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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?

#621

Post by b112 »

greycol wrote: post #590
b112 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>first past the post is the only way it works easily The key word there is easily. Now that we have computers and instant communication we can do things that would be/used to be considered hard but give better outcomes. I'll also point out you don't need a winning party in an election you just need to be able to form a government and there's no reason 2 closely aligned parties can't work together or even traditionall…

Point #1 -- computers have no place in an election. Or voting.

#2? Canadian parties do this all of the time. We have parties from coalitions, and then form the government.

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

#622

Post by b112 »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #558
b112 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why not have a runoff election or instant runoff voting? Additionally, why do we need to have a single representative for any individual instead of say 10 people representing a larger district?

Why does someone need a magic number of 50.1% to be valid?

Why is that "the number"? Because it's more than 1/2? You're thinking "two parties".

If you're worried about "most people's support", then why isn't the number 80%? 99%? 100%? Why does '50.1%' make it 'OK' and less 'not'?

I don't get this arbitrary fixation on "but, that guy didn't get 50.1% of the vote!!". So?

Let's say there are 5 parties. One gets 40% of the vote. Yet if each party had equal votes, that would be 20% each. The party with 40% of the vote, received 2x the votes compared to the number of parties.

Is that OK? Why not?

I don't get what's wrong with a number less than 50%. I don't get why anything above 50% is fine.

Let's say you have 10 people, and 4 plans. Plans to defend the city from invasion. Each plan has its merits. You ask people to vote. 2 abstain. The next 2 receive two votes each. The last receives 4 votes.

4/10 is less than 50%, yes? Yet, clearly it is the most popular. Must the 2 abstainers vote? Must those that don't agree, be forced to vote for a plan they don't agree with?

How is this undemocratic? Were the people's voices heard? Was the most popular plan voted on?

I literally don't get it, or understand the issue.

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

#623

Post by wst_ »

sixo wrote: post #331

It is pretty offensive that they say "reddit works better on the app" when the only reason for that is that they broke everything on mobile (on purpose?) in a series of badly-implemented redesigns. I'm never going to install it, and I have all but stopped reading it because these prompts are so obnoxious. That's probably +$ for Reddit though. I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only _them…

I see a lot of HN users living in HN bubble completely forgetting that we are a minority of consumers. Most of Reddit audience is either not educated enough, don't have enough exposure to see the difference or simply don't care. Did we all forgot about eternal September already? So, unfortunately, no - users won't even notice this because they have no idea what's valuable to them and they will buy anything as long as it's packaged nicely. For the same reason they also won't vote with their wallets even when (as you say) "everyone" knows that testimonials are garbage.

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

#624

Post by tutfbhuf »

wst_ wrote: post #623
sixo wrote: post #331

It is pretty offensive that they say "reddit works better on the app" when the only reason for that is that they broke everything on mobile (on purpose?) in a series of badly-implemented redesigns. I'm never going to install it, and I have all but stopped reading it because these prompts are so obnoxious. That's probably +$ for Reddit though. I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only _them…

I see a lot of HN users living in HN bubble completely forgetting that we are a minority of consumers. Most of Reddit audience is either not educated enough, don't have enough exposure to see the difference or simply don't care. Did we all forgot about eternal September already? So, unfortunately, no - users won't even notice this because they have no idea what's valuable to them and they will buy anything as long as…

> I see a lot of HN users living in HN bubble completely forgetting that we are a minority of consumers. Most of Reddit audience is either not educated enough ...

Actually, Reddit users are quiet educated. Source: https://social.techjunkie.com/demographics-reddit/

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

#626

Post by stevewillows »

it's annoying, but you can go to the hamburger menu in the top right > settings > and uncheck 'ask to use app'. Leave this tab open in the background and you won't be prompted again.

There's also i.reddit.com, which works really well.

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

#627

Post by rognjen »

I've noticed this as well. It has gone on for a significant time now. That leads me to believe that they have data that says that it's more profitable to alienate users that hate it rather then remove it. I'd be very interested in seeing that data.

As part of this they have also other things that they do that I think are downright dishonest, for example, when you land on a subreddit and are asked to log in or use the app, the top bar logo link no longer leads to homepage but to /register. For me that's why shady and made me immediately leave the site but it's still there which suggests that it works on a significant part of the userbase. Again, I'd really be interested in seeing their data.

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

#628

Post by entropea »

AmericanOP wrote: post #389
sixo wrote: post #331

It is pretty offensive that they say "reddit works better on the app" when the only reason for that is that they broke everything on mobile (on purpose?) in a series of badly-implemented redesigns. I'm never going to install it, and I have all but stopped reading it because these prompts are so obnoxious. That's probably +$ for Reddit though. I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only _them…

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…

v.reddit videos are nearly impossible to watch on the browser version of Reddit. If you download direct you don't get audio because they stream video and audio independently (I Think). They removed the shortlink to the hosted site on the browser version too. They're really doing a lot of user hostile things for monetization.

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

#629

Post by teekert »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #171
teekert wrote: post #160

Because getting ublock origin working in the app is more difficult? Also: Why does it always show me "Continue in browser" with a Chrome icon even though I'm on FireFox mobile?

Didn't they recently change it so that you do see a Firefox logo when on Firefox?

I did see that a couple of times, but not anymore.

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

#630

Post by viridian »

monoideism wrote: post #614
viridian wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a tremulously rose colored portrait of history. The most openly hostile, contentious election in American history didn't happen in 2016, or 2008, or 2000, it happened in 1828. Many American institutional families would say that Jackson being a jackbooted thug was the very least damning of his odious traits. Meanwhile Jackson's largely populist supporters would go on to accuse the current poltical body of bein…

I suggest reading more carefully. I wrote “with some notable exceptions” very deliberately. I had exactly the Jackson presidency and the 1850s-1860s in mind. But I figured that HN is an educated audience, so no need to specify the few exceptions I had in mind. BTW, 2008 and 2000 don’t even compare with 1828, or 2016. The election of 2016, and the (only partially merited) furor that has followed it will unquestionably…

While I think a slow trend of increasing contention exists, I don't buy that hostilities were really so much better in '08 than in '16, and I think we've a ways to go yet before we starting debating whether capping our political enemies is a barbaric but necessary practice.
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