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Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

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Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#391

Post by rsynnott »

joshribakoff wrote: post #364
dmix wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re assuming there is some cohesive strategy here. It’s better to look at what often happens in practice at a more practical level. Some exec will be constantly getting pressure to make his mobile app growth chart keeping going up. So instead of doing customer research finding out what people want, having a product vision, market research (“why do people like Apollo?”), making the app so good that Redditors tell o…

It sounds like you are saying there is no reason other than pressure, presumably from a board. Perhaps the board has a reason.

I think people are usually over-inclined to assume that these companies know what they're doing; that there is, somewhere, some well-thought-out master plan. Often, there isn't.

Even with Twitter, which has just been a cavalcade of obviously nonsense moves for months and months, there are still believers in The Plan. I'm actually a little curious why this is; despite presumably having had interactions with poorly-run companies in the course of their daily lives, some people _really_ seem to struggle with the idea that a company might be poorly-run, and seek any other explanation.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#392

Post by lozenge »

c7b wrote: post #357

There's something that I don't get about forcing mobile browser users into mobile apps - how does it make sense for the company? They're forcing themselves into a walled garden, where the gardener takes a hefty "app store tax" on your revenues and has countless levers to force you to style the app how it suits their interests, not yours. For some apps, this might still be the best way to gain traction. But if have al…

If the user follows a link to an article or video, there's a high chance it'll be the end of their reddit session, due to distraction or back button capture. There's also a high chance the browser will unload the reddit page causing a flash of no content and potentially losing the user's scroll position. After a few rounds of this the user will leave in frustration.

Now they could use the tabs feature, but this is again a lost opportunity to have them browse some comments etc. Plus, if they need to browse for another purpose, you'll just be one or ten of a hundred open tabs instead of one of the couple of recent apps.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#393

Post by newswasboring »

cmsonger wrote: post #354

I'm coming to the conclusion that capitalism kills all interesting social media for me. The founders build something. It's pretty good. I engage. They decide they need to make more money. They make a change that I find annoying or unacceptable. I leave the platform. Facebook, Twitter, .... now reddit? Might be. And it's never advertisement. Advertise away. It's usually one of two things: encroaching on privacy or pus…

Capitalism does not mandate growth, thats just pure investor greed. I hate capitalism as much as the next person but lets not forget its the greed that ruins it for everyone, not the basics of the system. I would acknowledge that it seems like capitalism actually facilitates greed more than other systems as it gives a single KPI to track what you have.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#394

Post by otikik »

c7b wrote: post #357

There's something that I don't get about forcing mobile browser users into mobile apps - how does it make sense for the company? They're forcing themselves into a walled garden, where the gardener takes a hefty "app store tax" on your revenues and has countless levers to force you to style the app how it suits their interests, not yours. For some apps, this might still be the best way to gain traction. But if have al…

Blocking Ad Blockers

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#395

Post by ForHackernews »

paganel wrote: post #241
polytely wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No because it is a different thing. US black population has their own distinct culture (grown out of a shared struggle and history) that simply does not exist for the group that people call 'white'. In this case black teens isn't just pointing at skin color but at culture, one that is very valuable for the VC crowd because it's where cool stuff originates.

> one that is very valuable for the VC crowd because it's where cool stuff originates. Still sounds racist, in its way. As in, why aren't the black kids seen as the boring, nerdish kids that will get to form the VC crowd themselves in 20 years' time? Later edit: Reminds me of this Dave Chapelle skit [1], the part with the "white dude" whispering: > Oh, my God, I think those black guys are gonna try to save us It's ju…

> As in, why aren't the black kids seen as the boring, nerdish kids that will get to form the VC crowd themselves in 20 years' time?

That's a good question and if you're sincerely interested in understanding the answer, there's a long history of thought on the topic of black excellence in the context of racial oppression. You could start with W.E.B. Du Bois and the "Talented Tenth"

For the record, I'm assuming your questions are disingenuous, but answering in good faith for other readers who might interested.

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cr...

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#396

Post by shmde »

fifticon wrote: post #300
andruby wrote: post #258

If users want to make a statement and move away from Reddit, where should they move to? What’s an alternative to reddit that is closer to the original reddit? Sidenote: could the 3rd reddit party clients embrace such an alternative and give it a meaningful boost in usage?

https://lobste.rs/ is one alternative.

Requires an invite. On a side-note, anyone here who can hook me up with an invite ?

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#397

Post by dmix »

joshribakoff wrote: post #364
dmix wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re assuming there is some cohesive strategy here. It’s better to look at what often happens in practice at a more practical level. Some exec will be constantly getting pressure to make his mobile app growth chart keeping going up. So instead of doing customer research finding out what people want, having a product vision, market research (“why do people like Apollo?”), making the app so good that Redditors tell o…

It sounds like you are saying there is no reason other than pressure, presumably from a board. Perhaps the board has a reason.

I’m not necessarily pointing a finger at the pressure or motivation to want mobile app growth. Pre-IPO is a stressful time. It’s mostly about how the team goes about attempting to accomplishing those goals and a management/product culture and talent thing that was likely in place well beforehand. Based on the last redesign and https://new.reddit.com there are plenty of signals of doing things for the sake of doing them or for UI trends, not because it makes it fundamentally better.

It’s easy to miss these failures internally and assume the teams/management are functional and effective when your app keeps growing… via Reddit’s content and existing market dominance.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#398

Post by ImaCake »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #74
_zzaw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right, partly. But I also think that a lot of the people who put up with it are the passive ones who don't really contribute much to communities anyway; they're just there. The people who do the real contributing—posting, modding, defining the culture and building the communities that Reddit benefits from—are, as far as I can tell, more likely to get a lot angrier about abusive corporate nonsense, simp…

> The people who do the real contributing—posting, modding, defining the culture and building the communities that Reddit benefits from—are, as far as I can tell, more likely to get a lot angrier about abusive corporate nonsense, simply because they're more invested. I suspect strongly that these people have been purged already over the past 2-3 years. You simply don't hear much about it, because de-platforming them…

Those people aren't common on the default subreddits, which might make it feel like there is not much community. But in the places that count, the more niche communities that actually have real community, those people are still around.

Besides, its a question of scale. There are loads of people like myself who make effort-post/comments sporadically on a few different platforms. There is enough such people that there can be (and is!) several viable twitter-like platforms at the moment. There's no reason the same can't be true for reddit.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#399

Post by veidr »

c7b wrote: post #357

There's something that I don't get about forcing mobile browser users into mobile apps - how does it make sense for the company? They're forcing themselves into a walled garden, where the gardener takes a hefty "app store tax" on your revenues and has countless levers to force you to style the app how it suits their interests, not yours. For some apps, this might still be the best way to gain traction. But if have al…

The web puts the user in control; apps (on all significant platforms currently existing) put the company in control.

Yes, Google and (especially) Apple may force Reddit to comply with this or that, but Google and (especially) Apple also prevent the user from doing all sorts of things they can do with an open platform like the web.

Users can't block ads in an app. Users can't block telemetry. Users can't prevent tracking, at least without help from the platform vendor. Users can't easily save their favorite content from your app if the company doesn't want them to. Etc.

The web is fundamentally user-centric, and apps are roughly the opposite of that.

There are also legitimate user-benefiting advantages of apps, such as ability to use the accelerometer or other non-web features, but I can't really think of any that convincingly apply to Reddit's app. Maybe somewhat better push notifications, and "sign in with Apple" but... still seems like another own-goal from team Reddit if they are, in fact, doing this.

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