Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app?

1403 points by blickentwapft 5 years ago | 644 comments

Reddit constantly hassles me to use their app on mobile.

Why do they care so much?

I really don’t want to use their app. I just wish they’d give up and let me use the browser in peace.

sixo 5 years ago |

It is pretty offensive that they say "reddit works better on the app" when the only reason for that is that they broke everything on mobile (on purpose?) in a series of badly-implemented redesigns.

I'm never going to install it, and I have all but stopped reading it because these prompts are so obnoxious. That's probably +$ for Reddit though.

I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only _themselves_, and then expect users to engage with it because it exists. Users are able to identify when something is valuable to them. If you make it valuable they will use it. Consider the difference on an ecommerce site between a comment section vs a few company-picked "testimonials" above the fold. _Everyone_ knows the testimonials are garbage. Maybe your conversion goes up a tick the first time you put them on the site, but when a repeat viewer sees the same ones again they're going to roll their eyes and register you as untrustworthy. Whereas a (reasonably-managed, honest) comment section provides loads of information that's actually valuable to the consumer.

KKKKkkkk1 5 years ago | |

MIT economists Acemoglu and Robinson wrote a book "Why Nations Fail" that analyzes why countries at similar starting points can have extremely divergent paths in terms of economic development. One example is South and North Korea. Their conclusion is that some countries have established extractive institutions, while others inclusive. The extractive ones exclude the population from the decision making process and seek to divvy up and redistribute the scarce available resources, while the inclusive ones seek to involve the broadest possible strata of the population in the decision making and wealth-producing activities. Looks like Reddit is turning into the North Korea of social websites.

amelius 5 years ago | | |

Yes, they used crowd-sourcing to build their empire, yet they seem surprised that the crowd wants to have a say in how things work.

maerF0x0 5 years ago | | |

What does it say about the United States?

eirini1 5 years ago | | |

Is this a real book someone wrote? Incredible to me how you can call yourself an economist and just write basic observations and conclude they are the root cause of everything without even taking a cursory look at the history of things.

AmericanOP 5 years ago | |

The most enraging thing is Reddit took over video hosting themselves, but simply declined to have a mobile/text share option.

Links from any 3rd party service show up in the phone as the content i want to share.

Reddit? You try to send someone a Reddit video link and they get affronted by a pop up banner to download the mobile app when they click through. WTF!

I sent a reddit link to a video to my dad, once. He replied 'cant open it.' So f* off reddit. Allow rehosting or change your content policies. Stop making the internet worse.

dimator 5 years ago | | |

On top of this, v.reddit.com is abysmal. Videos stop streaming, the cursor is impossible to use, I don't know how its allowed to exist in its current state.

adrianN 5 years ago | | |

I have a greasemonkey script to filter out such posts. There is enough content without them.

https://pastebin.com/5fFyiiM7

mayankkaizen 5 years ago | | |

Their video hosting service is pure garbage. It is slow and very often I see pixelated videos even though internet speed is not an issue.

renewiltord 5 years ago | | |

Most people use the reddit downloader bot to download and send the video. You'll see it summoned in every popular video thread.

entropea 5 years ago | | |

v.reddit videos are nearly impossible to watch on the browser version of Reddit. If you download direct you don't get audio because they stream video and audio independently (I Think). They removed the shortlink to the hosted site on the browser version too. They're really doing a lot of user hostile things for monetization.

clickok 5 years ago | |

Furthermore, over the long term it can change the texture of the Reddit community. What sort of person quits using Reddit after becoming frustrated with yet another imposed hassle? What sort of person stays, or is retained by pop-up notifications and whatever other tedious blandishments their app/redesign provides?

There are other sites with similar features and layout to Reddit (Voat, Ruqqus, Saidit, Raddle, communities.win, etc.) but none are really in competition to be "the front page of the Internet". This is because Reddit has a huge community with varied interests which provides self-perpetuating advantages. For example: the activity level is generally higher; if you start a subreddit for a niche topic you have a chance at finding an audience; great comments/submissions will garner thousands of upvotes rather than a few dozen (smaller sites have a proportionately tinier vote ceiling, making it hard to differentiate between "good" and "amazing").

I can see increased retention/monetization maybe leading to a larger user-base in the short term, but if it makes good content less likely to crop up, or leads to less discerning users (ingenious effortposts lose out to low-effort pandering memes), or even if it just narrows the interests/hobbies represented on there, then over time it will destroy Reddit's main source of value.

EVdotIO 5 years ago | | |

I'm sure good subreddits still exists, but it has gone way past eternal September at this point and Gresham's law is in full effect. Once an organization reaches a certain size, vested interests on all sides have perverse incentives, and it starts a terminal slide to the lowest common denominator. I suspect the issue is largely in the inherent zero marginal cost to entry for most social media platforms.

vorpalhex 5 years ago | | |

Ruqqus is generally better as an alternative and has been doing a better job navigating the line between free speech and not letting neo nazis invade every sub.

Like old school reddit, people do say inflammatory things to get reactions but usually get downvoted. There are also good tools for muting people.

toxican 5 years ago | |

I don't know why anyone would bother with the first party app when there are a bunch of really nice 3rd party ones with all sorts of additional features. All the one's I've used have been free with premium versions that only cost a few bucks.

Which of course leaves me wondering how long it is before reddit pulls the plug on their API and forces people to use the busted mobile site or their app.

SwiftyBug 5 years ago | | |

I hope they don't do it. If this happens I probably won't Reddit anymore. Apollo is not only the best Reddit client I've ever used, but is actually the most well-crafted iOS app I ever had the pleasure to use.

x2f10 5 years ago | | |

>Which of course leaves me wondering how long it is before reddit pulls the plug on their API and forces people to use the busted mobile site or their app.

Of course. How will they do it? That's yet to be seen. Instead of pulling the API entirely, I'd bet they simply wont introduce API for new features. This will leave 3rd party apps as inferior while Reddit doesn't have to deal with the backlash of pulling the API entirely. I'd argue this is already occurring.

digitalengineer 5 years ago | | |

Link for the lazy: https://apolloapp.io/

bschne 5 years ago | |

> (...) and then expect users to engage with it because it exists.

This is indeed a troubling trend, so many annoying popups, banners, and notifications only seem to serve to forcefully try and push a small percentage of users towards some feature. If adoption is poor, it's probably because it's not wanted. Of course, in some SaaS contexts, it makes a lot of sense to keep users informed of features that might be of benefit to them and they may have otherwise not discovered, but that's a completely different game from just shoving stuff down their throats.

TheKarateKid 5 years ago | |

What's even more frustrating is the dark UX design they implemented. If you make it past their "Continue" pop-up which shows you multiple versions with the options reversed (to work against impulse memory skips), if you touch ANYTHING on the page after that point, it will STILL open up in the app.

What's worse is that once it opens, that post is now permanently in your account's history. Reddit provides NO WAY to remove things from your account history.

dheera 5 years ago | |

Whenever any website says "works better in the app" I always roll my eyes and consider it to be really saying "we really just want to spy on your data (apps installed, wifi networks, geolocation, accelerometer to determine your life habits, ...)"

For a site like reddit there is literally nothing they can't do with pure HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

Also, I like Firefox on mobile because you can block ads and install other extensions.

ShorsHammer 5 years ago | |

I use Redreader on android. The experience is magnitudes better than the "real" app

It's free and opensource, available on f-droid or if you are so inclined google playstore.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/

PlotCitizen 5 years ago | | |

In a similar vein, I use Apollo for iOS[1] and it's also magnitudes better. The official reddit app is starting to catch up, but it's designed with advertisers in mind, whereas you can use a different app and pay for ads to go away, or use the old, web version with a blocker.

[1] https://apolloapp.io/

vocatus_gate 5 years ago | | |

Reddit Is Fun app gang represent!

intsunny 5 years ago | | |

Redreader is awesome.

