Does anyone else want to rant about Reddit’s AMP pages that show up on Google? Oh I could go on about it… The managers at Reddit, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the preferred experience of a Google user searching for content on reddit should redirected to their wonky app. And if they don’t have the app, they should be punished with modals upon modals. “Reddit looks better in the app!” Oh, you disagree? Well p…
Every time I get annoyed by something like this, I go to the front page if Reddit, see that 90% of the posts are political advertisements disguised as viral content, and realize it’s a minor problem in the grand scheme. I just wish communities would make their own message boards again instead of coalescing on subreddits that they have zero control of.
Not sure I agree with the Marketplace angle. Ads are fine but forcing everyone into the app is odd. Will ios14 change any of that?
Reddit has pathetic ad revenue per user versus every other social media platform. Part of this is likely due to anonymous users that they lack data on for proper targeting. This is their attempt to "fix" that.
I would think that Reddit would have an advantage here in some ways. As an advertiser, instead of trying to pick interests of a general population, you can just pick specific subreddits.
If a store sells geeky/sci-fi clothing and gifts then I found it is way better to just target anyone that visits /r/startrek and some other relevant subreddits. No need to build profiles on users.
I found Facebook to be a lot harder to accurately target users as you are relying on Facebook's profile of a user. I got a lot more reach, but much less conversion.
Reddit has completely jumped the shark in its UI design, the 'direction' its taken, and its basically complete capitulation to censorship at a corporate level. Its interesting to that they haven't IPO'd yet, because in my view, its a zombie carcass waiting for its replacement to find its way onto the net. There has always been a place, a need, and a demand for anonymous, free form discussions on the internet. Craigsl…
A lot has been written about the social and legal difficulties of running such a site (how much do you enjoy looking at child porn all day so you can ban the people posting it? How many mass-shooters would you like to have post their manifesto on your site?) But I think the real issue is just money. Even if you keep things pretty stripped down, as 4chan or the original reddit did, hosting still costs money. And if you ever catch on, it's going to cost a LOT of money. Where is that money going to come from? Your users? You don't have a commercial product people are willing to pay for. Advertisers? Not in a post ad-pocalypse era; they don't want to be anywhere near a free, anonymous platform. And keep in mind that eventually you'll have to pay for ddoss protection, a security and moderation team, and probably legal as well. So unless you're wealthy enough to just pay for the site out of pocket indefinitely, any reddit or image board clone is doomed to failure from the beginning. It has a ticking death clock that will expire when the owners finally realize they can no longer afford it.
If you are just a lurker, try http://teddit.net It works well on mobile and desktop.
Unfortunately, I really rely on my particular subreddit subscriptions to deliver the frontpage experience I want.
Teddit supports multisub URLs. I am not sure if the effect is the exact same as the front page, but it looks similar enough. Just create a multisub and save it in your bookmarks. Like this:
Does anyone else want to rant about Reddit’s AMP pages that show up on Google? Oh I could go on about it… The managers at Reddit, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the preferred experience of a Google user searching for content on reddit should redirected to their wonky app. And if they don’t have the app, they should be punished with modals upon modals. “Reddit looks better in the app!” Oh, you disagree? Well p…
There is also a bug with the AMP pages such that the submission dates for the threads are often wrong. For example you're searching for threads that have been posted in the last month, some of the results will say something like "7 days ago" until you click and see it is actually 5 years old.
Yes this is so annoying. Looking for a thread within the last year doesn’t work and I always end up with 7-10 years ago
All of these things used to annoy me as well. Then I downloaded the app and subscribed monthly to get rid of the ads. Now my reddit experience is awesome.
Reddit isn't a public service. It's a private company trying to increase their profits. The native app experience is way better than the website. Undoubtedly they see higher engagement from folks using the app, so want as many people as possible to use it.
Ads looking like posts? Sounds like they are trying to monetize their traffic. If you don't want to see the ads, pay for the service.
Hostile design either makes the user login (a user reddit can monetize) or makes the user to close the site (a user reddit can't monetize, thus no need to waste resources), both scenarios is a win for reddit.
Third scenario: People keep using it in anger until something better shows up, and by that time there will be enough unhappy people to spark a growing community in the New Place.
They make it very difficult to be a contributor as well, a lot of subreddits focus on showcasing/bragging rather than discussions now. I've had a DIY question I've posted to the three biggest home improvement/diy subreddits and it was deleted from one, downvoted to oblivion in another one without replies and downvoted to 0 in the last one with the only comment proposing a solution so overkill grotesque that I didn't bother to reply.