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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?

#201

Post by RealStickman_ »

cdubzzz wrote: post #102
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…

This design is just so damn weird. I only rarely find myself at reddit e.g. when some obscure search query lands me there and I am always extremely confused trying to find the actual content of posts and relevant comments. I still don’t even understand how it works and half the time I just give up and leave because I can’t figure out what to do to get at whatever I’m searching for.

Change the www in the url to old. That'll give you a way superior ui.

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

#202

Post by blaser-waffle »

Timpy wrote: post #121
nokya wrote: post #38

Reddit's obsession to constantly show me an "ad" to install the app has basically cured me from drifting and spending more time than strictly necessary on the website. I hate it so much that it triggers a negative experience everytime I visit the website and I just tend to watch links shared to me. Honestly, I thank them for that and I hope they don't remove it.

Unfortunately, for every conscientious person that they push away another user is hooked even deeper. Their redesign is insidious. Their page is now aggressively attempting to manipulate you into browsing longer; infinite scrolling, and the way they put questionably-related links in the middle of comments sections is no better than the chumbox clickbait you find at the bottom of bullshit-web articles.

Yeah I recall how they used to be different looking -- the ads, I mean. Enough that you could tell they're ads and would only click on them by dumb accident or if they were interesting.

Now they just look 100% like regular posts, and it feels more and more shady.

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

#203

Post by s1t5 »

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…

Old design + Reddit Enhancement Suite is the only decent way to use reddit right now.

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

#205

Post by dylz »

simias wrote: post #194
dylz wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It uses adaptive streaming (MPEG-DASH), iirc. Starts at a low bitrate and scales upward over time. Works great for Twitch-length stuff. For a 10 second gif-equivalent, you don't get enough scale up time.

There's no excuse to get such a bad quality for even low-res videos. Imgur, gfycat and Youtube manage to stream higher quality video faster on the same device on the same connection. I also think they shouldn't even attempt to stream video under a certain bitrate, I'd sooner have a video buffer for 10s than end up with something that's unwatchable because the resolution is like 10x10. And I'm barely exaggerating, I d…

imgur and gfycat directly stream a .mp4/etc file, the opposite of what reddit does.

Many uploads on reddit are also repeated re-uploads of compressed and then recompressed ad nauseum videos and stolen content, so I wouldn't be surprised if a fairly significant amount of the uploads started at 360p or less, downloaded from a phone.

> I also think they shouldn't even attempt to stream video under a certain bitrate

You are not the target demographic; the target are mostly on phones, where rapid start and 360p is not a huge deal. You don't get 1080p or 720p from snapchat or instagram. In super blunt terms reddit would rather not want you, they'd much rather have someone with the app downloaded, all tracking on, with push notifications on and the impossibility of ad blocking.

In your example, the video thumbnail implies that this is a recording OF a recording - this is someone that has already uploaded a compressed version to Twitter, where it has been further compressed, and then recorded and cropped on presumably a phone screen, then uploaded to reddit.

If I google the text, the first reddit results are all natively in 240p uploaded original.

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

#206

Post by blaser-waffle »

hh3k0 wrote: post #107
nokya wrote: post #38

Reddit's obsession to constantly show me an "ad" to install the app has basically cured me from drifting and spending more time than strictly necessary on the website. I hate it so much that it triggers a negative experience everytime I visit the website and I just tend to watch links shared to me. Honestly, I thank them for that and I hope they don't remove it.

It's quite irritating if you browse 18+ subreddits and they stop you from seeing content, stating you need the app to see 18+ content. It's easily circumvented by replacing "www" with "old" in the URL, however, quite irritating nonetheless.

Replacing "www" with "np" also works. Functionally I believe it's identical to "old" but without voting/posting

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

#207

Post by grishka »

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…

They call it growth hacking because it drives some metric up. I call it betraying your loyal users.

Honestly, I hate how in 2020, every single social media service tries this hard to manipulate its users into spending more time with them. It's nothing but pathetic at this point.

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

#208

Post by RealStickman_ »

nevf1 wrote: post #37
jakevoytko wrote: post #10

Other people are saying "ads," but the story is probably more expansive. Mobile apps have better hooks for pulling people back into the app, like popup notifications. Reddit has natural lifecycle points where they can do this: when people respond to your comments or comment on your posts. They could also notify users of events like their yearly Secret Santa. I wouldn't be surprised if their engagement numbers were mu…

Yep, I think ads is just another way of saying monetization. The app has lots of annoying notifications like "You might like...", "You got 100 upvotes", etc which, when you engage with more, they make more money through ads, coins etc. Your attention, retention and engagement is a lot easier to manage and increase through an app than it is through website.

It's also interesting to note that the old ui on a desktop does not have these useless messages you mentioned.

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

#209

Post by nikanj »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #100
veqz wrote: post #62

Yeah, it's annoying. I've also seen them block entire subreddits for mobile. E.g. this is what I see on my Android phone when trying to read r/Europe: https://veqz.net/reddit_block_europe.jpg («This community is available in the app»). My two go-to solutions are: 1. Use old.reddit.com/ 2. Stop using reddit

Employees of Reddit must have a very low opinion of their users if they think they're going to fall for "This community is available in the app".

Their customers i.e. marketers prefer people who fall for things like that

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

#210

Post by blaser-waffle »

bschne wrote: post #108
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…

I'm starting to despise UI patterns that discourage any sort of meaningful discourse. This includes stuff like hiding comment threads and only showing one or two comments by people you follow on LinkedIn, or features like "canned comments" ("Congratulations, John Doe!"). I don't know why websites stopped respecting their users' agency, but my pet hypothesis is that some product team is being measured on some sort of…

They either optimize for sales (of something), ads, data mining, or something more ephemeral like "discourse control" or "discussion shifting".

You're seeing the latter two happening with reddit, probably other sites like tik tok.

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