The interface is a little clumsy, it is open source and verifiably not making unrequested connections to the Internet is amazing.

namiller2 5 years ago | | |

I use Alien Blue, but that doesn't stop the popup from showing when you browse to a Reddit page on Safari.

rat87 5 years ago | | |

RedReader is ok but a bit basic

"Slide for Reddit" is also open source and has a lot more features

ED_Radish 5 years ago | | |

Sync gang rise

northwest65 5 years ago | |

Take heart, they're actually doing you a favour. Once it becomes a hassle, you'll stop visiting, and along the way you'll wonder why you ever did. We should be thanking them for helping break the cycle of looking at a bottomless pit of drivel, our time on earth is not without end.

Anything that helps you escape garbage companies run by garbage employees is good!

Causality1 5 years ago | |

The same thing happened to Imgur where they slowly stripped features from the mobile site to force users onto the app, culminating in preventing mobile users from even logging in at all.

cma 5 years ago | | |

The worst part about mobile apps is it destroys tabbed browsing.

kibwen 5 years ago | |

There's an option in your reddit settings to force them to serve you the old design rather than the redesign, which is remembered for future sessions. The old design isn't "mobile friendly", i.e. it requires a bunch of zooming in and out, but other than that it's completely functional, unlike the redesign which simply doesn't even work on mobile.

a_e_k 5 years ago | | |

The old mobile design is still there. You can add .compact to the end of any Reddit URL to get it.

minusSeven 5 years ago | |

Reddit is now in a position where they pull a Digg and not suffer the consequences of Digg meaning they can be considered too big to fail. I guess this can allow them to pull whatever they want. Break api used by Android developer. Shove meaningless prompts on users face.

Chris2048 5 years ago | |

> then expect users to engage with it because it exists

Kinda like saying something must be done because it is "company policy"; passing the buck in the hope you don't question it, and realise company policy is also decided by the company.

It exists, because they decided it does.

Timpy 5 years ago | |

> Users are able to identify when something is valuable to them.

I strongly disagree with this. Users are just responding to dopamine sensors that have triggers that they don't understand. "Value" extracted can be detrimental to a person's well-being, even if they chose it for themselves. Gambling addicts at casinos, obese people at fast food restaurants, pay-to-win whales and the newest version of Candy Crush. Reddit is just a casino where you gamble with your time and win addicting emotions like novelty and outrage.

sixo 5 years ago | | |

That's not what "valuable" means in this argument. Reddit is huge because Reddit's diverse and novel content is valuable to people, as in, it's valued by them, that is what that phrase means. Doesn't matter if _you_ think it is _actually good for them_ or if it "produces value" economically. Yeah, it hits dopamine buttons, so what.

Using the same sense of value, Reddit's _app_ is not valuable to people relative to reddit-on-mobile which is why so many people in this thread agree with the claim.

zamalek 5 years ago | |

> I'm never going to install it

There are third-party apps. I have been using Sync (Android) for years, and it's bloody fantastic.

I wonder when they will cut third-party apps off.

tekknik 5 years ago | |

> I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only _themselves_, and then expect users to engage with it because it exists.

Probably because most users don’t really care and those that do make excuses like “what else am I going to use?” or “I can’t stop using reddit, how will I stay in the loop?” or any one of many other excuses. If you want reddit to change, stop using them. Entirely.

wst_ 5 years ago | |

I see a lot of HN users living in HN bubble completely forgetting that we are a minority of consumers. Most of Reddit audience is either not educated enough, don't have enough exposure to see the difference or simply don't care. Did we all forgot about eternal September already? So, unfortunately, no - users won't even notice this because they have no idea what's valuable to them and they will buy anything as long as it's packaged nicely. For the same reason they also won't vote with their wallets even when (as you say) "everyone" knows that testimonials are garbage.

tutfbhuf 5 years ago | | |

> I see a lot of HN users living in HN bubble completely forgetting that we are a minority of consumers. Most of Reddit audience is either not educated enough ...

Actually, Reddit users are quiet educated. Source: https://social.techjunkie.com/demographics-reddit/

moonraker 5 years ago | |

As someone who’s worked with the Marketing Dept. a lot in my prior role, the reason e-commerce sites (and possibly Reddit) do the things you mentioned is because they’re overly focused on new user/customer acquisition vs keeping current customers/users who know the the products’ value happy.

There’s almost always a bit of political drama behind the decision too: Marketing gets to say that they’re acquiring new users in short term (thereby increasing their budget and clout in the Org) while destroying customer value in the long run

trash3 5 years ago | |

What's equally absurd is that I assumed they ruined the web experience with their redesign in order to make it mobile compatible. It just goes to show they're ruining both web and mobile experience to pigeonhole users into environments where they can force feedback loops of their users so they have to spend more time in either platform.

aeyes 5 years ago | | |

Wait, you are saying that they redesigned their web experience for mobile usability to then show users a popup that they should use the app?

amelius 5 years ago | | |

Our only hope now is that Google downranks them, until they fix the web interface.

saagarjha 5 years ago | | |

Mobile "compatible". In reality it's pretty bad on mobile too.

jakevoytko 5 years ago |

Other people are saying "ads," but the story is probably more expansive. Mobile apps have better hooks for pulling people back into the app, like popup notifications. Reddit has natural lifecycle points where they can do this: when people respond to your comments or comment on your posts. They could also notify users of events like their yearly Secret Santa. I wouldn't be surprised if their engagement numbers were much better on mobile: since they can draw users back into the app with notifications, they have better ad views, more people buy Reddit Gold, more people comment (which leads to other people having content to read), etc.

braythwayt 5 years ago |

I’ve given up on reddit on mobile. From time to time I drop in on it using Safari on the desktop, but it’s not worth it to me to deal with their engagement-ification in their mobile app, or obvious crippleware of their mobile web experience.

I’m not pissed off about this: It’s like dropping in on a bar I used to enjoy a decade ago, to find out it has been redesigned a few times and everyone’s a new face.

Sometimes, that’s a really cool experience: “Say, this is neat.” Sometimes, not. But times must change, and we either change with them, or get left behind.

I am not going to change and become an engagement addict, clicking on shiny baubles out of boredom. So in reddit’s case, I am a part of its past, not its present, and I must accept being left behind in its wake.

_zzaw 5 years ago |

Web browsing these days really feels like wandering through a market filled with panhandlers and pickpockets—you're just trying to look around, and everyone's up in your face demanding stuff in the most obnoxious way possible.

As a web designer/developer, this approach offends me. At the risk of sounding like I'm taking this more seriously than I should, I believe that good design is founded on respecting ones' users. Reddit throwing what's essentially an ad in my face every time I try to use their site is bad design because it is disrespectful to me, the user.

Maybe their app is a better experience; there are more respectful ways of highlighting it. As immature as this sounds, not using the app is almost a matter of principle for me at this point, because I don't believe in rewarding disrespectful design.

searchableguy 5 years ago |

Use an RSS reader. You will like the lack of feeling of being forced to comment on things you don't care much about in retrospection. No tracking or ads, only content. You can filter shady sites or posts from appearing.

Here are some readers.

0] https://github.com/GetStream/Winds

1] https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS

2] https://github.com/feedbin/feedbin

3] https://github.com/yang991178/fluent-reader

If you like something closed source, try feedly.

Reddit provides rss for now. For sources that don't, you can use rss.app or similar.

https://www.reddit.com/wiki/rss

One more useful thing some readers provide is an email address that you can use for subscribing to newsletters.

yodon 5 years ago |

As a conversion optimization question, I suspect Reddit would get better conversion on their "do you want the mobile app" banner if they only showed it randomly about 10-15% of the time. By showing it every time, they cause viewers to remember their "why would I want that - I don't" decision from the previous time they saw the question. Reducing the frequency would likely result in more people considering the question as a fresh new question independent of the previous viewing when presented with it the second time, increasing the odds they go with the install (by definition these are people who didn't install the first time, so their remembered decision is by definition no, so encouraging them to consider the question again as a fresh question can only improve the conversion effectiveness of the prompt over their remembered decision).

krn 5 years ago |

The fundamental answer to what changed with Reddit over the last 3-5 years – an IPO became the main goal of the company[1](2017):

> Reddit may go public by 2020, said CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman during a keynote conversation at the Internet Association’s Virtuous Circle Summit on Monday. “The time frame is pretty far out,” he admitted. However, he also argued that going public was inevitable for Reddit to both reward employees and investors, calling it “the only responsible choice” for the company.

