They already made the mobile site practically unusable by constantly reminding you to use the app. The mobile browsing experience was just terrible. They can just show the same adds in the mobile browser...
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Technology
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I'd guess they're trying to proactively prevent people from using adblock on mobile browsers.
Precisely. They can only enforce ads on the mobile app
Ironically, I'd just set my browser to desktop mode, and use the old reddit desktop interface. The more they modernized, the more entrenched I become.
Jeez. The speed at which I've gone from "man it sucks that Apollo is shutting down but I still really enjoy Reddit and will suffer the first-party client" to "wow, Reddit is really trying to destroy their service and it's probably best I don't invest any more time there" is insane... going to draft up some thoughts and a probable farewell message for my frequented subs and followers there. End of an era.
Stages of grief Speedrun any%
ahahaha the reason I finally stopped using Yelp was because their mobile site would only load part of a review and would force redirect to their app if you tried to expand on any reviews. Rather than download the app or change user agent, I just gave up.
every website and their mother wants you to download their app nowadays.
Reddit finding ways to actively make things worse, while lemmy rapidly improves.
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It almost looks like Reddit is trying to commit suicide in the fastest possible way.
I still have an account there. But I will delete it the moment the Apollo goes dark.
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It's getting worse by the minute. I really really hope Lemmy usage picks up.
It seriously is. I've been on the site for all of 30 mins now and I am loving it so much more than reddit
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It's unbelievable how's user hostile all of these major site have become. I deleted my 11 year old Reddit account today and while it hurt a little it's important that we send a message and not use Reddit at least until they repeal this bullshit.
Same! I deleted my 10 year account. Kinda not even sad. It was going downhill for a while now. But hey I just created my own instance for gardeners called thegarden.land so now I have a new home to grow roots and thrive!
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Of course they are, gotta make everyone use the shitty app to farm as much data as possible!
Not surprised. They need to milk every last drop of revenue from their users free content for the upcoming IPO.
It's one thing to test a new idea or a UX tweak or similar on a small portion of users - but just turning off a key way to access your service is so just so weird to me. How many of Reddit's decisions at this point are some version of, "hey, how angry do they get? What can we get away with?"
People need to understand that this is about tracking your eyeballs. Reddit viewed on a webpage does not provide the metadata they want. What metadata does the app provide? Things you wouldn't think about wanting as a human, but the aggregate is very valuable.
Stuff like how long did you watch that video Ad? Where did you click on screen and at what time? What content were you viewing and what course of action did you take to get there? Web viewing only shows the landing page you arrived on reddit from and the exit page that took you away from reddit. Performing these actions in the app provides metadata cookie crumbs like a trail of roach shit to every single thing you've done on reddit in micro activities.
I'm not sure. I've worked at companies using amplitude and hotjar that can record all click event and sessions on web
Users can block those with extensions so the data isn't as reliable
That's probably a big part. Web browsers can do ad blocking. Within the official Reddit app that's way more difficult.
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It's like they're trying to kill the platform
They didn't have a mobile app for the longest time, that's why 3rd party became so popular. They just don't seem to get how to run it.
Yeah, maybe it's an exit scam. I bet some executive said, "I'll give the higher up execs what they think they want (ADS) which is the opposite of what the users want, but we'll all get bonuses just before the site dies."
The mobile browsing experience was a huge shitshow anyway. Randomly refreshing webpage, comments never posting or posting 5 times, expanding comments would work sometimes. They actively nuked it to make people use the reddit app. Fuck them
Randomly refreshing webpage
What is it with almost every modern website constantly refreshing until it errors out on my phone? I always just assumed it was because I blocked trackers and they just gave up trying to display their cancerous page.
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Well, at least you could send a link to a friend who doesn't have a Reddit account and they could view it. Now they'd be greeted with a friendly "install the app or get out" screen, and let's be real, they wouldn't install a whole app just to view the occasional link you'd send them.
I literally just had an instance of opening a nsfw reddit link from a Google search and it informed me that I could only see nsfw posts in the app...
Wow, they're really putting some effort into alienating their user base. What a shame.
It's great news when the social media oligopoly shoots themselves in the foot.
So far I've tried:
- Facebook = Diaspora
- Irc = Matrix (Element)
- Reddit = Lemmy
- Twitter = Mastodon
Out of all the different federated solutions I've tried, I believe this one has the best chance to hit big. Diaspora didn't work because the network effect is too strong with Facebook. Same with Matrix and Mastodon. But reddit is pseudoanonymous platform, you are not here because of some specific people. It's actually somewhat a benefit when there are less people and you have more room for people to see the content you put out. And the quality of the discussion can be better when there are fewer people.
It's still likely that everyone will just go back to reddit but we have a good chance here. The Lemmy UI is actually better and more snappy for someone who has used old reddit all this time.
I'm also an old.reddit / RiF veteran and I love the mobile browser version. Already feels like home!
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I can honestly say since Twitter did this I’ve hardly ever used it
Honestly this is so absurd it's funny. Peak business brain to think that people in 2023 are willing to download an app and register an account to simply access content.
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Between this and Twitter, I feel like "enshittification" is really the word of the past year. It's incredible to watch these massive social networks completely turn on their users in the name of profit.
Twitter probably opened the floodgates when they managed to shaft users and cut API access without outright killing themselves. Now everyone else is emboldened to ask "why can't we do that too?".
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They were always going to. The pre-enshittification stage of a modern capitalist website consists of burning VC money to collect users to later exploit.
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Man, he's so professional. He gives answers that I'd expect a very experienced PR person to give, yet he's just a single-man operation developer.
Wow..
Pretty disappointing to see something I've spent so much time with go down the tubes like this. I know that for a lot of people, Reddit has been dying for years, but I've stuck to old.reddit and my Android apps, and haven't looked at /r/all in a long, long time. I unsubscribed from all of the big/default subreddits, and just hang out in my happy subs where people (mostly) are people and aren't lunatics, and it's still been a nice place.
Killing the mobile apps is pretty much the last straw for me. I'm sure I'll still click on search results from Reddit sometimes, but I won't be logged in anymore and it will only be on a browser with ad-blocking and privacy features. There is no way I'm downloading their app.
If they were to go this route for all users, I would simply never use Reddit again on my phone. And yes, I'm in the minority, and yes, I know they don't care about losing me, but man, what a bummer.
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