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Reddit’s disrespectful design

ognjen.io

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Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#51

Post by marcinzm »

baylor121 wrote: post #37
marcinzm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has pathetic ad revenue per user versus every other social media platform. Part of this is likely due to anonymous users that they lack data on for proper targeting. This is their attempt to "fix" that.

It makes sense - there will be greater revenue for a few years maybe, in which time the team/product VP responsible would have been promoted. By the time the site culture/userbase dies (maybe in 5 years) these people would be long gone. Maybe even the higher management don't care about a timeline longer than 5 years tbh.

The true management (ie: stock holders) wants to exist at some point. There's talk of an IPO this year in which case they just want to pump up the numbers and hold things stable for another year before they can sell their stock.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#52

Post by BoorishBears »

wongarsu wrote: post #40
jonplackett wrote: post #23

Surely the most annoying thing is the endless requests to download the app. So irritating! I refuse to download it just because they insist so hard. Reddit is the most basic site ever, there is absolutely no need for me to have an app.

old.reddit.com is not mobile optimized at all, but still infinitely better than reddit.com. Alternatively, get one of the non-official apps (on Android I use rif).

Is reddit.com mobile optimized?

There's a bug where opening a post from a subreddit's main page always results in a weird border, like it's opening the post as a floating dialog.

(Just to confirm tried it logged and out, same result: https://imgur.com/a/6yK9D8V)

That results in comments being squished down to a few characters wide and many many lines long

I used to think it was a "me" bug, but it's followed me across 4 iPhones over the years!

How can they have such an experience breaking bug on one of the most homogeneous major platforms out there? iOS only has one browser engine!

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#54

Post by tbrake »

I've long thought about making a thread like this so I'm happy to see it. Fed up with this actively user-hostile web experience to try and drive people to the app.

My main gripe is definitely expanding comments -

> First of all, only the top comment will be shown. Then you can tap view more which will load another two. But you cannot open all the comments.

Because the "create an account to continue" toast pictured is unclosable on my phone. Meaning not only can I not expand any more comments, but I can't even go back see other un-expanded comments. I need to refresh.

Just an absolute rancid experience all around.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#55

Post by forgotpwd16 »

tored wrote: post #16

Hostile design either makes the user login (a user reddit can monetize) or makes the user to close the site (a user reddit can't monetize, thus no need to waste resources), both scenarios is a win for reddit.

But an anonymous user can still click on ads.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#56

Post by unangst »

wongarsu wrote: post #40
jonplackett wrote: post #23

Surely the most annoying thing is the endless requests to download the app. So irritating! I refuse to download it just because they insist so hard. Reddit is the most basic site ever, there is absolutely no need for me to have an app.

old.reddit.com is not mobile optimized at all, but still infinitely better than reddit.com. Alternatively, get one of the non-official apps (on Android I use rif).

Try https://reddit.com/.compact

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#57

Post by rognjen »

542458 wrote: post #33
petepete wrote: post #22

The only way I can stomach using Reddit is via Reddit Sync. I firmly believe that soon Reddit will prevent third party clients from using their API. Perhaps there'll be a subscription service where paid accounts can still use it with their client of choice, or maybe they'll just kill the ecosystem in an attempt to get people on the official app. Either way, that's me done with it. The hostility makes it somewhere I'm…

Edit: apparently I’m misreading the traffic page and third party apps are not included. So disregard this paragraph. I really doubt they’ll kill API access. From the stats on my (medium sized) sub a full third of uniques (desktop and mobile combined) are from unofficial clients. And that’s not to mention the number of near-essential bots used by many subs for community management. Now, what they are doing is not putt…

> full third of uniques

That tells you what their own experience is like. Thanks for sharing that.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#58

Post by Macha »

542458 wrote: post #33
petepete wrote: post #22

The only way I can stomach using Reddit is via Reddit Sync. I firmly believe that soon Reddit will prevent third party clients from using their API. Perhaps there'll be a subscription service where paid accounts can still use it with their client of choice, or maybe they'll just kill the ecosystem in an attempt to get people on the official app. Either way, that's me done with it. The hostility makes it somewhere I'm…

Edit: apparently I’m misreading the traffic page and third party apps are not included. So disregard this paragraph. I really doubt they’ll kill API access. From the stats on my (medium sized) sub a full third of uniques (desktop and mobile combined) are from unofficial clients. And that’s not to mention the number of near-essential bots used by many subs for community management. Now, what they are doing is not putt…

At one point, Tweets showed which client you used and most came from third party clients.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#59

Post by rognjen »

heliodor wrote: post #31
tored wrote: post #16

Hostile design either makes the user login (a user reddit can monetize) or makes the user to close the site (a user reddit can't monetize, thus no need to waste resources), both scenarios is a win for reddit.

If I can't access it, I can't share the posts nor will I click on ads. So it's not a clear easy win for them.

That's the thing. That's exactly me. BUT they still keep doing it.

Which means that they've data to back up what they are doing. Probably "exploiting" less savvy and/or privacy conscious users.

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