[1] https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/reddit-ipo-1202613811/

bjo590 5 years ago | |

Are there any other tech companies that have IPOed with the same amount of pornography content as reddit has?

debacle 5 years ago | | |

Reddit tries ridiculously hard to hide its porn, even though it's 5% of the posts on rising and more than 20% of the posts on new.

kristopolous 5 years ago | | |

Twitter

raldi 5 years ago | | |

Netscape

mattacular 5 years ago | |

What does that have to do with using their web site versus their app

krn 5 years ago | | |

It increases engagement metrics, which is the most important thing for an ad company looking to raise more money in the future.

debacle 5 years ago | |

Interesting that this was before the most recent Chinese funding round. I wonder if an IPO is still 3 years away.

simias 5 years ago |

Reddit has been very aggressive over the past few years to increase retention.

They're barely a link aggregator anymore, they try to self-host as much content as possible. Images, videos, they even attempted to make user-pages à la Facebook (no idea if this caught on). They're competing with Facebook and Instagram, not Hacker News.

On paper that's not necessarily bad, but they don't hesitate to make the user experience worse to achieve this. If you want to link a video hosted on reddit, there's no straightforward way to only link the video and not the full reddit thread. Here's a random example from the frontpage:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatcouldgowrong/comments/ici161/wc...

No way to share just the video, you have to share the garbage comments as well. Of course many video sharing sites are the same, but Reddit was supposed to be a link aggregator at first, not Youtube-but-worse. They've added a photo gallery feature lately with the same limitation: you can't just link the gallery, you have to link the full comment page. I suspect that they did that specifically because they couldn't really prevent people to share the URL to the image directly since that's a standard feature of the web, so by adding galleries they can "lock in" the content. At least they don't do referrer checks, I suppose... Well, not yet.

And yeah, as you point out, the mobile experience on a browser is atrocious. Especially if like me you're only a lurker: if you're not logged in you can't even browse a subreddit, it forces you to install the app (or alternatively, you can go to i.reddit.com that still works and is much faster to boot).

Vanilla Reddit is effectively becoming less pleasant to use that those shady streaming websites that change their domain names every month to evade copyright enforcement. At least those website usually manage to stream SD video reliably.

Basically Reddit tries to become Instagram for people who think they're too cool for Instagram, and it shows.

nokya 5 years ago |

Reddit's obsession to constantly show me an "ad" to install the app has basically cured me from drifting and spending more time than strictly necessary on the website. I hate it so much that it triggers a negative experience everytime I visit the website and I just tend to watch links shared to me.

Honestly, I thank them for that and I hope they don't remove it.

nottorp 5 years ago |

Funny, they make me not read reddit on mobile with their insistence on using the app.

But the real reason is tracking and spamming you with notifications to get "engagement".

veqz 5 years ago |

Yeah, it's annoying. I've also seen them block entire subreddits for mobile. E.g. this is what I see on my Android phone when trying to read r/Europe: https://veqz.net/reddit_block_europe.jpg («This community is available in the app»).

My two go-to solutions are: 1. Use old.reddit.com/ 2. Stop using reddit

whywhywhywhy 5 years ago | |

Employees of Reddit must have a very low opinion of their users if they think they're going to fall for "This community is available in the app".

nikanj 5 years ago | | |

Their customers i.e. marketers prefer people who fall for things like that

uniqueid 5 years ago | | |

Around every twentieth post on the front page of Reddit is a video of someone being punched, kicked, stabbed, or shot. If there are Reddit employees who hold a high opinion of Reddit's users, they should raise their standards.

gokhan 5 years ago | |

They block on the subreddit's main page, but individual pages are not blocked. I sometimes request desktop site, click on the discussion I want, than go back requesting mobile site. Works well where there's always a long and daily discussion on the sub.

I will never download the app just because they do this.

dpedu 5 years ago | |

> you must continue in Reddit app or log in

They're not forcing you to use the app. Did you try logging in?

xioxox 5 years ago | |

There are also alternative much better apps (e.g. redreader from the F-Droid store for Android).

whywhywhywhy 5 years ago |

That and the layout of their "new" redesign where you go to a post and it'll show the post, 2 comments (out of 500), not even the full threads of those comments either and then just some unrelated posts and you have to click on more links just to read the actual comments and you can feel your browser choke under the weight of whatever framework they use trying to render a few bits of text.

Noticed Twitter switching to the same pattern too, show 1-4 replies then just some random unrelated algorithm posts from elsewhere.

jamil7 5 years ago |

Yeah ads. If you're on iOS check out Apollo, made by a solo developer and does not display ads. I'm not sure what the equivalent on Android would be (someone chime in if you know).

jw1224 5 years ago |

Quora is even worse for this.

For years they’ve had an extremely hostile user experience on their mobile site — you scroll half way through a long answer, and get interrupted with a modal prompting you to finish reading it in the app.

But the modal cannot be dismissed — there is no way to close it. You can’t scroll the page, it persists on reload... rendering the site utterly unusable.

braythwayt 5 years ago | |

It’s interesting to compare Quora and Stack Overflow. They both are about questions and answers, and they both set out to use interaction design and aggressive curation to create a high-quality Q&A resource.

But despite having similar goals and a willingness to experiment with behavioural patterns, they ended up with incredibly different experiences.

chiyc 5 years ago | | |

I used to really enjoy reading responses on Quora, but at some point, it seems to have devolved into pretty low quality spam and self-promotion.

kevin_thibedeau 5 years ago | |

You also can't navigate their site without being logged in. Something Google should crack down on.

zentiggr 5 years ago | |

When I realized I couldn't read anything on Quora without logging in, I deleted my account and I haven't missed a thing.

There's probably a core group of users there, but I can only imagine it's a stagnant pool now.

polote 5 years ago |

Reddit as a social network has two goals:

- Make more money than last quarter

- Having more user engaged than last quarter

Having user engaged is much easier when you have the app installed, as they can send you push notification. As a result of that, the number of users on the mobile web version is probably very low, so they don't put a lot of effort on the product and would probably love to deprecate it.

They also probably don't make the effort to optimize the monetization of those users, as they are so few, so they push them to use the app.

And above all HN users are probably not the ones who click the most on ads, so they don't care if you use reddit or not as you will not bring them any revenue.

varbhat 5 years ago |

On mobile,

I use

1) https://i.reddit.com

2) https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit

I don't use neither the official bloated site nor official Android app. They are way much animated, bloated,slow.

I think that current focus of reddit is to become social media. Earlier days,reddit was focused on creating better forum,discussion platform. There is gradual change in focus ,i guess.

jamil7 5 years ago | |

> I think that current focus of reddit is to become social media. Earlier days,reddit was focused on creating better forum,discussion platform. There is gradual change in focus ,i guess.

Theres a few people talking about the "unbundling of reddit" that's going on at the moment. I forget where I read it but basically some larger communities are starting to break off again into their own platforms.

Cthulhu_ 5 years ago | | |

There's a lot of subreddits now that advertise their own Discord server, omitting Reddit's own attempt at hosting a chat service.

znpy 5 years ago |

Because Reddit is slowly becoming trash.

First their website redesign makes the whole thing slow and unusable, then they start making the app get invasive and abusive.

All in the name of "engagement".

Erlich_Bachman 5 years ago |

I've identified my biggest pain point when these companies try to pull shit like this: it is the audacity for them to pretend like they have some authority to decide anything for me (as a user), or even nudge me in any directions, be it in content, ways to use their service, etc. ...

Dear Reddit, (and the likes),

You are a service company. You provide me a service. You are not an authority, or a thought leader, or anyone who's opinion I for some reason automatically respect or am interested in. You simply make it easier for me and users like me, to aggregate information and to share data, in a format that we like. You did not create that format out of thin air and you do not own it. It is we, the users that told you that this is the format we wanted to use, by going to your website and not competitors. You A/B-tested it from us. This does not give you any authority or right to pretend like you know what is better for us. You are simply a utility provider. Start acting like one. I do not care about your opinion about anything, let alone how I should use your site, what I should read, what I should buy or not. I just want a service, the aggregation of information. The utility of it. I don't care about how you make money (none of the users really do, let's be honest). If you stop giving the utility, I will go somewhere else. If you can try to provide this utility and also making money in the process - good for you. If you ask me to pay for your service, a fair (!) price, I will gladly do, like I do for any utility like electricity, clean streets etc.

