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Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

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Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#241

Post by gowld »

rwc wrote: post #166
lftl wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really amazed they still let the old mobile interface work for the most part. Just add ".compact" to any URL and browse almost annoyance free (newer features like video don't work, but that's not too surprising).

I've been switching the "www" in "www.reddit.com" to "old" with good results.

For the lazy, there are browser extensions that do this for you, or you can write a simple user-script in your user-script engine of choice (Greasemonkey, Tampermonkey, etc)

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#242

Post by telchar »

nisuni wrote: post #193
ppod wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought that the day they crossed the line was when they arbitrarily changed which subreddits were default, removing some (such as /r/atheism) with no real reason. At the very early days of reddit, discussing atheism positively was still kind of unusual in the news. Then, over time, it became a very popular position and advocacy case especially among developers, and new users found the stridency and repet…

/r/atheism was absolutely obnoxious, to the point that the obnoxiousness of some of the users is still a meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-this-moment-i-am-euphoric > a community that is still one of the most hated As far as I can see in the USA and in most of Europe it’s way more socially acceptable to declare to be atheists, rather than observing Christians.

If you really think that's true I'd invite you to count the number of politicians (in the US at least) who are self-declared athiests. I think the data speaks for itself.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#244

Post by jmanderley »

GavinB wrote: post #81
komali2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: "Download the app!" gates, banners, etc. Medium does this too. Why? What's the business reason? What does a native app provide the business that a mobile website doesn't?

It gives users easier access and a better experience, so they're more likely to return and to spend longer. The ultimate goal is to become a "default time waster" for as many people as possible, who open the app whenever they're bored.

Also, out of the reach of adblockers or tracking blockers.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#245

Post by md224 »

komali2 wrote: post #55
EnFinlay wrote: post #2

Fun, I deleted my 9 year old account last night. It's wasn't out of some high-minded thing about how they're turning more into Facebook or privacy or anything. That site just hits my dopamine so effectively I had to quit and block it in my /etc/hosts. I am spending more time on HN though...

>I am spending more time on HN though... Same boat. Twitter as well. Snipped reddit, went to twitter. Snipped twitter, came to here. Seems I just can't get enough of "talking with people on the internet." GF says I should try to find a book club. She's probably right.

> Seems I just can't get enough of "talking with people on the internet."

Are we sure this is a bad thing? Socializing with other people is a key component of well-being... could it be good for us even if it's online? What if it's even more fulfilling than IRL socialization? Why do we naturally recoil from the suggestion that conversing with people online could be a good way to spend a significant portion of our time?

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#246

Post by asdff »

barberousse wrote: post #180
rndmize wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a decent amount in the middle, but it's not as well known and will never hit the front page - 3 second memes are easier to process and upvote. https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/ CMV and ELI5 also have decent political discussion at times I think; askHistorians often seems to provide insight into current political issues; there's probably more I don't know.

Not surprising that if you want to understand political issues, you need to askHistorians given all political issues are historical in composition

iirc they have an age limit, like the topic must be 15+ years old or something.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#247

Post by thisisweirdok »

komali2 wrote: post #39
minimaxir wrote: post #16

I've been a fan of Reddit for a very long time (as the amount of data science work I've done with their data can attest to), but lately it seems like the incentives between Reddit as a business and Reddit as a community leader are not aligned, and that is a problem. The increasing amount of dark patterns Reddit has been employing lately is concerning. (recent example: Reddit now gates content in mobile Safari to push…

Re: "Download the app!" gates, banners, etc. Medium does this too. Why? What's the business reason? What does a native app provide the business that a mobile website doesn't?

Business has one number they want to increase: app usage (easier to track users, serve ads, make money)

The dev team A/B tests a bunch of options until that number goes up, and then double down on the success. They don't really care about what users actually want, they're just pushing that app number up in any way possible. Their job performance is likely based on whether or not that number increases.

Medium does this too and it's a huge danger of taking a data-first approach to user experience. A/B testing on its own isn't bad, but it's often what drives this business behavior.

A huge investment will likely make them push this type of thing even harder because now they have to prove the investment's worth.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#248

Post by gowld »

ageitgey wrote: post #102
komali2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: "Download the app!" gates, banners, etc. Medium does this too. Why? What's the business reason? What does a native app provide the business that a mobile website doesn't?

The prevailing "business person" thought is that app users are more loyal (high value) while web users are temporary users that Google will eventually steal away from you when they decide they want to be in your market and want to stop putting you at the top of search result pages. See Yelp's decline as Google started putting their own local results above Yelp and the resulting lawsuits. As a result, most Silicon Val…

It's not the PMs being rogue evil; they (and the engineers) are serving their employers faithfully.

Another reason is that a local app can spy on you more (track your location, for example) to collect data to sell, harass you with notification spam, and display non-blockable ads.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#249

Post by benbristow »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #145
GordonS wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 things about Reddit's "use our app instead!" buttons: 1. They cycle through a couple of different messages, and the buttons get switched around 2. The wording is such that you read it twice and still aren't sure which button will just take you to the damn website I don't mind them promoting their app, but these dark patterns truely rile me

I do mind them promoting their app, it’s a horrible app and they’ve continually ruined their website. The only way I can stand to use reddit anymore is through Narwhal, at least until they kill their 3rd party apps API.

If their API is killed I think Reddit's done for. I wouldn't use it if I were forced to use the official app myself, sure many others wouldn't either.

Folk would probably move over to something like voat.co

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#250

Post by gowld »

GavinB wrote: post #81
komali2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: "Download the app!" gates, banners, etc. Medium does this too. Why? What's the business reason? What does a native app provide the business that a mobile website doesn't?

It gives users easier access and a better experience, so they're more likely to return and to spend longer. The ultimate goal is to become a "default time waster" for as many people as possible, who open the app whenever they're bored.

There's no "better experience" in an app, unless it relies on native features like low-level high performance graphics, accelerometer/sensors, and other physical phone attributes not yet exposed to browsers.
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