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Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

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Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#331

Post by tjoff »

visarga wrote: post #293
pixel3234 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wanted TikTok i'd use TikTok You want some experience, but then you describe how Youtube is forcing you to click through shorts and BS as that. I think power users should give up on direct interaction with internet. With youtube you can have a scripts that download videosm, and filter out shorts, ads and other garbage. With news you can just print everything on laser printer... Spotify should be exported as bunch…

> It is very easy to hire some English speaking assistant in India or Philippines, or have cron jobs that does tedious work for you. Mate, can I interest you in a bit of GPT? We got 3.5 and 4, good shit, you don't need to hire someone. The newsfeed is not a critical task, AI will suffice.

GPT isn't nearly powerful enough for that.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#332

Post by phire »

riku_iki wrote: post #128
predictabl3 wrote: post #60

I am absolutely blown away by the number of subs that have gone private and shocked at some napkin math of how many total subscribers are affected. Further, the Discord is well, finally getting a bit too riled up to hear coherently, but is easily the largest live, wholesome gathering of people I've participated in a live event with. And on top of that, numerous people are signing up for Matrix and joining the bridged…

> I am absolutely blown away by the number of subs that have gone private My understanding is that moderators are the most upset category by API changes, because they are losing some unique mod features from 3rd party apps.

The Reddit API changes are hyper-focused on killing 3rd party mobile apps.

Most mod tools should be unaffected simply because they fall well-inside the free usage limits. As for the remaining mod tools? Reddit admins have even resorted to making explicit promises to fix those if they break (probably just by exempting them from API limits).

But most (if not all) Reddit moderators are also reddit power users, some of the biggest power users too. And power-users as a whole dislike the direction reddit is moving. Even if they don't use the 3rd party mobile apps themselves, they see the writing on the wall. They typically use old.reddit.com, which hasn't really seen any updates in the last 5 years and it seems likely that it will be next on the cutting block.

So even if their mod tools aren't going to be effected, moderators have decided to draw the line here and make a stand.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#333

Post by criddell »

killerstorm wrote: post #261
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)

I don't understand... Why does it have to be one app? Can't they make a TikTok-like app with a subreddit as a backend? So ppl get same content but with a different front-end?

I don’t understand why it has to be an app at all. Why do they want people in an app rather than in a browser?

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#335

Post by jackdh »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #321

I wonder if proliferation of ublock causes these issues. Less ad revenue, need to clamp down on free stuff.

I'm sure it doesn't help. I'm convinced that is what caused Twitch to invest in heavy anti adblock. As each time streamers ran an add you'd have people in the Chat proliferating it so it was no surprise that they'd go after it.

However there is likely certainly more to it, as forcing users into applications provide much more control & analytics which can be profitable for companies.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#337

Post by jayelbe »

midoridensha wrote: post #67
wanderingstan wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what keeps me on old.reddit. The new web version and the app are always losing my place.

They need to shut that down. Even better, they should make a desktop app and force users to use that instead of the website. If they really believe in their forced-app strategy, they should bet the farm on it, not just on mobile, but everywhere.

Sshhh, they'll hear you

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#338

Post by geraldwhen »

ghusto wrote: post #132
FormerBandmate wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acquihires are definitely a thing but the way they talked about it at the time it was a major acquisition to diversify Reddit and pivot it to video. It even made the Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/reddit-snaps-up-dubsmash-to-exp... Dubsmash had a sizable userbase with almost no overlap with Reddit's and their conversion rate appears to be less than 0.01%

And the way a certain MassiveCorp talked about the acquisition of my previous workplace, lead less experienced employees to believe they were doing so in order to diversity their offerings in that area. Guess how long we lasted before being "brought into the fold".

3-6 months?

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#339

Post by tazjin »

japhyr wrote: post #26
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 would love to know the conversion rate that resulted from that test, it must have been absolutely abysmal.

People refusing to use their app etc. are likely a minority. Most people are completely used to being bullied into submission by tech companies, and will happily follow along.

I'd assume their goal with this isn't to convert the stragglers, it's to just close the gates to them so that they disappear from ad-view related statistics.

Edit: Further to this point, the Apollo app which everyone was talking about the other day has 50000 (fifty thousand!) paid users. Reddit has hundreds of millions of monthly users. They don't care about this minority of users, they just want the shitstorm to pass so they can move on. They also don't care that there's likely a small minority of users creating most actual good content, but it doesn't matter because the site can be floated entirely by meme spam bots and porn posts and still be massively profitable.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#340

Post by TrackerFF »

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.

The whole auto-refresh thing is bullshit in general. You see something interesting, and then two microseconds later it is gone because the app (or even tab) decided to refresh and bring you new content.
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