The more shenanigans like this you pull, the faster the decentralized versions of those utilities (a useful forum for quick information, in your case) will come up and eat up into your revenue.

AtHeartEngineer 5 years ago | |

I wish I could give you gold for that comment, thankfully we aren't on reddit

indigochill 5 years ago |

I read somewhere just the other day that the benefit (to the developer) of an app vs a mobile website is that apps can collect more data on the user than mobile websites in their sandboxed browsers can. I haven't looked into this to verify for myself and there are other reasons, like push notifications, but I'm inclined to believe it.

criddell 5 years ago | |

Who wants push notifications from Reddit though?

Erlich_Bachman 5 years ago |

Another thing they did lately BTW is these "show the rest of the discussion" links, which seem to randomly pop up in a thread, hiding relevant replies. And they are not even JS-based always it seems, they often reload the whole page! And when they do, they hide the other parts of the same thread that were visible on the previous page. What in God's holy name is that??? That is a worse UX in every single way, than what you could have had by simply printing all the replies like you did before. WTF is the point of that? Are you actively trying to get me off your website and go somewhere else? That's a hostile UI for no reason...

read_if_gay_ 5 years ago | |

I guess the UX is better if you're mostly using reddit to scroll through memes. Like you look at a meme, chuckle, read the top reply, chuckle again, on to the next meme.

It's absolutely garbage for comment-heavy subs, but the vast majority of reddit users doesn't visit those.

toddmorey 5 years ago |

It's horrible. They've made the site itself unusable on mobile.

They care so much because as you browse links out to other content, they can keep you in the app using the embedded browser. And when you read that content and share it, you share reddit links, not the source links.

I'm sure time in app blows away time on site for mobile users.

sharker8 5 years ago | |

To turn this on its head, maybe the mobile device manufacturing duopoly has made it impossible to develop great experiences on mobile web in order to funnel more development work into their app store ecosystems? Why are we blaming reddit for this trend?

yalogin 5 years ago |

Its worse. They keep breaking stuff on purpose just to push people towards their app and their new 2.0 design.

Seeing how popular the old interface is, they provided an option in the settings to keep using the old interface. A few months ago they decided to not honor that setting on mobile. So now many links on the site are broken and I have to go to old.reddit.com to get around it. Took me a while but now Safari autoprompts and fills it, so not an issue. However I can see a day where they will fully abandon the old interface and that is when I stop using reddit.

DavidVoid 5 years ago |

I'd recommend using a third party app.

rif is fun is pretty good imo.

Free version (ads): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu....

Paid version (no ads): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu....

aphroz 5 years ago |

Because they need your data. I don't understand how a website with such bad UX can rank so well when Google is now calculating CLS and other parameters like this. Reddit is a mystery to me.

wilde 5 years ago | |

Reddit usually has more relevant info for me than a raw Google search. My normal search behavior is something like search for “thing”, browse useless blogspam, search for “thing reddit” and then find a link to the answer through a comment or the like.

mlang23 5 years ago | |

The UX made me quit reddit. I delt with it (with a screen reader) for a few months. Then, I submitted a PR on GitHub to improve the accessibility of the site (just a very small addition). Then my PR got ignored for a few months. So I commented that I will delete my PR since it is obviously not welcome. Then I got some comments asking me to not do so, because accessibility is supposedly important now. A few months later, still no action. So I deleted my reddit account, because there was really no point in continuing to hurt myself with their terrible UX.

schnable 5 years ago | |

They are all in on AMP, even though its terrible experience on AMP.

exit 5 years ago | |

> I don't understand how a website with such bad UX can rank so well when Google is now calculating CLS and other parameters like this.

you can still use the old ui via old.reddit.com

i have no use for anything they introduced in the current ui

opportune 5 years ago | |

Despite reddit getting worse and worse over the years it’s still one of the best indexed sources of non-advertised/SEO/sponsored information.

thatguyagain 5 years ago | |

Isn't it one of the most popular sites on the internet? I can't think of where on Reddit the CLS is bad, do you have an example?

aphroz 5 years ago | | |

It was probably very popular, but for me it has become like Quora, I don't understand how the information is structured and I find it not relevant most of the time.

mangatmodi 5 years ago |

I worked on user tracking all my life. You can track user activities, interest etc, much better on an app. This data is valuable for in-house use and to sell it to the highest bidder.

hutzlibu 5 years ago | |

Do you think tracking outside the app is done?

Meaning collecting data even if the app is not opened? I would suspect so.

mangatmodi 5 years ago | | |

yes yes, there are third party DMPs. Phone companies, offline stores etc. all share data with these DMPs. It is quite disgusting. Particularly shady practices done by FB.

But nothing can defeat first party tracking you get with the app.

nojvek 5 years ago |

The thing I am most astonished is that Wikipedia is even a thing that requires no login, no special app, no annoying popups (except the occasional jimmy wales donation banner). It’s open. It’s fast. It’s comprehensive. You can freely download a dump .

Reddit, quora, yelp, facebook on the other hand are Plagued with dark patterns that give a middle finger to the user.

It makes me wonder the kind of shit we build in the name of “user experience”. What is wrong with our industry?

solumos 5 years ago | |

> What is wrong with our industry?

Capital providers that want a return (or at least not a loss) on their investment. More engagement + more users = decent source of ad revenue.

blfr 5 years ago |

They need to somehow make up the engagement for all the interesting content they banned over the years.

optimalsolver 5 years ago | |

They've grown to the sixth most visited website in the US (third in the UK), so they're doing something right.

mlang23 5 years ago | | |

You mean like when ethernal october hit, the internet was doing something right to attract all these wonderful people? Just because the masses like something doesn't mean it is good.

josefresco 5 years ago |

Related: I shared a link from Reddit with a non tech-savvy family member. The next time I saw him, he had the Reddit app installed on his mobile. I asked why and he said basically "it told me to install the app so I did". I no longer send him Reddit links, I save the image/video and send via text message.

abhayhegde 5 years ago |

This is most likely to do with the ability to access your storage, and constantly feed you with notifications. Those little annoying reminders to visit the website and instill a fake fear of missing out on something.

If at all you wish to have a smoother experience and no notifications though, I suggest Relay for Reddit on Android.

koolba 5 years ago |

Short term: you can’t block the ads like you can in the browser.

Long term: to turn it into a chat app and somehow cash out.

blaser-waffle 5 years ago |

Data mining. Get permissions to various parts of your phone and now they know your location, contacts, photos, etc.

You think they're making big money off of Reddit Gold?

ronanyeah 5 years ago | |

I usually assume this of every brand that pushes their native app(s) while intentionally degrading their web offering.

Twitter's (great) PWA is a notable exception.

_Microft 5 years ago |

If anyone from Reddit wants to get an idea how annoying these ads are: I'm using old.reddit.com instead. On a phone. Think about that.

petepete 5 years ago | |

If you're on Android, I'd recommend Reddit Sync Pro (it's a few dollars/pounds for the paid ad-free version). It has a clean design, looks great and has most of Reddit's good functionality.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.laurenceda...

It's a lot nicer than mobile sites or offical app.

physicles 5 years ago | |

If only they cared. It’s pretty clear they’re not optimizing for user experience.

actuator 5 years ago |

I think you should just use old.reddit.com

There are annoying quirks like some links in comments and wiki/sidebar can take you to new reddit site and it is harder to solve this on FF mobile. But I strongly prefer that over whatever abomination their new design is.

