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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?

#561

Post by whywhywhywhy »

nottorp wrote: post #290
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue even their old design is better than a native app. Loads lightning fast, can load thousands of comments on a page without loading bars or context switch. Don't even care if I have to pan and zoom it still works better than the mobile app. Starting to feel like the idea of a mobile app being a universally better experience is a software industry mass hallucination. A handful of things apps work way better, m…

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1174/

Honestly being able to zoom anywhere is a feature not a bug.

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

#564

Post by ffggvv »

one answer i haven’t seen mentioned is because mobile web is another platform they have to maintain. and it requires a lot of dev work to make sure every new feature works there instead of simply saying it’s unsupported and pushing people to the app

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

#565

Post by Groxx »

b112 wrote: post #552
nickalaso wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It has nothing to do with first-past-the-post. You can have 10 parties, 100 parties, in fact first past the post is designed for more than two parties. If you have people in 5 parties to vote for in your riding(district?), then first past the post is the only way it works easily! Seldom will one of those 5, get 50.1% of the vote! And why would they? The most popular wins, the people have spoken.

I... think you may have some reading to do. The subject is pretty well studied.

The main reason FPTP ensures at most 2 parties is that, say you have parties 1, A, and B, where A and B are relatively similar to each other. And say A and B are together more populous than 1, like a 40/30/30 split.

By splitting those 60% mostly-similar votes between A and B, both lose to the less-popular 1. It becomes in A and B's best interest to not cannibalize each other's votes, i.e. merge and dominate (or at least compete). The less fragmented ideology wins, not the most desired.

It's even more compelling during the formation of new parties when there are only 2: by not voting for one of the two dominant ones, you are literally throwing your vote away because it has no chance, and it's worse for your ideology than if you had chosen the most-similar of the dominant party.

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

#566

Post by dpedu »

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

> you must continue in Reddit app or log in

They're not forcing you to use the app. Did you try logging in?

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

#567

Post by mywittyname »

plorkyeran wrote: post #443
nonbirithm wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth mentioning that there is no official API for Reddit's chat feature. You have no choice but to use the website or official app if you're on mobile and want or need to use their chat. Also the chat feature is extremely watered down and doesn't even have support for attaching images. But that doesn't matter if someone on Reddit chooses to contact you via chat and you want to respond. It compels you to use the…

If you always use third-party clients or old.reddit.com you'll never even know that someone tried to contact you via chat, which makes it somewhat ineffective at getting people to stop using those.

I'm just now discovering that chat exists.

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

#568

Post by propogandist »

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…

it's more expansive, as in more data that can be mined for adverting purposes. I got a presentation from Reddit a few of years ago on their ad-platform and it was terrible (for enterprises). Their sales team were hyping big changes and things that were coming including geo-location, strong user profiling etc.

This was pre-redesign and it became clear what they were doing and their roadmap of features all were to grow the ad business. Mobile makes sense as it's how their key audiences consume content and it enables stronger profiling, richer engagement and better ad-targeting due to persistance.

The mobile app allows reddit to mine user behavior (every outbound link click is tracked, even on the desktop website) and then they're able to link your device profile, to content you consume and engage with. This can be used for ad-targeting or sold to other data brokers to build a richer profile about ABC user with this device, across XY IPs, typically based in ZZZ location.

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