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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?

#481

Post by Dylan16807 »

briandear wrote: post #347
chromedev wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately Apple can't prevent PWAs from telling users that Apple is the reason they can't have good things. I'm disappointed however in Apple also blocking PWA's from the App Store.

Despite what many might think, everything doesn’t need to be an “app,” PWA or otherwise. Reddit is literally a message board, one of the earliest types of website. It doesn’t need my location — ever. Email works just fine as a notification, if I want it as a “push” notification, I could VIP-enable the notification email address in Mail. Does Reddit need my accelerometer? Or direct access to my camera or microphone? O…

What are you on about? Being a PWA doesn't mean it needs to access any of those things.

And no, email does not fit all the same use cases as notifications.

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

#482

Post by leotaku »

eirini1 wrote: post #469
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT economists Acemoglu and Robinson wrote a book "Why Nations Fail" that analyzes why countries at similar starting points can have extremely divergent paths in terms of economic development. One example is South and North Korea. Their conclusion is that some countries have established extractive institutions, while others inclusive . The extractive ones exclude the population from the decision making process and se…

Is this a real book someone wrote? Incredible to me how you can call yourself an economist and just write basic observations and conclude they are the root cause of everything without even taking a cursory look at the history of things.

I would imagine the book contains a bit more justification for its arguments than what was presented by the person you are responding to.

What makes you believe that the author just "wrote basic observations and concluded they are the root cause of everything"? Most ideas are easy to dismiss when you assume that a blurb posted to HN is all there is to them.

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

#483

Post by monoideism »

nickalaso wrote: post #455
monoideism wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while Mexico has suffered under one party rule for decades Yet now we suffer under two-party rule.

Which has been the case since almost the inception of the country, as it is a direct consequence of the First-past-the-post voting system that the US government has implemented.

You're correct, and I've love to have something other than first-past-the-post.

However, throughout our history, our two-party system has generally (with some notable exceptions) been able to work and work together. That's no longer the case. As such, it's hard to tell if the political polarization is a reflection of society, or if society is just adopting the polarization of our political elites.

So I stand by my original statement.

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

#484

Post by Ozzie_osman »

weego wrote: post #436
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. It's about retention more than monetization. With the app, you can not only send notifications, but you also have the app icon which reminds people of the apps existence. Even little things like "badging" (when the app icon shows a dot or number to indicate new notifications) and even that can have a noticeable impact on retention (we're all programmed to click into anything with a notification). Als…

Pedantically, retention is the most effective KPI for predictable monetisation plans.

Very true and not actually pedantic. Retention is a pretty solid predictor of monetization, esp in the long-run. But in the short-run they can diverge. For example, decreasing ad units per page could drastically drop your monetization, but be great for longer-term retention.

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

#485

Post by OkGoDoIt »

rabuse wrote: post #413
Joeri wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple added push notifications to safari, but only on desktop. That tells you that they deliberately do not support this because they know a lot of apps could be pwa’s otherwise.

Last I heard is that it is also coming to mobile.

Heard from where? Many people are clamoring for this, but other than wishful thinking I’ve never heard any compelling claims that Apple actually has it on their roadmap.

I, for one, would love to see support for push on mobile web on iOS. But I’m not holding my breath.

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

#486

Post by hanniabu »

monoideism wrote: post #446
dimitar wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extractive rent-seeking (slavery being the most extractive economic and political institution possible) South was significantly lagging even before the rebellion, which was crushed by the United States whose other regions had more inclusive economic institutions. In more recent times the authors compare two towns across the US-Mexico border: Nogales, AZ to to Nogales, Mexico. Even thought the language and ethnici…

> while Mexico has suffered under one party rule for decades Yet now we suffer under two-party rule.

Two parties, but one set of rulers - the oligarch elites.

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

#487

Post by seppin »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #297
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…

Yup, many companies I've worked for see push notifications as the raison d'être for apps.

I mean, most companies are mobile companies now, and the app is the only thing that matters to them.

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

#488

Post by ORioN63 »

dimator wrote: post #438
AmericanOP wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most enraging thing is Reddit took over video hosting themselves, but simply declined to have a mobile/text share option. Links from any 3rd party service show up in the phone as the content i want to share. Reddit? You try to send someone a Reddit video link and they get affronted by a pop up banner to download the mobile app when they click through. WTF! I sent a reddit link to a video to my dad, once. He repli…

On top of this, v.reddit.com is abysmal . Videos stop streaming, the cursor is impossible to use, I don't know how its allowed to exist in its current state.

Videos show the wrong duration, sometimes, as well.

A couple of weeks ago, someone was asking for the full video of what looked like a 10s clip (which also played just 10s). Someone else replied, that it was literally the post. He got downvoted to hell (like below 100). He was right. After checking his comment, I went to the video and by seeking I got it to show the whole 2m and something. This was not the first time this issue has appeared for me.

v.reddit.com is abysmal. I agree.

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

#489

Post by Ozzie_osman »

mbesto wrote: post #317
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. It's about retention more than monetization. With the app, you can not only send notifications, but you also have the app icon which reminds people of the apps existence. Even little things like "badging" (when the app icon shows a dot or number to indicate new notifications) and even that can have a noticeable impact on retention (we're all programmed to click into anything with a notification). Als…

> retention more than monetization FWIW, retention is monetization.

(Mentioned in another comment somewhere else in this thread). In the long-term, yes, but retention and monetization can diverge in the short-term. Classic example is showing fewer ads (better user experience, better retention... but much less monetization). Of course, in the long term, you'd still need to monetize that retention somehow anyway.

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

#490

Post by jabroni_salad »

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…

this is not my project but I have been enjoying this rss proxy which can let you limit which posts get into your feed by top rank, score threshold, or quantity of posts per day. I use it because even a moderately popular subreddit can be a bit of a firehose.

https://reddit-top-rss.herokuapp.com

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