Even leaving aside the UI aspects, the annoying thing about their new site is, it progressively keeps turning bad, earlier it was just that ugly banner for app install or the collapsed comments, or the new page redirection. But now for some reason a lot of communities fail to open in the new design. I don't know why Reddit hates the web so much, they can very well show the ads there as well.

dreamcompiler 5 years ago |

It cannot really be that hard to teach a deep learning engine how to surf the web while tailoring itself to a given user's tastes and filtering out all the egregious crap. It should be substantially easier in fact, than teaching a DL engine how to play a video game, because all the HTML and JS that generated the page is available to the engine to reason about in addition to the pixels.

As an added bonus, it should be easy to teach the engine to "see" all the monkeyboxes and eliminate them while at the same time giving no clue to the upstream server that AI was involved in improving the human user's experience.

sfblah 5 years ago |

My reply will probably get drowned out, but part of what's going on here (for me at least) is Google Amp. I browse reddit as a registered user, and I set the flag for them to stop directing me to the app on mobile. The problem is, if a Google search sends me to a reddit page, because that page is generally served via Amp, it doesn't have my user details, so I get hassled about this.

As a test, I switched to Bing. Problem went away. I'm assuming there's some way to disable Amp on Google as well for my account, but I haven't gone any further in researching this.

Technetium 5 years ago |

I like to use Hermit[1] to browse sites that have a dedicated app for viewing (Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter are of note). It's marketed as a "Light app browser". and lets you add your own with relative ease. Unfortunately they do not have an iOS version[2] yet -- but the Android experience is quite decent.

[1] https://hermit.chimbori.com/ [2] https://hermit.chimbori.com/early-access

IgorPartola 5 years ago |

If you register an account you can go to settings and turn off that prompting. Definitely not ideal and I don’t even understand why they have an app to begin with but this is what I did.

PaulHoule 5 years ago |

It's a problem with many businesses and web sites (e.g. banks). That's why we have "U+1F4A9 PILE OF POO".

A lot of it is that they want to violate your privacy, particularly track where your body is. There are some legit uses: McDonald's can put your burger on the grill when you approach the 'restaurant', if you want to snipe an Uber driver you'll need to have somebody be bait for the trap unless you can figure out how to spoof your location...

shahbaby 5 years ago |

Resisting the urge to mindlessly browse reddit has done wonders for my productivity and peace of mind.

It's like removing a giant time sink that was not adding any value to my life.

vmurthy 5 years ago |

Edit : user https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jakevoytko has a much more concise view of the same. I swear I didn't steal this from him :)

I can speculate a bit but let's look at the product from a VC POV. The key metric for all I know they are tracking is "engagement - a.k.a amount of time spent on site which is a proxy for number of ads viewed/clicked etc". This has a few implications :

1. A mobile site (e.g. on mobile Safari) can't entice a user to view articles when Reddit wants them to. In other words, "I" open reddit when "I" want to.

2. I haven't accessed mobile site in a while but (hopefully) it won't have infinite scrolling which means I tire quickly of clicking "Next" and leave the site. An app removes this possibility

3. As alluded in #1, an app can have all sorts of notifications which entice me to access reddit a lot more and can possibly track a lot more than a browser will allow. This is valuable for Reddit in terms of "targeting ads" and hopefully makes the mobile users more valuable than us plebes.

Thank you reddit for pushing the app so much. I hate it and will not install it.

mcv 5 years ago |

Reddit is hardly the only one. Way too many sites that work perfectly fine on a mobile browser (or could have worked perfectly fine there hadn't they crippled the experience) keep bugging me to install apps I don't need.

I really don't want to have to install a separate app for every website that I visit. These sites should just cut it out. You can ask me once, or maybe once a year or something, but don't keep bugging me every day.

kaushikt 5 years ago |

User retention on mobile is much higher as compared to websites. Now, people are more attention deficit. Everyone I know has a weird habit of opening their phone and checking their "FEED" (could be reddit, could be fb or insta even). All this on mobile.

Ads is a good reason too. In my past workspace, we spent a crazy amount of money on facebook ads and got 80% of traffic from their mobile app.

Reddit is trying to follow the same too.

prepend 5 years ago | |

Is user retention really higher on mobile? Or is it that web users can’t be tracked so look like they drop off and come back.

I think people make too many definitive statements and bad assumptions based on what they can measure. Leaving off understanding gaps where data doesn’t exist or never will.

ninth_ant 5 years ago | | |

Measuring retention is going to be mainly useful for logged-in accounts. And that is is something that could be trivially measured and compared between platforms.

My guess based on experience in this area in other companies is that app users will report a better experience, stay much longer, and return more often.

Macha 5 years ago | | |

Mobile gives you way more options (notifications, widgets) to drag users back in which have a nonzero success rate.

Daedren 5 years ago |

I'd wager it's because the average user only blocks ads in the browser.

ant6n 5 years ago |

Related, why had the reading experience on everywhere become so useless: only the first 6 posts or so are loaded and you constantly need to wait to load more posts. It’s an annoyingly sluggish experience - even with their anti-user pattern of hiding 90% if each conversation by default, they could at least preload the data and show it instantly.

crispyporkbites 5 years ago |

No one has actually answered this - the short answer is that mobile users who use the app have a higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) that mobile users who do not use the app.

The difference is high enough that converting one user will more than cover the CLV losses of all the other users who are driven away by the popup.

The reddit marketing team will be trying to maximise CLV and A/B testing tonnes of different ways to do this.

For reddit CLV is based on ads and premium subscriptions/reddit gold, and these figures for mobile app users will be based on a number of factors including data mining, ability to send push notifications to device, control over the ad experience, avoidance of ad blockers, likelihood of returning to reddit, posting frequency etc. Using the website, especially on mobile, will make a lot of those metrics fall off a cliff when looking at CLV, and I wouldn't be surprised if an app user has a 20x or 30x CLV than a mobile web user.

cmorgan8506 5 years ago |

The following is mostly speculation. I don't really know the inner workings of the Reddit business model.

Businesses that rely on advertising revenue will always seek optimal channels for peoples attention. The mobile app gives them two very import things:

1. Push notifications. Push notifications give companies the ability to advertise to you without you even visiting their website. Also, it allows them to piggyback on the Pavlovian response that has been conditioned in your brain by smart phone companies. Essentially this allows them to "mainline" their product into your brain. Just woke up? McDonalds breakfast PN. End of a long day of work? PN from reddit to remind you to binge their content for your entire evening.

2. People can't run adblock on mobile applications. Even if that only accounts for 10% of it's users, it's still a huge increase in ad revenue.

phoe-krk 5 years ago |

I do not browse Reddit using the web browser; I use the free Slide client, available on F-Droid.

[0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.ccrama.redditslide/

asaramis 5 years ago |

This has been the most infuriating thing, and as someone who works in media - can trace it directly back to the hire of the former Time Inc COO: https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/can-she-make-brands...

They turned Time Inc into a spammy content factory - did huge deals with Taboola/Outbrain, along with creating stuff like a short FB video show about brunch foods. Came over to Reddit and keeps spouting off these huge proclamations about billions of users. They came over right after the huge raise so it's clear that the clear mandate is to commercialize at every possibly touchpoint.

rognjen 5 years ago |

I've noticed this as well. It has gone on for a significant time now. That leads me to believe that they have data that says that it's more profitable to alienate users that hate it rather then remove it. I'd be very interested in seeing that data.

As part of this they have also other things that they do that I think are downright dishonest, for example, when you land on a subreddit and are asked to log in or use the app, the top bar logo link no longer leads to homepage but to /register. For me that's why shady and made me immediately leave the site but it's still there which suggests that it works on a significant part of the userbase. Again, I'd really be interested in seeing their data.

morrbo 5 years ago |

They recently redesigned their mobile site as well and added some major flaws (you can't even see the user who submitted it on /hot unless it is promoted, switching the "vote" and "share" buttons etc.). Its death by a thousand cuts tbh.

miiiiiike 5 years ago |

I wish it was just prompts. Some days I can't even access Reddit through my phone.

Randomly locking subreddits for mobile users saying: "Sorry mobile browser user, but, /r/xyz is only available on your device through the mobile app." is just infuriating.

