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Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

kotaku.com

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Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#61

Post by selcuka »

lawn wrote: post #17

I don't understand how a popular product like Reddit has so atrociously bad UI. The site itself is just garbage and the difference between the redesign and old.reddit is just so jarring, and the Android client is also garbage. Are there people who even thinks these designs are good? How do you even end up with something like this? Is it just garbage requirements thrown out by clueless managers? There must be some for…

It's the enshittification [1] process. There is no going back.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#62

Post by interestica »

lapcat wrote: post #19

Dupe with multiple submissions, for example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083 (1279 comments) Please submitters, check before you submit.

That submission is very different. This story looks at wider effects and implications.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#63

Post by Capricorn2481 »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #60
lawn wrote: post #17

I don't understand how a popular product like Reddit has so atrociously bad UI. The site itself is just garbage and the difference between the redesign and old.reddit is just so jarring, and the Android client is also garbage. Are there people who even thinks these designs are good? How do you even end up with something like this? Is it just garbage requirements thrown out by clueless managers? There must be some for…

1. Reddit isn’t a non-profit. I’m not sure why it’s user base doesn’t seem to understand this. They have to make UI changes to make money. It’s either that or everyone pays for subscriptions. 2. The AI threat is real. It’s not even remotely fair that the large tech players of the world get to train their models on others content for cheap. It’s sad what’s happening to Apollo but they need to beef with Microsoft and G…

This has nothing to do with AI. Making your site less usable isn't going to make you more profitable in the long run.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#64

Post by pacifika »

lawn wrote: post #17

I don't understand how a popular product like Reddit has so atrociously bad UI. The site itself is just garbage and the difference between the redesign and old.reddit is just so jarring, and the Android client is also garbage. Are there people who even thinks these designs are good? How do you even end up with something like this? Is it just garbage requirements thrown out by clueless managers? There must be some for…

How do you use the site roughly? Maybe it’s optimised for another workflow that’s more mainstream?

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#65

Post by dredmorbius »

taytus wrote: post #42
lawn wrote: post #17

I don't understand how a popular product like Reddit has so atrociously bad UI. The site itself is just garbage and the difference between the redesign and old.reddit is just so jarring, and the Android client is also garbage. Are there people who even thinks these designs are good? How do you even end up with something like this? Is it just garbage requirements thrown out by clueless managers? There must be some for…

"I don't understand how a popular product like Reddit has so atrociously bad UI" Do you mean like... HN?

Could you point to specific deficiencies of HN?

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#66

Post by piaste »

rglullis wrote: post #29
chwilson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

app.net[1] tried this in the early 2010s, unfortunately most people (i.e. enough people to justify running the service) wouldn't pony up. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net

Unfortunately, this shows how much the people that keep complaining about Elon Musk or Zuckerberg really should not be listened to . People suddenly do not care that much about privacy if it costs them anything or brings some inconvenience. I keep running https://communick.com because I am stubborn and because I can afford to, but honestly I've pretty much have given up hope that the basic services (Mastodon, Matrix)…

> I keep running https://communick.com because I am stubborn and because I can afford to, but honestly I've pretty much have given up hope that the basic services (Mastodon, Matrix) will ever reach enough users to be able to pay for themselves.

I have a faint hope that mobile hardware, software, and networking may eventually improve enough that federated communication nodes could run directly off the clients themselves.

The technical requirements are far from impossible - without even going for a Linux phone, you can run a nginx web server on Android via termux, and use dynamic DNS and/or IPv6 to stay discoverable as you move through cell networks. And hardware-wise, the power is plentiful, although I don't know how bad the battery drain would be.

But of course the experience has to be as easy as click link -> install Mastodon app -> have your own instance running off your device, with nothing but a subdomain in the cloud. Anything less and it's a non-starter.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#67

Post by candiodari »

exitb wrote: post #39
lawn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you imply that teens/young adults don't care about usability? Or that they don't have the attention span to read comments and just want to endlessly scroll through crap?

Yes, it enables endless scrolling, serving an ad once in a while.

It enables making ads indistinguishable from real content, to get more clicks through deception.

That's another interpretation. You'd think ad buyers would have a problem with this, but I guess not.

I've begun dragging a small "ultraportable" laptop with me, because it makes a lot of things bearable again: youtube, reddit, stackoverflow ... I'm not sure why people treat mobile users so horribly bad, but here we are.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#68

Post by marcinzm »

lawn wrote: post #35
jerpint wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go to the front page without logging in, you’ll quickly notice the target demographic is teens/young adults. The redesign makes a lot more sense with that context

Do you imply that teens/young adults don't care about usability? Or that they don't have the attention span to read comments and just want to endlessly scroll through crap?

As I understand it teens/young adults generally have more free time and less responsibilities (housework, kids, family, etc.). I'd be surprised if that didn't drive a different type of engagement model.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#69

Post by toyg »

fathyb wrote: post #37
bazmattaz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily past it’s expiration date. It’s ranked 6th most trafficked sites in the US. I do think that Reddit could do with a massive overhaul. If I was ceo tomorrow I would; - Install a bunch of new teams to focus on solving real problems for users - understand user pain points with the UX. why were people using third party apps? And fix the experience. Invest in better mobile apps - invest in s…

> understand user pain points with the UX. why were people using third party apps? Mostly ads, are you going to remove that? How are you going to explain the revenue loss to the board? > invest in some PR or similar to change peoples view of what Reddit is They already do that, maybe you'd like to increase the PR budget? It might be tricky with the ad revenue loss. > try to understand why users like Twitter how Reddi…

> Mostly ads

3rd-party apps, including RIF, do display ads already - I have a vague recollection of it becoming compulsory at one point. The difference is that they tend to be less intrusive than on the Reddit app.

Apart from that, I agree that it's a hard act - but it's also true that trying to be something they're not (i.e. Twitter) will inevitably produce a damp squid which loses what made Reddit unique (and it's happening a bit more every day) while not quite managing to be the other thing.

The social space is obsessed with "competition by copycat", instead of focusing on their core strenghts. Maybe because they all fear to be destroyed by this or that novelty feature, they all end up looking the same, regardless of whether it makes sense.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#70

Post by slg »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #60
lawn wrote: post #17

I don't understand how a popular product like Reddit has so atrociously bad UI. The site itself is just garbage and the difference between the redesign and old.reddit is just so jarring, and the Android client is also garbage. Are there people who even thinks these designs are good? How do you even end up with something like this? Is it just garbage requirements thrown out by clueless managers? There must be some for…

1. Reddit isn’t a non-profit. I’m not sure why it’s user base doesn’t seem to understand this. They have to make UI changes to make money. It’s either that or everyone pays for subscriptions. 2. The AI threat is real. It’s not even remotely fair that the large tech players of the world get to train their models on others content for cheap. It’s sad what’s happening to Apollo but they need to beef with Microsoft and G…

> It’s not even remotely fair that the large tech players of the world get to train their models on others content for cheap.

Ironic for Reddit to be angry at this considering the reason their company has any value at all is because of both the free content provided by users and the army of moderators who aren’t paid a cent for their work.

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