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Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

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Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#81

Post by faangsticle »

Spivak wrote: post #55
faangsticle wrote: post #43

> It looks like you’re part of one of our experiments. The logged-in mobile web experience is currently unavailable for a portion of users. To access the site you can log on via desktop, the mobile apps, or wait for the experiment to conclude. Wow. Most companies at least have the grace to allow users to opt out of these kind of experiments via a "labs" kind of configuration.

Doesn't make it appropriate at all but since they're testing "will the average user put up with this crap" restricting to just people who went out of their way to go into settings and enable labs would yield really biased results. No self-awareness that running such a test ya know might make you the bad guys though.

I mean the other way around. Sure, bully your users by default but let them opt out via a somewhat hidden setting. If they use the setting instead of installing the app you have your result.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#82

Post by p-e-w »

MattGaiser wrote: post #61
FormerBandmate wrote: post #36

They are desperately trying to be TikTok. It will not work and has no chance of working. Look at their hilariously terrible acquisition of Dubsmash for $50 million (they converted it to a subreddit with 1.5k subscribers when they had 200 million users at their peak and touted having 25% of black teens in their acquisition press release. Every post is people saying the Reddit app sucks and asking where Dubsmash went)

> they converted it to a subreddit with 1.5k subscribers. That definitely belongs in a textbook on absurd corporate decisions. I thought you must have been exaggerating somewhere, but nope, that is exactly how it went. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubsmash https://old.reddit.com/r/dubsmash/

It's only absurd if you misunderstand the true intention. They didn't acquire Dubsmash to profit from its technology and users. They acquired Dubsmash to shut it down.

Today's social media corporations are so fat with (venture) capital that they can, and do, spend that kind of money just to keep any potential competitors locked out. TikTok, the last social network that became truly big, was launched in 2016, seven years ago. Seven years without any new player entering the space. That's an eternity. I can promise you this wouldn't be happening without (very costly) interventions from above.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#83

Post by skinkestek »

I assume this comes in addition to "reminding" me multiple times a day, sometimes when I click a link, sometimes seemingly on a timer loop while I am just reading, that they have an app?

Yes. I tried the app. The app is better not because it is good but because they deliberately break the web.

Also the app seems to eat battery and I am planning on charging my new iPhone 14 twice a day to use it or jump through hoops to figure out if it is anything I do wrong.

Between this and the community blackouts I am leaving for now.

I left Twitter a few months ago (including Nitter) and my stress levels have been lower since that. I guess the same will happen after I leave reddit.

Edit: It also seems to me the fediverse is picking up steam quickly now. The number of lemmy instances and lemmy users seems to have exploded recently: https://the-federation.info/platform/73

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#86

Post by erikpukinskis »

I am a user of the official Reddit app, even though it sucks, and I just deleted it. As an “experiment”.

I’ll probably come back at some point, because I do like being in touch with some of the subreddits.

But I’ll see how Reddit-free life feels for a bit. I find it really offensive that they can have such a trash UX in their app and then shut down the other apps.

The Reddit UI has always felt really hostile, which is fine… I just chalk it up to incompetence. But shutting out people who are more competent just feels way off.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#87

Post by TaylorAlexander »

_zzaw wrote: post #3

There is only one appropriate, effective response to disrespect, and that is to not reward the offending party. I made it a matter of principle to not use the Reddit app. Even if they removed all ads and made it an acceptable user experience, I'll never use the app as long as they are harassing me about it. It's simple. Don't reward bad behavior. Sometimes, denying obnoxious people something they want means denying y…

Yeah, I’ve been using BaconReader for years. It’s going to stop working soon and I’m simply going to stop using Reddit. I used to use it for more but the last few years I only use it for porn and I recently discovered that the redgifs site is great for that. Obviously not everyone uses Reddit only for this purpose but I suspect that when the third party apps go dark redgifs will get a nice bump in new users.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#90

Post by drewm1980 »

baby wrote: post #41
john-n wrote: post #8

I was part of this test - I've refused to install the app for years (I prefer websites and the option to open tabs for later browsing). It was extremely annoying for a site I've used for 12+ years to treat me like that. It did massively cut my usage of Reddit (which I would consider to be quite high), I primarily access it from my phone and I all but stopped using it for the week or so I was in the "experiment".

> I prefer websites and the option to open tabs for later browsing The number of times I lost a post because when I switched app or didn’t use my phone for a while reddit would just reset to the home page… I think they really didn’t realize how much the shitty UX would enrage people against them.

I have had to learn to make do without cut and paste it's so flakey in Reddit. I gave up on editing posts before hitting send.
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