TheRealDunkirk 5 years ago |

I desperately wish I could still use the old Google feature to block certain sites from appearing in results. Reddit threads frequently get into the top 5 of my searches on gaming or programming questions, and clicking through gives me the question, and the first line of the answer, and then I have to deal with all the garbage the site now stuffs down your throat. To top it off, Reddit NEVER has usable answers to what I want to know. 99% of the time, that first answer is something unrelated, and that's the extent of the thread. The bottom line is that they're royally screwing up search results, and I often add `-reddit -site:reddit.com` to my searches now.

wuliwong 5 years ago |

It is kind of amusing that they are so aggressively pushing their mobile apps when prior to april 2016, they didn't even have official mobile apps. Probably shows the differences in strategies before and after the acquisition. For me, when I am clicking on browser search results that bring me to reddit, I almost never want to switch to the mobile app. It breaks my flow. If i do not find what I am looking for in the reddit post, I need to switch apps back to the browser app instead of just tapping the browser back button.

Tangential annoyance: the youtube app attempting to have me sign up for some premium service _every time_ i use the app is frustrating.

weinzierl 5 years ago |

It's bad, but not as bad as Grammarly which outright refuses to serve me their otherwise perfectly working website on mobile in order to force me to use their spying keyboard. To add insult to injury I'm a paying customer already.

mumblemumble 5 years ago |

To everything others have said, I'll add this:

It's probably not that they "care so much", it's that they simply don't care. The random people who occasionally navigate to a Reddit thread from a web search, but otherwise don't engage with Reddit in any consistent way, are basically just white noise to them. It's a demographic that represents such as small and unreliable source of revenue that it's just not worth thinking much about from a business perspective.

One certainly wouldn't want to risk reducing the conversion rate among people whose attention is easier to capture, just to mildly appease the never-downloaders.

shusson 5 years ago |

Recently I noticed that reddit will hide posts on a mobile browser and try and force you to use the app. e.g `/r/AusFinance`. You can get around it by going directly to `/r/AusFinance/new`. Terrible experience.

mattwad 5 years ago |

The annoying part for me is I do use an app, and I'd love to open it. But I don't use Reddit's app, so the popup is worthless. If they had a way for me to pick the app to use, I'd happily open the redirects!

zelly 5 years ago |

Most mobile websites are intentionally gimped because native apps can target ads better.

But Reddit is one of the worst. I wouldn't ever visit the site if it didn't rank so high on search results. I've noticed the frontend has gotten worse and worse every time I look at it. Ever since they changed to a React type frontend, at least 5% of the time the comments won't even load. It just doesn't work. Reddit really is a cautionary tale of attacking your users. I expect it to follow in Mozilla's footsteps as another company that makes no money but pretends it's a unicorn.

sportsaw 5 years ago |

I admit that I like Reddit for product or local-area research.

But whenever I find myself filling my time by scrolling through popular subs, I end up feeling like shit. They're teeming with misanthropes and the low-IQ'd. For example "Ask Reddit: What's one thing you wish guys knew?" or whatever. Or r/WatchPeopleDieInside (you mean watch someone have a disappointed look on their face... why is this entertaining?).

Reddit is like any popular entertainment (music, film, Nascar...), with a typical bell curve of un-intellectual stimulation.

mcphage 5 years ago | |

> Reddit is like any popular entertainment (music, film, Nascar...), with a typical bell curve of un-intellectual stimulation.

There are a lot of good subs, but the big ones ain't it.

sizzle 5 years ago |

Cause then they get deeper access to mobile data collection that they can monetize beyond the web browser. I consider this a dark pattern, shame on you for obfuscating your true intentions Reddit.

mixmastamyk 5 years ago |

Because the 'suits' decided you'll be (nearly) forced to use it, like it or not, to improve their KPIs... read quarterly bonus.

Abandon the site and perhaps they'll learn it was a bad idea.

teekert 5 years ago |

Because getting ublock origin working in the app is more difficult? Also: Why does it always show me "Continue in browser" with a Chrome icon even though I'm on FireFox mobile?

BenjiWiebe 5 years ago | |

Didn't they recently change it so that you do see a Firefox logo when on Firefox?

teekert 5 years ago | | |

I did see that a couple of times, but not anymore.

noisy_boy 5 years ago |

My second most useful decision to leave social media was to stop using Reddit (except browsing r/<programming_language> groups occasionally). No points for guessing the first one.

fierarul 5 years ago |

Because a mobile user tracked with native ad frameworks brings in much more money than a mobile user tracked via the web browser.

Reddit deserves their Digg moment so much. I shall cherish the day it arrives.

spamizbad 5 years ago |

Because there's some product manager somewhere with a line on a spreadsheet called "Mobile App Engagement" and their career status depends on that number going up.

dcwca 5 years ago | |

Which is a good metaphor for the success of Reddit as a company.

adrianmonk 5 years ago |

Simplest possible explanation: by writing this post, you've put more thought into it than they have.

Perhaps someone wanted to increase app install numbers (and/or user engagement), this sounded like it would work, and they did it. Simple as that. They did not ponder whether it might have negative effects. They just did it and moved on to something else.

Of course I have no concrete evidence of this, but with the state of product management in our industry, I can't dismiss the possibility.

kumarvvr 5 years ago |

Data collection. More data, more targeted the ads, more income.

I guess at some level, their data costs too go down with an app, when compared to a site.

Also, with constant notifications, apps have a better chance to become addictive. At some point, someone saw data of the time spent by users on their site, to that on app and thought, wow !

It allows for better gamification and better avenues for making users buy awards for posts.

I have seen more 'gold' posts than ever after the app became popular.

xvilka 5 years ago |

The desktop site version also became unimaginably slow. I didn't even know it's possible to make it so for something simple like the message board.

luxuryballs 5 years ago |

It’s less obtrusive if you browse via: old.reddit.com and the much superior legacy interface allows you to see more content with a much faster load time :)

ta1234567890 5 years ago |

Anecdata: It also completely stopped working on my iPhone 6 about 2 weeks ago. The site will only load the header and logo, then stay stuck as if it was loading forever. Same thing happens on safari and chrome, nothing happened after clearing all browser data. Currently going to old.reddit.com, but the mobile experience with that is pretty bad. I guess it's a good thing, as I'm using it a lot less now.

snwfog 5 years ago |

I recently launched an alternative Reddit client, because like you, I am also very annoyed by this behavior [1].

Here is the link if you want to check it out: https://rdddeck.com

[1] https://www.producthunt.com/posts/deck-for-reddit#comment-11...

Pick-A-Hill2019 5 years ago |

Greater analytics and no ad-blocking. I took a quick look at the Android app permisions

Identity: add or remove accounts; find accounts on the device

Contacts: find accounts on the device

Other: use accounts on the device; toggle sync on and off; run at startup; read Google service configuration; draw over other apps

(I deleted a lot of stuff but left the things that Reddit might find more useful). Compare that to the information about the user Reddit would have via a web login.

brnt 5 years ago |

Apps means it's easier to hook up privacy-violating analytics that can both do a lot more than web-analytics and is harder to block for the user.

zeveb 5 years ago |

And why is Reddit so obsessed with its redesign? I cannot think that more than single-digit percentages prefer the slow, ugly, comment-hiding redesign over the fast, attractive, useful old design.

Just write the redesign off as a failed experiment and build a new design off of the old one. Seriously, even at Reddit what proportion of employees and developers use the new design when given the option?

JulianWasTaken 5 years ago |

This doesn't answer the question, but with Firefox on Android + uBlock, just block the element from being displayed with the element zapper.

dec0dedab0de 5 years ago |

The real question is why does everyone use bootstrap, when twitter is also constantly saying the app works better on mobile than the webpage.

jaypeg25 5 years ago |

Are you on iOS?

I was on Android until a few months ago. If I was sent a Reddit link it would open in the Reddit app I liked, no need to ever even look at the mobile site. I was shocked that that seemingly basic feature ISN'T available on iOS. Instead my options are view the Reddit link in browser or on the official Reddit app.

