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?"
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Technology
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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.
lmao, this shitshow just keeps getting worse and worse. good thing im currently building by community sub list so eventually i never have to look back at that site
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
Why? It's a less mature platform with less features and not enough content. I get the idea of it being attractive but it's like Mastadon without the content you've got an uphill climb.
What sort of content do you want? I'm fine with what's her right now, but I'm more about discussion and knowledge.
So far it seems like a lot of the non technerd side of reddit is missing, things like diy ore Brewing dont seem to be hear yet (or i just didnt find them)
The more they push their shitty mobile app, the more people won't use it.
This definitely has some Microsoft Edge vibes to me.
Somehow Microsoft was still quiet sucessfull with Edge in large parts of the society.
Yes that's true and I'm sure it isn't that bad. I just don't like the way they are trying to force their browser on everyone which is why I try to avoid Edge as much as possible. It's kind of a personal principle now. Microsoft likely doesn't care about that though since, as you said, they are successful with that technique.
Funny enought i installed Edge on Linux in order to use Teams decently. But happily avoid Microsoft elswhere.
Their approach here seems inherently broken. People aren't going to use the app they don't want to use.
The harder they push their official app, the more sketched out by it I am.
It's seriously disturbing from a mental health perspective. They're doing exactly the same things Facebook did that made it most damaging
The app always gives you something, it will add filler (in the form of front-page content) to your feed, changing the reward schedule and (very literally) training you to doom scroll longer with fewer posts you actually care about. It also gives the opportunity to shove something controversial in your face, which drives outrage based engagement
It also always gives you messages - if you didn't get actual replies, it gives you sub suggestions or puts random posts in your notifications to try to get you back in the app
They also been doing A/B testing to try to maximize in-app time
It's a literal recipe for addiction
They want you to experience reddit the way THEY want you to, not how YOU decide to. Put it like it is: predatory.
Enabling paging in Apollo to stop myself from doomscrolling was a huge thing for me. Reaching the end of a page was a reminder and I could actively decide if I want to go further down the procrastination route or not. Guess what option is not available neither on web or the official app...
This actually just helped me make the connection. Whenever I was consciously trying to close the app because I had something else to do I would always make sure to say "one more" then not scroll even a little past otherwise I'd want to keep scrolling to see what was hidden.
If I'm in this situation again I'll make sure to turn paging on. I am not sure mlem (lemmy app) supports this, though.
Yeah, that „one more“ simply wasn‘t enough for me during times where it was harder for me to keep focus. Sad that it has to be these kind of measures to get „engagement“. And it is not only social media sites where the scrollbar on the right of your screen never reaches the end…
I‘m using lemmy by webbrowser, paging seems to be the default there.
15-year reddit veteran here. Spez thinks us old-timers are freeloaders for continuing to prefer old.reddit and the third-party apps. The truth is, that site is dead and what Lemmy offers now is closer to that original vision than current reddit ever will be. Reddit is Dead. Long live Lemmy.
I'll be honest: I always prefered the "new Reddit" over the old one. With that said, the App sucks balls and it going public (as it always does) killed reddit within a few days. Now we just hope lemmy catches on and fixes some of the inherent issues with decentralization.
I just hate apps for what can be a website in general.
On Desktop, 100% yes. On Mobile, Browsers in general suck pretty hard, and i often much prefer the app. If only for Notifications and recent apps being easier to manage than tabs.
Makes sense, I'm to lazy for pi-hole or what so ever to be ad free on mobile. But I also hate apps for what could be a website, so I used old reddit on mobile.
I use Blokada 5 to block ads on my phone and it works pretty well. That version is free, but Blokada 6 is their subscription based blocker which is why I specify the number. I have no experience with 6.
I usually hate apps for websites, but old Reddit is too hard to read on my phone so I used third party apps.
I just don't use heavy ad websites like youtube on mobile. And yeah old reddit is hard to read - but they kind of solved the problem now.
Damn now this is just next level bullshit. I thought that even if I can't use Infinity anymore I can still access reddit through a firefox mobile with adblock and privacy addons to make the ux somewhat bearable.
So..
You can spoof the user-agent, it's a PITA but not that hard. I did it to use chat gpt with bing, but didn't bother for Reddit
I recommend libreddit, no commenting and it's slower, but at least it works on mobile
Unfamiliar with the way libreddit retrieves its data. If it's supposed to work after API BS, I'm guessing good ol' scraping?
Reddit finding ways to actively make things worse, while lemmy rapidly improves.
Finding ways to shove more ads in your face and make tons of money. The issue is super simple at the end of the day.
This... is dumb. Reddit gets traffic from people using it as a secondary search engine to get relevant answers.
Most people on the Internet view it from mobile. Reddit already makes their mobile experience genuinely awful despite this. Blocking it entirely?
The herding to their mobile app is so transparent (and DEFINITELY through stick, not carrot) I'm morbidly curious to see what horrible things they planning to put in their app that they know users will loathe, that requires their alternatives to be zero.
This will cause search engines to deprioritize reddit threads in search results due to the 'bounce factor'.
logged-in mobile web experience
If it's blocked for logged in users, why would that effect search engines?
Lots of users use search engines to find topics or solutions on reddit. Since the inbuilt search function of reddit is so bad, it's easier that way.
Reddit is one of the best places to find tech support for more niche topics like open RGB, but you have to fund them somehow.
Wow, I am surprised they would go this far if I'm honest. Are they actively trying to piss off literally everyone?
They are relying on technology illiterate investors not understanding what the issues are.
But even those guys will ask for user numbers, and if those are not steadily growing, Reddit's net worth suffers massively. Potential for steady growth and montarization are the only metrics investors care about.
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.
GLaDOS-Voice: This test chamber involves heavy ad-tracking and how test subjects react when locked in a shitty mobile 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!
Is there a revanced reddit app?
You may have to search a little for 3rd-party prebuilts, if you're not comfortable doing the patching yourself.
What’s up with Reddit? Have they gone completely insane?
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