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"This community is available in the app"

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Re: "This community is available in the app"

#151

Post by paulgb »

acdha wrote: post #142
newscracker wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I gave up Quota when they forced logins If you were using it just to read answers, you can still do that with a tiny bit of effort and avoid logging in. Just put a ? at the end of the URL (it’s originally a parameter called “shared”, which would be added as ?shared=1). It will then assume you’re coming from a search engine link and let you in without the login popup.

It’s better to avoid companies like Quora entirely - they have highly SEO-ed but increasingly low quality content and just clicking on the link will tell Google to promote it to other people. I stopped using it when they started search cloaking and have never had cause to reconsider.

I wish Google took a harder line against sites that make content available to their scraper that isn't available to the end user. It's one of the things that pushed me over to using DDG. (I'm not sure if DDG takes a more active approach, but I think less energy goes into gaming DDG's algorithm by the SEO-driven companies who do things like this.)

Re: "This community is available in the app"

#152

Post by JshWright »

clort wrote: post #147
andybak wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither can an app without the relevant permissions. Which of those things can the official Reddit app do currently? If you're saying "the Reddit app will slowly change to do bad things" then say that and don't imply it already does those things.

> Which of those things can the official Reddit app do currently? Looking at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.reddit.fro... , scroll down and click the 'View Details' under Permissions. It shows that the app can read your contacts, network connections, approximate location, contents of your USB storage plus much more which would cover all of codedokode's points adequately I think? (I'm not sure of th…

Many (though certainly not all) of those things require explicit permission from the user (particularly the storage, location, and camera related stuff).

Re: "This community is available in the app"

#153

Post by acdha »

tobr wrote: post #73

Is it just my perception or are aggressive “signup walls” and the like becoming more common? I feel like it was very frowned upon when Quora and Pinterest did it. But now Reddit, Instagram and even Dribbble are very aggressive about refusing to let you do nearly anything without an account. This has some negative consequences for their logged in users too. For example, many small shops and restaurants seem to use Ins…

It’s a stage in the bubble process: these companies were funded well beyond their real revenue prospects and those unsustainable business models are also seeing ad rates which have been declining for many years. The investors expect returns which the market can’t deliver and that’s going to lead to more abuses until the users switch to a company earlier in the cycle.

Reddit has had something like $550M in funding, with the last round in December 2019. It’s been around for 15 years so it’s unlikely to become profitable at the desired levels but everyone involved has a strong incentive not to recognize that.

Re: "This community is available in the app"

#154

Post by m0llusk »

whatsmyusername wrote: post #115
thaumaturgy wrote: post #30

Reddit has been a/b testing behavior like this for months. Multiple different popups with variations on "view this in the app"; in some cases the popup is on every single page load, sometimes only once. They started blurring images on select subreddits with a message that you could only view the sub in their app. Okay, I know they're chasing one of two things here: a higher level of revenue from the advertising they…

The app was also garbage when I used it.

You are not the customer. The app allows advertisers to flexibly access large numbers of people in specific market segments.

Re: "This community is available in the app"

#155

Post by naravara »

felipelemos wrote: post #114
thewhitetulip wrote: post #84

I gave up on read Quora when they forced logins I will give up on reddit if they do the same. Isn't visits a valid criteria? Why force a mobile app?

Digg was once a force in the internet. Reddit is not exempt from this, no one is.

Reddit was an alternative Digg for them to flee to. I’m not sure what an alternative reddit is. What’s more, the scale of Reddit today blows Digg, in its heyday, completely out of the water. So any transition would take much longer. There’s just too many niche subreddits where they people wouldn’t know where to go. It’s similar to how Facebook has a vice-grip on people because everyone seems to have one group or community that puts notices on the group page.

Re: "This community is available in the app"

#156

Post by luma »

lathiat wrote: post #148
labawi wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not kid ourselves about the safety or comprehensiveness of android permissions, or people clicking without reading. To be clear, I'm not claiming it does those things, but are you claiming it does not? And will not or could not?

Maybe you should try iOS :-) it’s quite different here honestly. I’m not saying there aren’t holes they’ve had to patch [like recently adding a popup for Bluetooth LE permissions] but they are pretty good at closing them.

I don't see how the permissions requested here would be substantially different in IOS. This isn't a matter of the OS, both Android and IOS offer fine-grained controls that are accessible to the user. It's up to the application developer what they request and what they do with it.

I think people are right not to trust Tencent with this kind of access.

Re: "This community is available in the app"

#157

Post by steinbitten »

Final straw for me when I read «This community is only available in the app". Such a anti-user thing to do so closed my account in protest. I primarily used reddit for programming and audio related news. Luckily I have ycombinator for my programming needs and gearslutz for my audio needs.

Re: "This community is available in the app"

#158

Post by muyuu »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #30

Reddit has been a/b testing behavior like this for months. Multiple different popups with variations on "view this in the app"; in some cases the popup is on every single page load, sometimes only once. They started blurring images on select subreddits with a message that you could only view the sub in their app. Okay, I know they're chasing one of two things here: a higher level of revenue from the advertising they…

> 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.

Surveillance surplus.

Re: "This community is available in the app"

#159

Post by Jupe »

With ~400 employees [1] and ~$100m in ad revenue [2], that's only about $250,000 / employee (seems like a lot, but take out unemployment taxes, health care contribution, corporate taxes, etc.). And then there's infrastructure, which I'm sure is relatively high given ~500m users per month.

I'm sure there is MUCH more revenue to be extracted from an app (with access to so much on-device data)

I guess, if the information on their site is truly worthy, then I'd buck for the Reddit Gold (Premium) [3]. Does anyone know if that works on the web, or you need the app?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit

[2] https://www.emarketer.com/content/reddit-to-cross-100-millio...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/premium

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