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What’s the benefit of making users install the app versus just using the web?
- you can track them more thoroughly - you can "please" them with push notifications - you can save bandwidth by putting static assets / the framework in the app and only load content
I'm working on my own alternatives, but all I really want is a premium reddit like community that focuses on UX and gives some of my subscription back to the creators.
I think Facebook is experiencing a similar thing. A frustrating amount of my network has quit, which makes planning events more difficult (and is frustrating). The difference for Facebook is that they have enough money to just buy wherever people move to. Reddit doesn’t have that.
At this point I think a lot of people are actively looking for (and probably finding) replacements. I’m actually surprised Reddit still makes their public api so easily available without any keys. I wonder how long until somebody just scrapes the content and uses that to help get over the network problem and start a competitor.
I've tried the apps - but nothing beats the browser for me. If they kill the mobile website, I'll just stop using Reddit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit is one of a few websites that I feel dedicated app works much better than browser, but I use 3rd party one(s).
The old design works well on a browser (now old.reddit). I make it a point to never use the new social network themed reddit, or it’s chat (god, why?) or the default app due to the popup when you access reddit on a mobile browser. Apollo is much better anyhow (iOS only though iirc).
For a website that I spend ungodly amounts of time in, I hate that it's this way.
Whenever Reddit, or any other website, tells me to install their app, I make sure that I never install their app. In fact other than maybe 5 or less apps, I only use a browser.
Reddit is one of a few websites that I feel dedicated app works much better than browser, but I use 3rd party one(s).
Reddit has some of the most aggressive, and bothering, pop-ups I have ever seen on their mobile site that prompt you to install their app.
OK sure, I'll download the app... But wait, now I can't use it without logging in... But I can't login because I use a long generated password... well crap, now finding that menu image I want is a huge chore. Why yelp, why.
Okay, I know they're chasing one of two things here: a higher level of revenue from the advertising they can embed in the app, or some app-download metric that can be converted somehow somewhere to more money.
But for users like me, they have a couple of significant problems. First, that if I were at all motivated to use their stupid app in the first place, I would've already done, which means that these attempts to force the issue mean they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, and ohwow that looks bad.
And two, I don't trust them. There is absolutely no way I am ever going to give them that level of access to my device just so I can browse their website. And every step of their behavior here only reinforces my decision. They aren't tempting me into using their app with irresistible new features that really can't be provided by a regular ol' mobile website. Instead, they're showing me just what kind of behavior I should expect from their app by playing these dirty little games.
On the plus side, all this has caused my Reddit time to fall off a cliff and I'm cruising through books at double last year's rate now.