Most of the time I just choose not to click the link because of that.

stjohnswarts 5 years ago |

Remember with commercial stuff: if you're not paying for it you are paying for it some other way. In this case ads and personal information. Currently you are circumventing info they want from you to make you more valuable to their customers. You are not their customer unless you get reddit premium. Then I suspect it will still bug you to download the app

ronyfadel 5 years ago |

Ads and tracking (i.e. $$$) On Desktop, uBlock Origin blocks 13 trackers on the reddit.com frontpage. Use Reddit in incognito mode on mobile, and you'll see how many ads there are. With more users blocking ads and content trackers on mobile, Reddit would rather monetize you (the user) in their app where you don't typically block trackers/ads.

bdefore 5 years ago |

The Reddit Enhancement Suite extension/plugin dramatically improves the desktop experience: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-enhancement...

perceptronas 5 years ago |

My guess: tracking. On web you are limited how much you can track. On apps you are free to exploit your users as much as you want.

stevepike 5 years ago |

The most infuriating part of this is that they haven’t implemented a functional deep linking system. I mostly come across Reddit on my phone from google, and would happily use the app to read whatever page I’m trying to get to, but the “open in app” button opens the App Store (even with the app installed). This is on iOS, maybe android is better.

solumos 5 years ago | |

Nope, Android sucks too - it either does the same thing (links to Google store), or deep-links to an incorrect page.

pi-victor 5 years ago |

not sure if i'm the only one, but for me, on the latest macbook pro 16' top spec, the browser stops responding once i scroll enough. it's un-fucking-usable. if i click on a video after browsing for a while it's as slow as if i'm browsing from my toaster. the rest of the tabs work fine.

i hate the UI/UX for reddit, it's atrocious.

JackFr 5 years ago |

Every time it comes up, I am reminded that I delted the Reddit app and why. It was a tremendous time suck, with basically zero return on my time invested. (As opposed to HN of course which is an everlasting fount of wisdom...)

benn_88 5 years ago |

I finally gave in and just installed the damn Reddit app. And now it sends me constant push notifications. I thought I found an obscure way to turn them off but now they're back sp I think I'll just do without Reddit.

comprev 5 years ago |

The amount of analytics data that can be pulled from mobile is insane. They want to track everything you do. It's also less bandwidth as API calls can just pull the necessary data to hydrate the screen.

cloudking 5 years ago |

Everytime I use Reddit on Chrome mobile, eventually the videos and gifs will stop playing. I have to restart Chrome to make it work again. Does anyone else run into this problem and know how to fix it?

zachrip 5 years ago |

Imgur recently got the _exact_ same ui doing the _exact_ same stupid shit.

pgcj_poster 5 years ago |

There's a part of me that's looking forward to the day that Reddit gets rid of old.reddit.com, i.reddit.com, and third-party app support, because then it will be easy for me quit Reddit.

rajup 5 years ago |

Reddit is still better than some other websites (Yelp being the biggest perpetrator), that open up the Play store link for their app when you click on links. Annoying and rude.

sidcool 5 years ago |

I even went on a twitter rant, didn't help. I left Reddit.

Justsignedup 5 years ago |

All the business reasons:

- on desktop adblockers are prevelant. On mobile not.

- on desktop you can't send push notifications thus keeping engagement up.

- Getting into the habit of using mobile apps gets engagement up.

tjpnz 5 years ago |

What's sad is that the mobile app is perfectly usable and it's obvious that a lot of thought and care has gone into it. I feel bad for the people maintaining it.

dade_ 5 years ago | |

I tried the app, but it doesn’t work for me at all. As a platform, Reddit is very flexible and can be used in many different ways. Their app has been designed for (or to create) social media crack babies that can’t stop swiping and infinite feed of SMC (Social Media Crack). It isn’t designed to be useful to users, so I assume it is designed to improve engagement metrics with an Instagram effect.

In my simple case, I follow specific subreddits, but I check other ones from time to time. The web browser is much easier to work with URLs on my phone. I can go to specific reddit’s very easily by just typing in the URL on my phone browser. Even better, there is still old.reddit.com which is much faster and less glitchy (media not loading, complicated UI frames appearing resulting in unexpected scrolling/zooming issues) than their new website for tablet and desktop usage. Further, the new site constantly loses my place and resets to the beginning of the subreddit losing my place.

The constant ads for the mobile app, and the automatic switching back to the new app on browsers are a massive hurdle, so I do seek out alternatives. However, there are some great communities and information on Reddit, so I will keep using it until critical mass moves on.

tmikaeld 5 years ago | |

While the UI is fine, I'm concerned about optimization and loading.

Is it really required to keep ALL previous scroll history in memory and on-screen?

If they only showed what you're currently scrolling, it wouldn't be the most battery sucking app on my phones.

csense 5 years ago |

They care so much because they want to be able to track your location and listen to your microphone for who-knows-what level of frightening analytics and ad targeting.

quijoteuniv 5 years ago |

Yeah, started avoiding reddit links just because of that and also because you usually land somewhere else than what you where after and have to scroll. Not interested

InsomniacL 5 years ago |

Reddit believe the engagement they get from the app and aggressively advertising it outweighs the engagement lost from users who prefer to disengage than install it.

burgerrito 5 years ago |

Life Pro Tips:

You can use their classic mobile site by going to i.reddit.com

zbjornson 5 years ago |

Tip: You can turn that off!

Hamburger menu > settings > ask to open app

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5 years ago |

Really Reddit isn't doing anything that isn't already a trend on the rest of the web anyway. What you should be asking is why the web sucks so much.

onyva 5 years ago |

Install lockdown on iOS. It’ll block ads anywhere i assume. It’s such an hostile approach, like medium, I will never install their app or open an account.

Angostura 5 years ago |

Because 3rd Party apps don;t tend to show the ads, so they really want you to get used to the official app and not be tempted away, would be my guess.

fareesh 5 years ago |

Bacon reader is a pretty good no-frills client app

gwbas1c 5 years ago |

Makes me wish we could have more browser plugins on mobile. On my desktop browser I just use adblock to block annoying popup elements.

Fricken 5 years ago |

For 5 or 6 years maybe I've been using the reddit is fun app, because I like the UI and it doesn't pull any dirty tricks.

throawayobvsly 5 years ago |

Here's why I think this is actually good.

I used to be regular surfer of reddit's nsfw subreddit and also lurked around randnsfw for quite a bit of time.

The simple idea that being able to open incognito and browse indulge in porn and erase all (I mean most, uhh ahem) traces of your browsing activity is quite soul destroying in my opinion.

The upside of this limitation even though it is extremely annoying is it stops (to an extent) this mindless indulgence.

It actually made me be less addicted to reddit and the dark and wild usage pattern.

avasthe 5 years ago |

Use i.reddit.com or use a lightweight open source client like redreader or slide (for android, sure there is something for iOS)

crsv 5 years ago |

So they can track you (the product) more effectively. You are worth more money when exposing data accessible to native mobile.

nikk1 5 years ago |

I still use the "redditisfun" third-party app on mobile. It hasn't changed in the years that I've used it.

fredzel 5 years ago | |

It has changed its name, now it's "rif is fun"

alkonaut 5 years ago |

For Reddit, just as with Twitter and several others, I’d recommend using a third party client.

Apollo is an excellent Reddit client for iOS.

SergeAx 5 years ago |

Ads (you can't block them in app) and notifications (you can block them, but not that easy, especially on Android).

bostonpete 5 years ago | |

Why isn't it easy on Android? If you long press on any notification it gives you the option to turn off all notifications from that app...

hutzlibu 5 years ago | | |

But most users do not know that.

dcwca 5 years ago |

Because the mobile application is a much better, richer and faster experience for daily active users. For a casual user who is following a link from a google search, perhaps the web version is better. Reddit would like to convert users from the latter group to the former, because stickiness on their platform is what drives revenue. It's not a public service that owes you free information at ease, it's a business.

tones411 5 years ago |

Turn off the prompt. Tap the menu at the top right of Reddit, go to Settings, and uncheck Ask To Open In App.

spcebar 5 years ago |

I wonder if these web design trends are more or less annoying than the Flash banner ads/MSIE popup ads.

bromuro 5 years ago |

I am pretty sure i read once “this community can be visited only on mobile app”. I thought it was a joke?

weaksauce 5 years ago |

i use the apollo app on ios... it's quite fantastic and a much faster and better user experience. can't attest to the official reddit app though.

other than that the reddit app wants you to use it because there is no ad blocker and they can keep pulling you back in with push notifications.

