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An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

old.reddit.com

11–20 of 376 posts

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#11
post #7
post #3

They've been making increasingly more user hostile choice lately. Digg lessons weren't apparently not learned

Learning lessons? They're making their website worse on purpose! They don't want people to use the Reddit website — they want people to use the app, because that's where all the ads and tracking is.

That would make sense if the app wasn't also terribly user unfriendly.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#12
Googles algorithms should penalize them hard for that... but they probably wont. Random users clicking a reddit link in search results, and coming back after two seconds and clicking on another result, should bring their "site score" down.... but considering it's google .. and it's reddit.. it probably wont.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#14
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning lessons? They're making their website worse on purpose! They don't want people to use the Reddit website — they want people to use the app, because that's where all the ads and tracking is.

That would make sense if the app wasn't also terribly user unfriendly.

I have a feeling they will disable 3rd party apps soon. That will be the day I stop using Reddit.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#15

Googles algorithms should penalize them hard for that... but they probably wont. Random users clicking a reddit link in search results, and coming back after two seconds and clicking on another result, should bring their "site score" down.... but considering it's google .. and it's reddit.. it probably wont.

This would be very unfortunate for them since their own inner search system is very rough around the edges. I almost always have to search for a Reddit post via Google instead.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#18
post #2

I'll pass, thanks. It didn't work for me when Quora did it, it won't work when Reddit does it.

It worked for me on quora, but that will be the last time.

For some definition of "worked" ... sure, you signed up. Then what?

I already had an account when Quora did it, and that made me use it less (wasn't always signed in, wasn't always willing to sign in - e.g. incognito sessions). For a long while, I started going back less and less - was only brought back occasionally by their emails which were still pretty good.

Recently the emails got so bad that I unsubscribed (I kinda expect to stop visiting the site completely). So I'm guessing I'm not alone in reducing my engagement - the quality of the whole site seems to have gone dramatically down.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#19
post #8

Hmm, I just checked myself, and I was able to read comment threads perfectly fine without being logged in, on both a desktop computer and a smartphone. Obviously old.reddit.com doesn't have these issues, but I'm pretty sure the session on smartphone used the new site, and that let me keep reading without any interruptions too. Either way, if Reddit does this, that's it. Not returning to the site. The internet doesn't…

Unfortunately the way things are going I can see them getting rid of old.reddit.com and i.reddit.com, at which point I think I'll also stop visiting the website (the mobile website is atrocious and I'm not going to install a dedicated app in order to read a forum).

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make sense if the app wasn't also terribly user unfriendly.

I have a feeling they will disable 3rd party apps soon. That will be the day I stop using Reddit.

First they will disable old.reddit.com I think. Then 3rd party apps.
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