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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?

#301

Post by dylz »

simias wrote: post #292
dylz wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Those excuses don't really work for me. At some point you can come up with all kinds of justifications, it doesn't change the fact that from a end user's perspective it's crap. I activated throttling in Firefox, setting it to "Regular 3G". I went to Youtube, selected a random video I had never watched before (so no cache): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mMIOhoUcCM It loaded for about 10 seconds then started playing…

I'm not making excuses - I am not a fan of reddit and I hate their godawful business practices :)

They have two completely different use cases - reddit is garbage that you infinite scroll through on a mobile phone, YouTube is content you watch. YouTube also generally has higher/better uploaded source videos, while reddit is a mess of reuploaded deep fried memes.

The use case for this, scrolling and keeping attention and continually pushing new content in, loading for 10 seconds is a death knell and entirely unacceptable.

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

#302

Post by encom »

searchableguy wrote: post #40

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 so…

Another RSS reader: https://theoldreader.com/

Been using it daily since Google googled its Reader.

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

#303

Post by wuliwong »

It is kind of amusing that they are so aggressively pushing their mobile apps when prior to april 2016, they didn't even have official mobile apps. Probably shows the differences in strategies before and after the acquisition. For me, when I am clicking on browser search results that bring me to reddit, I almost never want to switch to the mobile app. It breaks my flow. If i do not find what I am looking for in the reddit post, I need to switch apps back to the browser app instead of just tapping the browser back button.

Tangential annoyance: the youtube app attempting to have me sign up for some premium service _every time_ i use the app is frustrating.

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

#304

Post by sidlls »

vanviegen wrote: post #169
jawns wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many mobile apps out there that are little more than wrappers around the mobile site -- but it's vital that they be apps for precisely this reason. Neverthless, as a user, it drives me crazy; I just want to access the site in my browser. What we are starting to see is web push notifications becoming fully supported by browsers, and I think it's only a matter of time before iOS and Android start allowing…

Android support for browser notifications landed in Chrome mobile about five years ago. (And yes, that included support for Android versions that were old even then.) iOS still has no support, and nothing even on the horizon, as far as I know. Apple is intentionally holding back the open web. I find this infuriating.

I don't want the trend of browser-as-operating-system to continue.

Aside from the shabby technological issues involved, the applications themselves these pseudo OS features are put to generally are opposed to some of the things I value highly: privacy and stability, for example. Most applications don't need a social component or to harass me to re-engage, to utilize hardware or other software services on my device, or even to export/share data with other applications.

As far as the technology itself: the platform is generally a terrible technology for even the dubious purposes it is usually put. It's clunky, and even with things like wasm the development story for the platform is, at best, terrible. Also, in my experience, the quality of development in the web sphere is generally (not always) poor compared to similarly complex projects in other areas/applications.

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

#305

Post by Jommi »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #211
halfFact wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the issue that I find Reddit extremely useful to become proficient. I knew what problems my tomatoes were having the moment it started. I learned about blueberries needing something stronger than coffee.(and more) I learned what microcontrollers are popular in the enterprise world by lurking. I got some extremely useful information in a table form which was impossible to find in a Google search. I suppose I ju…

I completely and totally disagree. Reddit is of no benefit for anything you could just Google. Reddit's commenting dynamics create a false consensus around whatever the first thing that a bunch of people who Googled it can not disagree to. That's bad enough but when you start talking about subjects that have any degree of subjectiveness people's desire to have their world view confirmed abounds and it becomes even wo…

I find this completely wrong. Every time I want to answer a question, googling it will give me 2-3 pages of SEO hypercharged shitty articles that take way too long to go into the point.

Compared to opening 2-3 reddit threads you get 20-30 opinions all without filler and get to then form your meta opinion on that. Its absolutely magic!

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

#306

Post by julesallen »

braythwayt wrote: post #120

I’ve given up on reddit on mobile. From time to time I drop in on it using Safari on the desktop, but it’s not worth it to me to deal with their engagement-ification in their mobile app, or obvious crippleware of their mobile web experience. I’m not pissed off about this: It’s like dropping in on a bar I used to enjoy a decade ago, to find out it has been redesigned a few times and everyone’s a new face. Sometimes, t…

I really like Joey on mobile (Pixel here, not sure about iOS). No pings and is completely silent until I feel the need for wasting some time. It's shareware so please think about contributing if you agree.

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

#308

Post by dosethree »

braythwayt wrote: post #120

I’ve given up on reddit on mobile. From time to time I drop in on it using Safari on the desktop, but it’s not worth it to me to deal with their engagement-ification in their mobile app, or obvious crippleware of their mobile web experience. I’m not pissed off about this: It’s like dropping in on a bar I used to enjoy a decade ago, to find out it has been redesigned a few times and everyone’s a new face. Sometimes, t…

[iPhone] I just use Apollo, which is pretty good overall. Used to Alien Blue, loved it.

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

#310

Post by mangecoeur »

I literally caved and installed the app just because using the mobile page was infuriating or even straight up impossible (e.g. when the full page popover add for the app craps out and you can't dismiss it to see the content). As a longtime user I really resent it.
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