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Reddit experimenting with blocking mobile browsers
(old.reddit.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Technology
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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?"
It's so completely wild and backwards. Imagine your not a reddit user, but a search leads you to a reddit link, and you're on your phone. You see all this stuff about downloading the app instead, and you're just going to bail, never reading the post. If there was no friction, they may have converted a new user.
They act like everyone already uses reddit and the users are so addicted they'll put up with anything.
Mean there were times when I was logged out of Reddit and was trying looking up something on mobile and the constant badgering to install the app just had me tell it to flip off and I looked elsewhere instead. Lot of people tend to do things based on how convenient it is for them and if they go ahead with this, sure maybe some will download the app but a lot of other people will just get fed up and stop, particularly if they were using the browser version so they didn't have to deal with the app in the first place.
It's funny because this is a huge issue with Pinterest and googling images, so many people automatically add -pinterest to their search terms so it's completely blocked from the search results. Wonder if someday that'll be reddit too.
It seems like a lot of users are. I deleted my Reddit account (for the whatever good that does) but have gone back to peek a few times - very few people seem to care. The black out, the app shenanigans, the power-mad mods; it’s just a minor inconvenience. API, IPO, VC, what’s that? Just gimme my crude humor and canned outrage!!
Most active users though are lurking voters only, or not logged in at all, and don't comment/post. When they leave, it won't be as obvious. And the more contributing users leave, the more the only ones left and talking will be the ones who don't care.
I think a lot of people are riding the sinking ship all the way down and planning to bail on the 30th, when the apps are actually banned, too. Probably enjoying the drama of it and not realizing they could be enjoying the drama of it from, like, over here on dry land instead.
But yeah. There'll be people who put up with it for now, or who join after and missed the whole controversy, or who straight up don't care at all.
I think there'll be these initial waves of people who can see the writing on the wall leaving, then after that there'll be a steady trickle of people abandoning ship over time, with spikes whenever the next outrageous thing happens, and the whole thing will collapse gradually, perhaps over years.
Although, people have been saying that since Ellen Pao and Voat... 😅
I think you're right to a point, but also, the whole fragmented fediverse thing is going to have to... at least be simplified if the "lurking voter" mainstream are going to end up here.
Me (enthusiastically):
"It's federated, so you have to choose an instance! They're all different, but they can all talk to each other! Some of them have different rules. Oh, and they can all have their own 'videos' community, so you have to decide which ones you want to follow. Also some of the instances are kbin and some are Lemmy, but most likely the website you log into won't be called either of those things. And if you don't curate your own frontpage (which doesn't even show your subs by default) you'll just see everything at once!"
Average Internet user (starting a new Facebook account because they forgot their password):
"reddit dot com has funny gifs on it"
Yeah. There are a ridiculous amount of users that just use the official app and don’t really care about 3PAs or the whole API situation.
It’s a shame. I remember the old Reddit before all the redesign and other crap they added.
Quora, basically.
I don't think I've ever successfully read one of those, because Google brings me to the site and then it demands I log in. They even go so far as to blur all the content. It's really really stupid.
To be honest, this may actually be true for a significant portion of the userbase.
I would have thought so of myself, but yet, here we are
These federated let me things really really remind me of the way Reddit used to be about a decade ago. And frankly, now that I found the Jerboa app, I really don't miss Reddit at all.
I just wanted to find a place where I could scroll around and chat with other nerds. And that's basically what Lemmy is.
They’re going to do the Instagram thing where you can view a teaser but then it forces you to the app.
This is why I never got into instagram. So often I just couldn't view the image. I'm like, imgur is better than this.