Comment by thaumaturgy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thaumaturgy | Hacker News Reader

Reddit has been a/b testing behavior like this for months. Multiple different popups with variations on "view this in the app"; in some cases the popup is on every single page load, sometimes only once. They started blurring images on select subreddits with a message that you could only view the sub in their app.

Okay, I know they're chasing one of two things here: a higher level of revenue from the advertising they can embed in the app, or some app-download metric that can be converted somehow somewhere to more money.

But for users like me, they have a couple of significant problems. First, that if I were at all motivated to use their stupid app in the first place, I would've already done, which means that these attempts to force the issue mean they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, and ohwow that looks bad.

And two, I don't trust them. There is absolutely no way I am ever going to give them that level of access to my device just so I can browse their website. And every step of their behavior here only reinforces my decision. They aren't tempting me into using their app with irresistible new features that really can't be provided by a regular ol' mobile website. Instead, they're showing me just what kind of behavior I should expect from their app by playing these dirty little games.

On the plus side, all this has caused my Reddit time to fall off a cliff and I'm cruising through books at double last year's rate now.

I worked for a company that did something similar (and is mentioned elsewhere in these threads). We a/b tested it, and just from the metrics, getting someone to download the app was so valuable from a stickiness perspective that it _looked_ like it was worth the negative effects.

You're right though, from a user trust perspective it's pretty horrendous. Regardless of whether that was measurable or not, there are things that are just so infuriating to users that you shouldn't do them. I'd argue the cost in terms of internal morale and employees' trust that we're doing the right thing for our users, and their sense of pride in their work, way more than offset any metrics gains.

I suspect "stickiness" is an important part of the equation for Reddit as well. With an app they can send notifications, and thereby program the habits of their users.

I'm still quite a fairly active user on reddit going on a decade now. If they started implementing this on a wide scale then I'd like to think I'd stop using it completely. I've gone on a few hiatus during some of the controversies regarding the degradation of the communities and values that they original founders represented, think like 2014 during that debacle with the office move, or the "good cop, bad cop" that was taking place with Pao and her restrictions on what some communities viewed as free speech. As more corporate interests and perhaps even governments take notice of reddit's community impact, I'm sure that more restrictions will be implemented and content watered down until it's hardly any different than facebook. At that point I will hopefully have found and fully moved on to a better place.

I am mostly dropping reddit as well. 90% of the time spent there was in the public transport. It was basically 5 min of reddit, 5 min reading news, 5 min of email checking etc. Dropping reddit from my mix is trivial.

Yup. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780092

https://old.reddit.com/r/mobileweb/comments/e7yivg/join_redd...

With the app you are basically deanonimized (e.g. if you use the Facebook app on that phone they can link your accounts), so they can either sell more targeted and valuable ads, or straight up sell your data.

But I'm already logged in...

Adding to that, I can't run ad blocker as easily on the App.

Btw, I use RedReader or Slide for browsing reddit on mobile. Especially RedReader is fast, and looks simple in AMOLED black theme. Both are open source, though they both miss few features.

> Okay, I know they're chasing one of two things here: a higher level of revenue from the advertising they can embed in the app, or some app-download metric that can be converted somehow somewhere to more money.

Surveillance surplus.

I've started using third party apps to access Reddit.

But you still need to install an app. Some people do not want to install apps to their mobile devices. And they do not want to register to get read only access. They just want to browse the content.

I'm convinced they're going to pull a Twitter and privatize their APIs, disabling third party apps.

Which would be a shame, given the official Reddit app is a pile of shit

They continually promise they won't.

I don't trust them on this remotely either, but given the official app is hot garbage then that would mean a signifcant net reduction of time on the service from me, just like it did on Twitter.

The app was also garbage when I used it.

You are not the customer. The app allows advertisers to flexibly access large numbers of people in specific market segments.

Its an interesting design problem ie UX. If I force log-ins or abusive pop-ups I end up making the problem worse.

What Reddit needs is a very creative UX solution. Something of value that gets presented in the app but is not inthe mobile-web version delivered via browser.

Some app interaction rather than some extra content. Something interactive that is exclusive to the mobile app. Not something big interaction wise but just enough value that people start using the mobile app over mobile web via browser.

thanks for user that posted the question as I have a UX interview with a Chicago startup that is somewhat facing this problem and several other UX problems around driving their mobile app use upwards. The question help me formulate how to solve it.

What Reddit needs is to stop treating users like cattle. Not a UX trickery lipstick on a pig.

It’s abusive to tell people they need an app to get access to something when there’s no technical reason for the requirement. Everyone knows the real reason is better ad targeting / data resale but that’s not something a user should care about – users aren’t your shareholders and there are plenty of formerly big companies which spent too much time on things which didn’t benefit their users.

If you’re thinking UX, the question should be how the user benefits. There are some potential answers like better performance, offline support, etc. which generally come back to how badly their current SPA developers failed at networking and error handling but that’s probably just restating that they should take the web UI seriously rather than ignoring it in the hopes that people will install the app.

No - there is nothing inherently abusive about apps vs websites.

This is just bias on your part.

This is about repeatedly ignoring clear user preferences because one of the options gives more access to the user’s data for marketing. I’d have nothing against them offering the app, doing the standard banner, etc. – what makes it abusive is pretending there’s a choice when one of the options starts a cycle of nagging and “accidentally” breaking the experience until you switch.

Do you have evidence this is about user data, or is that just confirmation bias?

Please don't devalue the term "abusive" by using it to refer to UI dark patterns.

Oh but dude! They need the analytics to tell them how you're using the app. So they can see how you're touching the screen. What things you pause on. What notifications you might be getting meanwhile. What other apps are on your phone. Ya know. To get to know ya better. ;)

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