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Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

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71–80 of 658 posts

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#71
post #41
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 prefer websites and the option to open tabs for later browsing The number of times I lost a post because when I switched app or didn’t use my phone for a while reddit would just reset to the home page… I think they really didn’t realize how much the shitty UX would enrage people against them.

Or I accidentally bump the top of screen while trying to upvote and it brings me to the top of the thread

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#72
post #28

The Reddit official app only reflect the poor quality of management of Reddit: completely bad designed app, only your competitor could approve this. The web experience is much better. It is the case when you think nobody knows where Reddit is going.

>The web experience is much better.

Right, which is why they should shut down the web site and instead force users to install an app (including on PCs). If they believe that strongly in users being required to use an official app, they should force this everywhere.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#73
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is for every person like you and me, there are 10 or 100 others who put up with this crap, and reddit attracts people, centralizing communities, giving you little option for alternatives. It drains activities from forums, etc, toward itself as it is presented as a more convenient solution. I for one will try to undo my past contributions to accelerate its decline. The blackout is unlikely to work, but I hop…

I never wanted to use the reddit app. Must have caved and installed it one day. I use it now, and it doesnt feel different from the site. Say what you want about HN, but at least the contrarians bring out opposing views. The bigger reddit subs have a mob mentality that use to annoy me, and now scares me. People are itching for a chance to hate, and pile on from every angle. It's childish, naive, and most of all vindi…

The point isn't that it's different or the same, the point is that the very definition of the site is that all content and moderation pretty much is created by users, and that the users hate being forced to install yet another app when it works fine for years as a mobile webpage. There was/is a spirit to reddit and it's being destroyed and if you love something and someone takes steps to change the thing you love into something you don't then you're going to resent and hate it. There's also the idea of not feeling powerless and at the mercy of every corporation by banding together to try to effect change. But you act like it's just a bunch of immature kids who are pouting about something silly. It's deeper than that.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#74
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is for every person like you and me, there are 10 or 100 others who put up with this crap, and reddit attracts people, centralizing communities, giving you little option for alternatives. It drains activities from forums, etc, toward itself as it is presented as a more convenient solution. I for one will try to undo my past contributions to accelerate its decline. The blackout is unlikely to work, but I hop…

I think you're right, partly. But I also think that a lot of the people who put up with it are the passive ones who don't really contribute much to communities anyway; they're just there. The people who do the real contributing—posting, modding, defining the culture and building the communities that Reddit benefits from—are, as far as I can tell, more likely to get a lot angrier about abusive corporate nonsense, simp…

> The people who do the real contributing—posting, modding, defining the culture and building the communities that Reddit benefits from—are, as far as I can tell, more likely to get a lot angrier about abusive corporate nonsense, simply because they're more invested.

I suspect strongly that these people have been purged already over the past 2-3 years. You simply don't hear much about it, because de-platforming them muzzles most of them, and if anyone does complain elsewhere it's easy to smear them as Nazis or whatnot. I mean, they can't effectively defend themselves against that sort of lie when reddit has scrubbed their comment history from anyone else's view.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#75

They are desperately trying to be TikTok. It will not work and has no chance of working. Look at their hilariously terrible acquisition of Dubsmash for $50 million (they converted it to a subreddit with 1.5k subscribers when they had 200 million users at their peak and touted having 25% of black teens in their acquisition press release. Every post is people saying the Reddit app sucks and asking where Dubsmash went)

> they converted it to a subreddit with 1.5k subscribers. That definitely belongs in a textbook on absurd corporate decisions. I thought you must have been exaggerating somewhere, but nope, that is exactly how it went. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubsmash https://old.reddit.com/r/dubsmash/

At one point Dubsmash had 200 million users (https://stackshare.io/dubsmash/dubsmash-scaling-to-200-milli...) and in the acquisition press release they tout how 25% of black teens were on the app (https://www.redditinc.com/blog/reddit-welcomes-video-platfor...). They had fallen from their heyday by the time Reddit bought them but even still taking those numbers at face value it's probably the worst acquisition of all time

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#76

They are desperately trying to be TikTok. It will not work and has no chance of working. Look at their hilariously terrible acquisition of Dubsmash for $50 million (they converted it to a subreddit with 1.5k subscribers when they had 200 million users at their peak and touted having 25% of black teens in their acquisition press release. Every post is people saying the Reddit app sucks and asking where Dubsmash went)

This is Silicon Valley (the show) level comical.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#77

They are desperately trying to be TikTok. It will not work and has no chance of working. Look at their hilariously terrible acquisition of Dubsmash for $50 million (they converted it to a subreddit with 1.5k subscribers when they had 200 million users at their peak and touted having 25% of black teens in their acquisition press release. Every post is people saying the Reddit app sucks and asking where Dubsmash went)

> they converted it to a subreddit with 1.5k subscribers. That definitely belongs in a textbook on absurd corporate decisions. I thought you must have been exaggerating somewhere, but nope, that is exactly how it went. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubsmash https://old.reddit.com/r/dubsmash/

> That definitely belongs in a textbook on absurd corporate decisions.

Maybe money had to be moved under whatever pretense.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#78
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…

The issue is for every person like you and me, there are 10 or 100 others who put up with this crap, and reddit attracts people, centralizing communities, giving you little option for alternatives. It drains activities from forums, etc, toward itself as it is presented as a more convenient solution. I for one will try to undo my past contributions to accelerate its decline. The blackout is unlikely to work, but I hop…

> I for one will try to undo my past contributions to accelerate its decline.

This is a great idea. I'm going to bulk edit then delete my old comments (I recall reading somewhere that editing them overwrites the original field in the database whereas deleting just sets a deleted flag).

Destroys the value that I've created for free for that shitheap, plus it's helpful to make doxxing me harder.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#80
post #31

Well there goes the last social site I was engaged with, other than this one. I just don't get it when a business decides to declare war in its users. I'll miss the 3D printing subreddit, oh well.

Since the redesign they shifted their focus on images, and well, I don't have any hobby best communicated by images. So, lately I have been only looking at the joke subs. I unsubscribed from the 3D printing sub a while ago, because the good stuff didn't get upvotes, because they were not images, so nothing good would make into my home page.

Ooh what's the good stuff? Serious question.

The latest cool thing I discovered was on youtube of all places on the topic of conical slicing.

https://youtu.be/1i-1TEdByZY

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