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Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

reddit.com

571–580 of 658 posts

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#571

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.

The solution to social media companies behaving badly once they have users locked in may not be to lock yourself into another unprofitable company's closed ecosystem that's temporarily free.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTTPS means the network connections between the app and the backend are opaque to third parties including the user. Certificate pinning means you cannot insert yourself as the backend and/or MITM the requests. The app will only communicate directly with the owner of the private key it was pinned to. Depending on the app and OS, it may be more or less easy to change the app to remove/crack the pinning. In general, if…

for android you pull down the apk using adb, patch maybe 1 byte in it and push it back very very easy, no root required

I'd love to read a tutorial or watch a video going over the patch process -- can you share any links?

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#573
post #363
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…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#574
post #399
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…

Does DNS based blocking work on mobile?

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTTPS means the network connections between the app and the backend are opaque to third parties including the user. Certificate pinning means you cannot insert yourself as the backend and/or MITM the requests. The app will only communicate directly with the owner of the private key it was pinned to. Depending on the app and OS, it may be more or less easy to change the app to remove/crack the pinning. In general, if…

for android you pull down the apk using adb, patch maybe 1 byte in it and push it back very very easy, no root required

I wouldn't call patching a binary very easy, especially since our point of reference was installing an ad blocker extension in the browser. Also, it takes more than one byte if the binary is obfuscated and full of various ways to check that it hasn't been tampered with.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can block ads in apps. In android 11, you can have it use OpenDNS's adblocking server.

I suspect only a small subset of people who generally run an adblocker also block ads on apps as it requires a lot more specialized knowledge.

Settings -> Network & Internet -> Private DNS -> dns.adguard.com

Now you've blocked a large percentage of ads on android.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#577
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…

Fwiw, you can remove the nagging with a free Safari extension for iOS called Sink It: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6449873635

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#578
post #446
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.

You can still use old.reddit.com, which is vastly superior and faster than the modern reddit. It also loads videos and images inline (when you click for them to load) and it de-emphasizes comments. This allows you to work like the compact feed where you scroll through posts and only go into comments sections if you _really_ want to. It is a good alternative.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that people read the analyses that companies share publicly (e.g., in a press release or earnings call), and they assume that that's all they did. You should assume that any numbers shared publicly are just the tip of a giant-ass iceberg and that there were probably 10x more analyses going on internally that weren't shared. The thing that ultimately gets shared publicly is whatever avoids using…

Story time: Worked at a large multinational, and 6-7 years ago they decided they had to ape into the whole “data science” gold rush. They spent millions of dollars on hardware, software, salaries, and consulting. After a year with not much to show for it, the VP for the silo starts to put out kudos for the team for break-even revenue impact. However, behind the scenes, the insight they were taking credit for was a co…

i think that many business get lured into doing data-science because they think that math/stats powers grant borderline-mystical powers and that they can be used to peer into a data warehouse and create ideas/business strategies that no mere mortal (i.e., people with domain expertise in business) could have dreamt up.

But... most businesses aren't that complex, and people can usually come up with really good common sense ideas for how to make improvements.

Data-science is often most effective when it serves less as a visionary idea-maker and more as translator that helps common-sense ideas become real (optimizing values, figuring out the best roll-out strategies, building forecasts).

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#580
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…

Push notifications! Super valuable for driving re-engagement.

I asked the marketing team about it when I used to work at a restaurant reservation company 5+ years ago and the numbers were clear, marketing notifications work, way more engagement.
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