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Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

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Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#51

Post by survivorBias »

manigandham wrote: post #26
mojuba wrote: post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

Why are you calling it an unverified myth? In reality there are petabytes generated everyday proving the efficacy of mobile apps vs websites. This has been tested and measured in pretty much every possible way at this point with 100s of billions in ad spend. It's not just real estate on the screen, it's faster on-device processing with lower latency, rich offline abilities, better and more persistent access to more A…

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_Bias

More often then not, the front end devs responsible for the app are not very good with "normal" web frontends - so they sabotage the competition, to reduce work. Also, web pages, could be repackaged into Apps by others leeching from the products attention.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#52

Post by KronisLV »

addicted wrote: post #31
mojuba wrote: post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

My Reddit usage has basically plummeted to 0 at this point because of their pushing me towards an app. I think there are provable cases where an app almost certainly leads to less retention than more and something like Reddit, whose value lies in allowing you to explore the internet is almost certainly one of them.

> My Reddit usage has basically plummeted to 0 at this point because of their pushing me towards an app.

My phone can't even work all that well with apps like that or Chrome browser/WebView for that matter. I use Opera on my phone because they allow me to have 50-100 tabs open with no issues, but maybe that's only passable because I never do anything important like banking on the phone anyways.

So, whenever I'm coerced into installing an app for actually browsing content, reading comments, looking at media (vs something more one-off like ordering food/a ride), I just look the other way. Ergo, I never use Reddit on my phone without spoofing the user agent or whatever the "request desktop site" option in Opera does, but then the UI becomes unusable on a phone.

Sadly, cases like mine don't show up in any metrics, nor do people care about that use case, so it's likely that this will keep being done a lot.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#53

Post by laurencei »

addicted wrote: post #31
mojuba wrote: post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

My Reddit usage has basically plummeted to 0 at this point because of their pushing me towards an app. I think there are provable cases where an app almost certainly leads to less retention than more and something like Reddit, whose value lies in allowing you to explore the internet is almost certainly one of them.

Check out the "Apollo" reddit app. Its a 3rd party app for Reddit. I've started using it and would never go back to the native Reddit app. No ads, very fast, constant updates etc.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#54

Post by solarkraft »

mojuba wrote: post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

I personally stop browsing Reddit and Twitter when their fuck-you-banners appear. I have accounts with both, but installing the app or logging in is usually more friction than accessing the content is worth.

... So thanks for keeping my periods of distraction very short! Maybe they just care about their users' mental health and are sacrificing their engagement for it :)

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#55

Post by usrn »

Lucasoato wrote: post #45
addicted wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Reddit usage has basically plummeted to 0 at this point because of their pushing me towards an app. I think there are provable cases where an app almost certainly leads to less retention than more and something like Reddit, whose value lies in allowing you to explore the internet is almost certainly one of them.

I really can't understand why Reddit is pushing the app so hard. I mean, keep that as an option, but why creating an awful UX for the mobile web users? You gather more data but the product is worse, less users are staying and you're losing value at the end...

Push notifications. Once someone is hooked on the site a notification can get them back into the dopamine feedback loop very easily. I think this is why restaurant chains have started giving people free food to install their apps too (along with all the data they can sell now.)

I think smartphones would be much less popular if people understood why corporations love "apps" so much. It's nothing like the older PC world full of software more or less for its own sake.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#56

Post by asutekku »

mojuba wrote: post #22
danpalmer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say unverified, but I’m pretty sure there’s lots of verification for this. Obviously it will depend on the service or app, but it’s a well known trend. At my previous job our app had much higher retention than our web product, despite the web product being much more mature, modern, and feature rich. We verified this across multiple marketing channels, and looked at long term user retention over years.

Could it be that the mobile interface was simply better in terms of speed, usability, smoothness of the UX? Complex web apps honestly often look and feel shite in the browser.

Nah, people retain on mobile apps because they have a simple icon to use to get there. It’s extra effort to remember the name of the service and write down the address.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#57

Post by solarkraft »

laurencei wrote: post #53
addicted wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Reddit usage has basically plummeted to 0 at this point because of their pushing me towards an app. I think there are provable cases where an app almost certainly leads to less retention than more and something like Reddit, whose value lies in allowing you to explore the internet is almost certainly one of them.

Check out the "Apollo" reddit app. Its a 3rd party app for Reddit. I've started using it and would never go back to the native Reddit app. No ads, very fast, constant updates etc.

I wish I knew why they're pushing the app so hard so I can specifically avoid doing that. If they want you to just have any app installed they'd win even if you install Apollo.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#58

Post by ehnto »

> So basically I made it easier for me to give Bolt money. You're welcome, Bolt!

This is the key takeaway I think, so many online businesses spend so much time trying to push me into their app, or accounts, or subscriptions, that they forget they're supposed to be taking my money. There are plenty of services I would have loved to use, but ya'll made it so damn hard to give you my money and order your services that I gave up.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#59

Post by f1refly »

KronisLV wrote: post #52
addicted wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Reddit usage has basically plummeted to 0 at this point because of their pushing me towards an app. I think there are provable cases where an app almost certainly leads to less retention than more and something like Reddit, whose value lies in allowing you to explore the internet is almost certainly one of them.

> My Reddit usage has basically plummeted to 0 at this point because of their pushing me towards an app. My phone can't even work all that well with apps like that or Chrome browser/WebView for that matter. I use Opera on my phone because they allow me to have 50-100 tabs open with no issues, but maybe that's only passable because I never do anything important like banking on the phone anyways. So, whenever I'm coerc…

You can also use i.reddit.com or old.reddit.com, they're both mich better than the regular site and i.reddit.com is adapted to mobile.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#60

Post by sp332 »

brycewray wrote: post #41
throwaway2048 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm about 90% sure that reddit is going to pull a twitter and kill off API access so apps like Apollo no longer function.

The result of which will be, paraphrasing an old letter to the editor for a magazine that had temporarily stopped publishing such letters... ==== Dear Reddit, What a coincidence. You've stopped allowing third-party apps to have access to your API, and I've stopped visiting your site. Sincerely, A Former User

Is that a net negative for them though? Unless you're a really active or popular poster, you're probably just costing them money browsing the site and not looking at ads.
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