut that down. Even better, they should make a desktop app and force users to use that instead of the website. If they really believe in their forced-app strategy, they should bet the farm on it, not just on mobile, but everywhere.
  - SllX 3y ago
    Would be faster to just shut down the corporation and give the money back to the shareholders, whatever they have anyway, but your approach is not without merit, mostly in that I think it would be funny at this point.
    - midoridensha 3y ago
      That's basically why I'm advocating what I posted, that and also because I think it'd be a great chapter in tech history, showing how doubling down on a stupid user-hostile decision can destroy a company (assuming it does). Then, 30 years from now, people will still talk about how Reddit self-destructed when they decided they needed to control the user experience and forced everyone to use their app. Rationally, your approach is of course better, but the current narcissistic execs aren't going to do anything like that, whereas I can certainly see them doing something as stupid and out-of-touch as forcing everyone to use their app on both mobile and desktop.

weard_beard 3y ago

This is how I discovered old.reddit.com still works. And it has none of the broken javascript or A/B app pushing code in it.

marssaxman 3y ago
old.reddit.com is the only reason I haven't given the place up. When it goes, so will I.
devjab 3y ago
I was on reddit before they tried updating their designs, the only reason I'm still there is because they still have the old.reddit.com frontend available. I even use it on mobile where it's not exactly practical. It's not because I have some sort of aversion to change, well, I guess I'm really uninterested in downloading apps considering I didn't even bother to try things like Apolle to see what the fuzz was about, but their various attempts at redesigns have been so bad that I would rather use old.reddit.com than them on mobile, even though it's impractical. On a computer I see no benefits from any of the redesigns compared to old.reddit.com. I work a lot with Typescript and also React myself, and I love the language, so it's not because I dislike that sort of thing, but I think a list of links with comments just works better without being put into a virtual DOM or even just JS. HN is the perfect example of that, there has been a lot of hobby JS frontends from people, but they all work worse than the real deal and somewhat hilariously they work better than reddit's professional attempts. Now I get why reddit wants to move away from the page-reload. They want a lot of the SoMe interactivity, like their silly chat and so on, but I'm not sure who would ever want a Facebook with total strangers instead of people you actually talk with. I sure don't.
labster 3y ago
I signed up for Reddit last year, finally. I’m a happy user of old.reddit.com. And if it goes, I go. I survived a decade without an account, and it would be easy enough to go back that way. My opinion is not that important to share.
rampant_ai 3y ago
Old Reddit with a Stylus theme is how I've been using it for years. I'd occasionally switch to the new site just to check it's progress and while it has gotten a bit better in the last year or so, little nitpicks eventually drive me back to old.

OkGoDoIt 3y ago

Yelp started doing this years ago. They slowly cut access to their mobile site that used to work perfectly well. Sure I could install the app, but the obvious disrespect to the user pretending that the mobile site didn’t work perfectly well and that you have to install the app was so frustrating that I just stopped using Yelp altogether. And that’s saying something, seeing as I own a local theater venue and refusing to engage with Yelp hurts be more than it hurts them. But screw it, I hate being bullied by these platforms.

TheFragenTaken 3y ago

Fortunately their app is compatible with the ReVanced project (think YouTube Vanced). It's terrible you have to recompile apk's to get a useful experience (sans ads, sharing tracking, other restrictions), but for me it's currently the only viable way to use Reddit.

phatfish 3y ago
Revanced is the only way to stay sane while using Youtube and Twitch on mobile. The adverts and other spam are more obnoxious than cable TV. I just hope it flies under the radar enough that Google don't start banning accounts for using it. I don't log in to the Youtube app for this reason, but I'm sure there is a line in a EULA somewhere that means they could if they wanted to. Which reminds me, i need to backup all my email...
WeylandYutani 3y ago
I use Revanced too but let's face it we're talking about 1% of users at best.
Narushia 3y ago
If you are tired of patching the APKs yourself, you can just use pre-built APKs for less work: https://github.com/revanced-apks/build-apps/releases https://github.com/revanced-apks/build-apps/releases

bjoli 3y ago

I stopped using reddit when the .compact interface was removed. No I go back once in a while but if this goes through I will probably simply never visit.

jacurtis 3y ago
You can still use old.reddit.com, which is vastly superior and faster than the modern reddit. It also loads videos and images inline (when you click for them to load) and it de-emphasizes comments. This allows you to work like the compact feed where you scroll through posts and only go into comments sections if you _really_ want to. It is a good alternative.
- jghn 3y ago
  It's funny because I also sing the praises of old.reddit.com but would describe it/my preferences in a totally different manner. My preference would be for reddit to be as close to HN in UI format as possible, perhaps with some minor thumbnails for visual content. What I like about the old UI is that I find it emphasizes the post titles instead of content. I *don't* feel inundated with images & videos, besides the little thumbnail. I usually just want to skim titles, not look at visual content, and I find that impossible in the new UI. And I find that it's easier to get at/see the comments than in the new UI.