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Fark redesign is now live (2007)

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Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#21

Post by ramraj07 »

boc wrote: post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

While I sincerely hope Reddit feels the pressure and goes back, they have taken a bet in a different landscape as Digg:

1. The vast majority of Reddit users (maybe not the contributors) use the native app. I myself do as well. So this api change doesn’t affect me immediately (of course it does indirectly by restricting moderation and bots).

2. I open Reddit today and it’s different but not inferior. I’d argue the real value of Reddit nowadays is in all the nice subreddits one subscribes to, and most of them are still alive and active. My friends who just started redditting last year have not even noticed the whole shebang.

It’s very possible (in fact slightly more possible than not) that Reddit will survive this mostly unscathed. I’m not betting on it but I’m a poor speculator so don’t take my word for it for sure.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#22

Post by jwrallie »

boc wrote: post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

There were times like this in the past (the changes when Pao became CEO and later the censorship through quarantining of multiple subreddits came to my mind, but there were others).

I think the main reason there was no exodus similar to Digg's is not due to good policy on Reddit's side (it became increasingly worse over time) but the lack of a competitor that could quickly scale to receive a migration without going dark.

The number of users migrating from Digg to Reddit and the number of users today is quite different, but if there is a better platform that could stand this migration, Reddit could be dead in a matter of hours.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#23

Post by hackernewds »

rapsey wrote: post #17
boc wrote: post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

The problem is the business model is terrible. You need to sell ads to survive and the ads ruin the site.

and when you try to rein in expenses to show less ads, the community begins to propose $10M buyouts and every refrain from reasonable optimizations of their API calls.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#24

Post by nvy »

ramraj07 wrote: post #21
boc wrote: post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

While I sincerely hope Reddit feels the pressure and goes back, they have taken a bet in a different landscape as Digg: 1. The vast majority of Reddit users (maybe not the contributors) use the native app. I myself do as well. So this api change doesn’t affect me immediately (of course it does indirectly by restricting moderation and bots). 2. I open Reddit today and it’s different but not inferior. I’d argue the rea…

>The vast majority of Reddit users (maybe not the contributors) use the native app. I myself do as well.

The idea that you'd willingly use an app with baked-in ads is insane to me, to say nothing of the fact that the official app performs very poorly and could charitably be described as "dogshit UX".

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#25

Post by u801e »

chc4 wrote: post #20
Apocryphon wrote: post #4

Digg was also killed by a user-hostile redesign. Reddit was wise enough to keep its redesign indefinitely optional, at least.

When Reddit first introduced their terrible mobile site years ago, they thankfully left around the old i.reddit.com (also known as .compact) around, which I exclusively used and so didn't really care much about the horrendously user-hostile current mobile site, with its popup windows begging you to use the app. They removed it entirely a month or so ago. I now no longer use Reddit.

At least old.reddit.com still works and it's usable, more or less, on mobile.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#26

Post by nvy »

hackernewds wrote: post #23
rapsey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the business model is terrible. You need to sell ads to survive and the ads ruin the site.

and when you try to rein in expenses to show less ads, the community begins to propose $10M buyouts and every refrain from reasonable optimizations of their API calls.

It's patently obvious that they're just trying to drive up ad impression numbers on the app to inflate their financials before IPO/acquisition.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#27

Post by sillysaurusx »

ramraj07 wrote: post #21
boc wrote: post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

While I sincerely hope Reddit feels the pressure and goes back, they have taken a bet in a different landscape as Digg: 1. The vast majority of Reddit users (maybe not the contributors) use the native app. I myself do as well. So this api change doesn’t affect me immediately (of course it does indirectly by restricting moderation and bots). 2. I open Reddit today and it’s different but not inferior. I’d argue the rea…

I wish pg would call up Huffman and try to convince him that this is a bad bet regardless of whether they win.

They’ll survive. But no one will love them anymore. I was still a fan of Reddit as a platform till the moment Huffman lied about Apollo’s developer for no reason whatsoever.

That goodwill is hard to earn. And although goodwill isn’t convertible to dollars directly, it tends to affect trajectory over the long term. See freenode’s dramatic decline, among many other examples.

I thought tildes was supposedly a Reddit alternative. I guess they never caught on.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#28

Post by SilkRoadie »

boc wrote: post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

Twitter killed a lot of third party apps and it just grew and grew. I suspect there is a vocal minority complaining about these changes. Most sub’s are going dark for 2 days. Time will pass and Reddit will continue to have a highly active user base.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#30

Post by thom »

brokenkebaby wrote: post #5

And what exactly is user-hostile there? It doesn't look beautiful to my tastes, but functionally nothing is particularly complicated to understand.

Some people still use old.reddit.com which I find superior purely because it reveals more content with fewer clicks.
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