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Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

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Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#441

Post by devnullbrain »

peruvian wrote: post #254
x3874 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are / were they really 'friends' though if doing so obliterated your connections? Most people tend to misclassify being friends with being open & friendly with another.

There’s nothing wrong with having acquaintances that aren’t close friends though. I always see this argument and don’t get it. Yea, my “true” friends will contact me anywhere, but it’s nice to have a small network of people I know that I can invite to stuff or even better yet invite me to events and activities. They may also become close friends at some point.

>I always see this argument and don’t get it.

Internet misanthropes contributing to the trend for people to lose friends and acquaintances as they age.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#442

Post by hospitalJail »

jletienne wrote: post #435
hospitalJail wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I did this with facebook and it obliterated my social connections. Huh... I did this with Facebook and it basically changed nothing. I was forced to text my friends life updates, that was it. Out of every social media site I've quit, Facebook seemed to have the lowest impact on my life(as long as I or my wife checked it every 1-3 weeks for Events). It seems Facebook has an ability to make you feel popular without ac…

whoa, you’ve really opened my eyes! i’ve now realized my lived personal experience is invalid gonna take your advice and cut off the people i’ve met because hospitalJail is skeptical! Appreciate you providing insight into my life

Yeah, text people. Should solve that problem.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#443

Post by jvanderbot »

veidr wrote: post #399
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 track…

Not only that, they now have a perfect way of tracking the association between multiple accounts, which is very helpful for selling a person's ahem real browsing history.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#444

Post by nullandvoid »

awestroke wrote: post #198
data-ottawa wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've set a screen time limit of 1 minute per day. It's enough to be annoying unless I end up there from a Google search. For the time being I'm just going to reallocate my Reddit time to reading about my hobbies.

1 minute? Is that a typo?

Just seems like enough time to read any search queries that match on reddit threads each day, but no reason to browse.

I just flat block it, but use workarounds when I rarely need to view Google results, may follow this same approach going forward.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#445

Post by grepfru_it »

eek2121 wrote: post #434
bredren wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Apollo to read Reddit, but mod using desktop web. Definitely the Apollo and handling of the API changes is annoying. But this was much more a straw that broke the camel’s back thing from a mod perspective. I’ve mentioned this before but I am on the mod team for r/portland and the Reddit admin has been terrible at providing tools and support for serious content mod problems and straight up platform abuse. There…

For the person that threatened a mass shooting, the correct move would be to contact the FBI.The FBI would have then reached out to Reddit. I use third party apps exclusively, and will not be participating in Reddit after Apollo shuts down.

Why couldn’t the third party apps just ask the user to provide their own api key?

It’s how chatgpt works, what is the pushback with this? I heard Apollo requires the app to communicate with an Apollo server. So are the Apollo devs mad they are now being charged for their data stream?

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#446

Post by bjoli »

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 stopped using reddit when the .compact interface was removed. No I go back once in a while but if this goes through I will probably simply never visit.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#447

Post by IggleSniggle »

jfoster wrote: post #376
jbinney wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications! Super valuable for driving re-engagement.

"Install the app" walls might be super effective at destroying reengagement, though. I gave in and installed the Reddit app, but it simply doesn't work well enough or transition well enough from a Google search into the app. Would definitely engage a lot more with Reddit if only the app pushing nonsense were gone, and that's as a user who does have the app installed.

When Reddit first tried pushing their mobile app I gave it a try, but it was so horrible I decided to stay on web. But they kept degrading the web experience, so I quit Reddit on mobile until discovering Apollo. At this point I don’t browse on desktop, and with Apollo being shut down, I don’t think I’ll be back.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#448

Post by bjoli »

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.

Something like that should be pretty easy to whip together with electron...

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#449

Post by indigochill »

veidr wrote: post #399
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 track…

> apps are roughly the opposite of that

Although I broadly agree with this assessment, I'd just like to add a slight nuance that, at least in my view, it's specifically _app store apps_ that are roughly the opposite. You can still, for example, install random APKs (on Android, I doubt Apple has anything similar) if you're so inclined, so they can be as user-centric as you want. It's just that the major manufacturers optimize for the roughly-anti-user-centric flow.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#450

Post by sclarisse »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #439
sclarisse wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s less about extracting that revenue and more about extracting that sweet IPO capital with a story about being replacement-TikTok.

The IPO capital you can raise is a function of your revenue prospectus. If you have NNN million users, and you have full location tracking, purchase history, device ID, contacts, search history, list of other apps installed, usage data, Wifi SSIDs, Bluetooth beacons, etc. etc. etc. that's going to look like a huge payday compared to those same users running a mobile adblocker. And if you're not currently collecting l…

The key point in that is that many IPO buyers are willing to believe in imaginary revenue that will never be extracted. Extracting revenue as a goal in and of itself uses a different playbook than IPOing.
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