MaggieL 5 years ago |

The same reason Facebook and Linkedin do the same thing. They get more access to your personal data.

heavyset_go 5 years ago |

It drives up their mobile metrics, and they can track you better and show you more ads via the app.

riazrizvi 5 years ago |

https://old.reddit.com

It’s hassle free.

TiccyRobby 5 years ago |

I use Slide from fdroid. It really has all the features I would want and is very customizable.

ffggvv 5 years ago |

one answer i haven’t seen mentioned is because mobile web is another platform they have to maintain. and it requires a lot of dev work to make sure every new feature works there instead of simply saying it’s unsupported and pushing people to the app

msoad 5 years ago |

Media consumption is all about retention. Websites are not good for retention. Apps are super efficient. I finally gave up and installed the iOS app. Even my conscious self couldn't resist the icon on my home screen and I visit the app almost every day.

bromuro 5 years ago | |

Trying to avoid these psychological tricks became a constant in my experience with my iPhone. Notifications were just the begin for the retention sociologists. Now Is like... much more subtle and well thought, as the modern stupid shows in television.

(I am addicted to a game from apple app store that is slowly becoming a gambling game. I realized how well thought is this kind of brainwashing and i feel cheated)

waltbosz 5 years ago |

I have a theory that states "monetization ruins everything"

phtevus 5 years ago |

It's becoming infuriating as the mobile experience is god-awful.

golergka 5 years ago |

Same reason why Google always releases new projects and then quietly closes then a couple of years later: politics.

Some product manager at Reddit has his perfomance measured by app adoption, and not by the reputation of the company and future of it's service.

aarkay 5 years ago |

The reasons company do end up with experiences like this is because they optimize for what they can measure and unfortunately user discontent with such experiences is often delayed or hard to measure.

Large companies which have a diverse user base in the hundreds of millions make decisions based on how a particular change affects the entire user population. The larger their user population, the more diverse their user base is and the harder it gets to cater to the needs of each type of user. The folks commenting here are a vocal minority, an important one given many people here are probably early adopters and also have the skills needed to build a Reddit competitor, but it's hard to see the reactions of this minority on a dashboard. A problem worth solving IMO but non trivial.

Typically initiatives like this come from a team within the company who's objective is to improve a key metric, in this case let's say user engagement. Some individual in the team probably spotted the trend that users on the app are more engaged than users on mobile web browsers. They then launched an experiment to test getting users over to the mobile app. Many users who end up on reddit via SEO probably don't know that reddit has an app and on seeing this end up downloading the app which makes them more engaged with reddit. Overall on the dashboard this shows up as a win where user engagement in the enabled group is up compared to the control and given that they give users an option to continue using the web app there is not a significant user drop. At this point, a decision needs to be made on whether to ship this change or not to ship. Folks making this decision do understand that it might be annoying to some people but the data in this case overwhelmingly supports a ship decision. They talk about it, mention their reservations, but eventually make a decision given the data and don't think about it anymore. They also don't have to feel the pain as most employees have the reddit app installed and don't see this again and again.

The key thing to know here is that there are lots of incentives in the company to make this decision a ship decision vs a no-ship decision - the data, the success of the team, the success of the individual who pioneered this change but there is not enough evidence or visible push from users to not make this change. Let's say there are some customer reports for this but unless they reach a very high volume no one is going to notice it.

Posts and discussions like this are actually a great way to get your word known to companies. This will probably stir a conversation in the team that made this change and hopefully bring out some change in the experience. Don't expect it to go away but maybe they will remember your preference of not wanting to use the app.

RocketSyntax 5 years ago |

Especially when you can redirect to apps or open apps with links

dgellow 5 years ago |

In cas you want to remove the popup:

1. Go to the website on mobile

2. go to Settings

3. Uncheck “ask to open in app”

HeavyStorm 5 years ago |

I do like the app, but the prompts are completely abnoxious.

samstave 5 years ago |

I only exclusively use old.reddit.com in browser on mobile.

SeanBean62 5 years ago |

I’m done with Reddit- please somehow keep this thing going

satisfaction 5 years ago |

I still use old.reddit.com. new reddit is sooooooooo slow

ptman 5 years ago |

Lemmy is an interesting federated alternative to reddit.

frozenlettuce 5 years ago |

The app interface is optimized to serve ads, not content

ykevinator 5 years ago |

I think it's because they want push notifications

arkanciscan 5 years ago |

Because we live in the worst possible timeline

knob 5 years ago |

Try this: old.reddit.com/r/$foo

A little bit cleaner.

honksillet 5 years ago |

If you must use Reddit, use Alien Blue.

otabdeveloper4 5 years ago |

To collect your data and show you ads.

WMCRUN 5 years ago |

While we’re at it, have you met Yelp?

mottiden 5 years ago |

To sell you more targeted ads, sadly

negina 5 years ago |

To get your data through the app.

michelb 5 years ago |

Harder to block ads in the app.

1024core 5 years ago |

Reddit is busy building a Trumpian wall around itself. You can't export images easily; you can't get a link to shareable videos. You can't browse on a browser on a mobile device, they just simply won't let you.

On the content side: moderators are becoming more and more authoritarian: they hand out bans if you don't toe "their" line. Diversity of opinion is frowned upon.

It's a dumpster fire.

avipars 5 years ago |

Because the 3rd party clients have their own ads... now reddit wants to get more income and control over their mobile counterparts

api 5 years ago |

To spy on you. Why else?

hankchinaski 5 years ago |

some shit PM must have thought that was a good thing to add

croh 5 years ago |

Same with quora !

FirstLvR 5 years ago |

even oldreddit is better than reddit itself

aj7 5 years ago |

Reddit:

1. Amateur porn aggregators. 2. Financial noobs with Robinhood accounts.

Fight me.

haunter 5 years ago | |

HN: holier than thou rich white men on high horse

aj7 5 years ago | | |

You’re not wrong.

caevv 5 years ago |

what’s the issue with using their app?

naringas 5 years ago |

tiktok is better for memes anyways

throwawaysea 5 years ago |

It has gotten really obnoxious, especially if you aren’t signed in. Apart from the multiple pop ups that require dismissal on each page load, there are also dialogs that can’t be dismissed or bypassed on content marked sensitive/NSFW that only let you see the post if you use the app. With the hostile design choices and ever more draconian censorship, I’m hoping one of these Reddit alternatives like Ruqqus gain enough traction to recreate the old days of Digg/Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/...

mrlala 5 years ago |

I don't see anyone else mentioning this in the thread- I have used a mobile app called "rif is fun" (it used to be called 'Reddit Is Fun' before reddit forced the change).

I have used this app for like 7 years, it is fast, simple, and keeps the old style format. If you want to use reddit but don't want to use the garbage that their interface has become, check it out.

coronadisaster 5 years ago |

Another thing about reddit is that it is one of the only site that reloads everything when I hit the back button instead of using the cache (I'm using Firefox). Do they do this to be able to claim that they get more users then they are actually getting? It's been like this for years, not sure when it started.

gruez 5 years ago | |

It's probably a consequence of them using the history api + lazy programming, rather than anything nefarious.

t0mmyb0y 5 years ago |

Reddit is a PoS platform owned by a company most of us revile.

rorykoehler 5 years ago |

Ads

blickentwapft 5 years ago | |

Explained in three sad letters.

gsich 5 years ago |

It's called asshole design.

gr2zr4 5 years ago |

“We know that Redditors are so privacy-conscious,” says Victoria Taylor, director of Communications at Reddit, referring to the site’s community of registered users. So privacy-conscious, indeed. A number of sub-Reddits, which are user-made discussion and link-sharing forums, are devoted to the practice of online privacy tactics, education, and information. A noble Redditor respects “Reddiquette,” refusing to reveal the personal information of a fellow Redditor.

https://geomarketing.com/reddits-safe-play-in-the-game-of-ge...