reddit is the most dangerous bubble-building tool on the web, next to twitter.
Reddit’s disrespectful design
281–290 of 516 posts
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#282Following in the footsteps of Digg and Slashdot.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#283I was the EM for Reddit's Growth team around this time. I am responsible for / contributed to a few features like the current signup flow, AMP pages, push notifications, email digests, app download interstitials, etc. There was a new product lead who joined with many good ideas, but some of them were dark patterns that I heavily protested. After a few months of this, it was obvious that I was going to be reigned in o…
I ran Product Engineering at a competing startup (hundreds of millions of MAUs) that tested/employed similar flows. And yes, they work in the short-term, and unless you are very principled, it's hard to avoid them. I'm glad you heavily protested them. But I'd like to further the argument for why they should be avoided.
First, yes they do work in the short-term. You run an A/B test with some adversarial flow that blocks mobile web traffic users from doing certain things. Most of them get pissed, but enough of them download the mobile app (which allows you to build up their engagement via phone presence and notifications) that the A/B test is positive. Rinse and repeat. A few dozen experiments later, and now these patterns are pervasive across your product.
Apart from whether they work (in the short-term), there are three other questions readers of this thread should think about because I'd hate for people to walk away thinking "these patterns are normalized and they work so, sigh, i should just do them too".
One is whether they work in the long-term. Yes, you can juice your metrics in the short-term, and sometimes that translates to long-term growth, but it's harder to measure secondary effects. Can you accurately measure product brand damage and quantify the long-term impact?
Second, and as an EM you should appreciate this, can you measure secondary brand damage like _recruiting brand_ damage? Dark patterns (and threads like this with hundreds of passionate engineers talking about how much they hate those dark patterns) _will_ damage your ability to hire the type of engineers you want to help you build your product.
Finally, there's some subjective ethical question in here. Even if these patterns work in the short and long term, do you _want_ to spend your life, your intellectual energy, your time turning the internet into this? Do you want to go out and hire smart, passionate people and get _them_ to spend their time and intellectual energy turning the internet into this?
(side note: I have no affiliation with the author of this post, but I wrote the original Disrespectful Design post he links to in his first paragraph)
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#284Does anyone else want to rant about Reddit’s AMP pages that show up on Google? Oh I could go on about it… The managers at Reddit, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the preferred experience of a Google user searching for content on reddit should redirected to their wonky app. And if they don’t have the app, they should be punished with modals upon modals. “Reddit looks better in the app!” Oh, you disagree? Well p…
I've tried alternatives, and I keep going back to i.reddit.com for mobile. I've also installed extensions to deal with the bullshit on desktop. My number one gripe right now is when using Google to search for stuff on reddit and use the time filter ("last week"), Reddit does not accurately report dates, and you get 4 year old threads showing up as "last week".
fyi you can also append '.compact' to a reddit page to view the same mobile view as i.reddit.com
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Reddit mobile web experience is so obviously bad that I can only assume it's intentional. There must be some huge incentive for Reddit to push users toward the mobile app. Most likely, the app allows for higher or more accurate monthly active user counts and enables more targeted advertising, both of which are critical to increasing advertising revenues. Reddit is in a difficult spot because they're mostly an ad-…
If the changes are driven by their investor's desire to somehow monetise it, then this must be part of a longer term plan. So two questions: 1. How well is this working for them 2. If the answer to 1. is "not very", how long will they stick to this strategy. They've been going at it for a couple of years now, so I imagine they're approaching the moment when they have to reassess how well things are going. I wonder if…
I downloaded the app alright. Just not theirs. Apollo for iOS is such a pleasure to use compared to the Reddit app. They can’t even get the app experience right.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#286I was the EM for Reddit's Growth team around this time. I am responsible for / contributed to a few features like the current signup flow, AMP pages, push notifications, email digests, app download interstitials, etc. There was a new product lead who joined with many good ideas, but some of them were dark patterns that I heavily protested. After a few months of this, it was obvious that I was going to be reigned in o…
You've created value for shareholders, at the detriment of society. "Congrats".
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#287Yea, fuck all this noise. I've been meaning to quit any and all digital activity that's a bottomless well (ie, you can get more content ad infinitum). This includes social networks, Youtube, Netflix, etc. Of these, Reddit was probably my worst vice, as I could just pop up my phone and endlessly read mind-numbing crap, no matter the place and time. My monkey brain has been completely addicted to this motion for well o…
For someone who has completely quit the endless “dopamine drip” of digital content, what have you replaced it with?
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
> These practices are done because it works. It works for metrics. It works for making more money than you know what to do with. It absolutely doesn't work for keeping your user base loyal. The moment you implement the dark patterns, the users immediately start looking for alternatives to your platform that respect them. That said, I still use reddit. Except I use the old design and RES. And a third-party app on my p…
> That said, I still use reddit. Except I use the old design and RES. And a third-party app on my phone. Same. And should that no longer be an option I'm fairly confident I'd stop using reddit.
Likewise. I’ll probably end up writing an aggregation tool, a Bayesian filter, and a summary-bot, and just skip caring about what the chattering mobs say about the news of the day. Except for a very few tightly-moderated groups, most threads are nasty muck and rarely a pearl. I’ll be better off without reading them.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#289I was the EM for Reddit's Growth team around this time. I am responsible for / contributed to a few features like the current signup flow, AMP pages, push notifications, email digests, app download interstitials, etc. There was a new product lead who joined with many good ideas, but some of them were dark patterns that I heavily protested. After a few months of this, it was obvious that I was going to be reigned in o…
You say power users complain but the casual user does not (as a result of these features) - this sort of position ruins reddit's community as it suggests that reddit doesn't really care about the members who have contributed all kinds of content over the years and instead favors trying to get new members who are just marginally interested, or worse, just like endlessly scrolling through a timeline. This thread has me…
And apart from being a user, you (and others on this thread) could be a potential person Reddit could try to hire in the future... But with these patterns, I'm assuming they don't stand a chance.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
Features are only launched after running a successful experiment. We try to appeal to power users when possible. For example with the current signup flow has optional emails, though intentionally non-obvious. This means new users sign up with an email which means we can reduce churn through digests and also reset passwords / prevent account takeovers, a large burden for Reddit's anti spam teams.
Non obvious? It’s deliberately hidden. Its utterly dishonest. Thanks for mentioning it I’m just annoyed by user interfaces copying human choice and manipulating people. It goes way beyond “disrespectful” and should be illegal
Sorry but I have to side with reddit here. He said it's aimed at power users for whom it doesn't matter that it's hidden because they know how to use this feature.
It's advantageous for Reddit to have accounts with emails, why shouldn't they incentivise users to supply them during the registration process? It's their website nonetheless.