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Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#141

Post by taneq »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #85

That and the layout of their "new" redesign where you go to a post and it'll show the post, 2 comments (out of 500), not even the full threads of those comments either and then just some unrelated posts and you have to click on more links just to read the actual comments and you can feel your browser choke under the weight of whatever framework they use trying to render a few bits of text. Noticed Twitter switching t…

Yeah but someone got a big raise because they're now seeing 4x as many clicks as before...

Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#142

Post by jw1224 »

Quora is even worse for this.

For years they’ve had an extremely hostile user experience on their mobile site — you scroll half way through a long answer, and get interrupted with a modal prompting you to finish reading it in the app.

But the modal cannot be dismissed — there is no way to close it. You can’t scroll the page, it persists on reload... rendering the site utterly unusable.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#143

Post by shp0ngle »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #85

That and the layout of their "new" redesign where you go to a post and it'll show the post, 2 comments (out of 500), not even the full threads of those comments either and then just some unrelated posts and you have to click on more links just to read the actual comments and you can feel your browser choke under the weight of whatever framework they use trying to render a few bits of text. Noticed Twitter switching t…

the weird thing is their old design is strictly better.

It’s admittedly a little clunky on mobile, but still preferable to “install app!”

Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#144

Post by GekkePrutser »

allerhellsten wrote: post #86
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of direct monetization, they probably measure by engagement. If a service has a permanent presence on your device, you get a LOT more engagement and recurring visits than a web version. Websites on mobile are one-time, visit-and-forget/move on things. I'd love to be proven wrong though; what websites see daily, recurring, long time active usage? Also not to be underestimated is that a mobile app will always h…

Exactly this. To give you a datapoint from our properties: Our web site attracts 90% of the users, but only 60% of the actual traffic. In all metrics like retention, frequency and time on site, mobile leads by factors of 2-5. Part of that is definitely self-selection, but as some people already said, other notable effects are push notifications, mindshare, loss aversion (you're on somebody's device already, so they c…

I understand, but they're also pushing many users away with this behaviour.

It's what I like about HN.. It feels like they don't even care how much users 'engage'. I bet they don't even run a report on it. They just let us do our thing here and not worry about it. As a user this is a much nicer experience.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#145

Post by braythwayt »

jw1224 wrote: post #142

Quora is even worse for this. For years they’ve had an extremely hostile user experience on their mobile site — you scroll half way through a long answer, and get interrupted with a modal prompting you to finish reading it in the app. But the modal cannot be dismissed — there is no way to close it. You can’t scroll the page, it persists on reload... rendering the site utterly unusable.

It’s interesting to compare Quora and Stack Overflow. They both are about questions and answers, and they both set out to use interaction design and aggressive curation to create a high-quality Q&A resource.

But despite having similar goals and a willingness to experiment with behavioural patterns, they ended up with incredibly different experiences.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#146

Post by shp0ngle »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #138
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #85

That and the layout of their "new" redesign where you go to a post and it'll show the post, 2 comments (out of 500), not even the full threads of those comments either and then just some unrelated posts and you have to click on more links just to read the actual comments and you can feel your browser choke under the weight of whatever framework they use trying to render a few bits of text. Noticed Twitter switching t…

Yeah the new layout is super heavy even on a decent machine and the old one is too 2000's... Don't get me wrong, I love simplicity like hacker news does. But reddit's old theme just rubs me the wrong way.

reddit’s old theme is great. And I love how different subreddits are able to customize the look.

It falls apart a bit on phones, unfortunately.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#147

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

moksly wrote: post #21
nottorp wrote: post #13

Funny, they make me not read reddit on mobile with their insistence on using the app. But the real reason is tracking and spamming you with notifications to get "engagement".

I still use old.reddit.com. Such an improved experience, even on mobile where the format doesn’t fit. So maybe that’s why they want you in the app? They know their website is terrible?

Try out i.reddit.com alternately as it's the old mobile-friendly version.

Fair warning that you still get kicked into the new mobile version when selecting some content links.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#148

Post by spians »

robinduckett wrote: post #118
spians wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. RSS is the way to go for browsing Reddit without all the dark patterns. Self plug - you can try my app Plenary on Android (no ads/trackers) - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spians.ple... that has Reddit as one of the RSS Assistant option. It basically creates RSS feed for subreddits, users, search terms etc for you.

A feature of the app that you can't use without buying a monthly subscription or paying £10.49, to whom it may concern.

Thank you for trying it out. Plenary has monthly, quarterly and yearly subscription options and even has a lifetime purchase plan. That is the way support the development of the app so that it doesn't have to rely on ads and works without any intrusions to users. That is the point of this post, right?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

#150

Post by gruez »

coronadisaster wrote: post #96

Another thing about reddit is that it is one of the only site that reloads everything when I hit the back button instead of using the cache (I'm using Firefox). Do they do this to be able to claim that they get more users then they are actually getting? It's been like this for years, not sure when it started.

It's probably a consequence of them using the history api + lazy programming, rather than anything nefarious.
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