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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?

#34

Post by Nursie »

There was a way, hidden deep in your user settings, to tell them "No, really, I'm never going to use your app".

This has switched off all of those reminders and popups and crap for me on mobile.

Last time I went looking for the setting though, it had gone.

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

#35

Post by leokennis »

outadoc wrote: post #27
jamil7 wrote: post #5

Yeah ads. If you're on iOS check out Apollo, made by a solo developer and does not display ads. I'm not sure what the equivalent on Android would be (someone chime in if you know).

Apollo is pretty much iOS's only good Reddit client, Android has a few great ones. I personally use Boost. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayay...

Apollo is definitely the best (as in, it's so feature complete, stable, integhrated with the OS UI/UX and awesome I don't see any reason why anyone would want to use an alternative) but there are alternative's, for example Narwhal.

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

#36

Post by optimalsolver »

blfr wrote: post #20

They need to somehow make up the engagement for all the interesting content they banned over the years.

They've grown to the sixth most visited website in the US (third in the UK), so they're doing something right.

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

#37

Post by nevf1 »

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.

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

#38

Post by nokya »

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.

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

#39

Post by exit »

aphroz wrote: post #33

Because they need your data. I don't understand how a website with such bad UX can rank so well when Google is now calculating CLS and other parameters like this. Reddit is a mystery to me.

> I don't understand how a website with such bad UX can rank so well when Google is now calculating CLS and other parameters like this.

you can still use the old ui via old.reddit.com

i have no use for anything they introduced in the current ui

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

#40

Post by searchableguy »

Use an RSS reader. You will like the lack of feeling of being forced to comment on things you don't care much about in retrospection. No tracking or ads, only content. You can filter shady sites or posts from appearing.

Here are some readers.

0] https://github.com/GetStream/Winds

1] https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS

2] https://github.com/feedbin/feedbin

3] https://github.com/yang991178/fluent-reader

If you like something closed source, try feedly.

Reddit provides rss for now. For sources that don't, you can use rss.app or similar.

https://www.reddit.com/wiki/rss

One more useful thing some readers provide is an email address that you can use for subscribing to newsletters.

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