1) Most Facebook users use the app, not the website, which Alexa doesn't track (Which is also why Facebook doesn't fear commonly used ad blockers).
2) Alexa uses a number of metrics to rank sites, including pages visited. Reddit users load many more individual pages than FB users.
In reality, Reddit is nowhere near close to the traffic and engagement leviathan that is Facebook.
I still agree that Facebook is larger though.
1) Long sessions are more suitable on a laptop/desktop than on a smartphone (the average session time is ~15mn).
2) There is still a nerdy userbase (mostly early users) who prefer to use the website with all the features.
3) The app is relatively recent (April 2016 vs 2012 for Facebook).
4) The official app is not really good IMO (e.g. scrolling is laggy and the UI could be better).
Been using it since release and I don't use the Reddit website directly now except to give gold.
It has a nice UI and a lot of neat features.
[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.laurenceda...
#2 could be true, but it might not be.
Regarding the apps, I paid for BaconReader on Android over 6 years ago and still use it. It works fine for me. I have no desire to switch to the official app.
Official app on iOS used to be a third party app called Alien Blue. Reddit basically purchased it, re-branded it as official, and viola. On iOS it had tons of usage prior to that. Incidentally after the rebranding is when I stopped using it and moved to Apollo.
both of those thing converged into reddit.
Source?
And before you suggest that those users might still be using it on desktop more than on mobile:
"Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 91% of advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2018, up from approximately 85% of advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2017." - https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
Judging by how poorly maintained and how rarely updated the mobile site is, I think it's safe to assume that the vast majority of people are using the native apps, not the mobile site. Major features like the marketplace and video tabs are nowhere to be seen on the mobile site, for example. If the mobile sites were getting the bulk of users, Facebook would surely prioritize it.
As for facebook's priorities - they could surely also be neglecting the mobile site with the aim of getting people to install and use their app. Again, I don't know if this is the case, but it's certainly plausible.
I just noticed this FB blog post: https://developers.facebook.com/ads/blog/post/2018/05/09/rel.... The chart at the top shows app vs. web use of mobile devices, not just for FB but overall. As I expected, mobile web is significantly smaller than native apps, from a time-spent standpoint.