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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).

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I learned from working in marketing is you have to let go of your biases and assumptions about user behavior. In the beginning I found myself constantly thinking "why would anyone in their right mind click on this ad", but we know people click on ads. Most of us in tech are very different from your typical internet user at large.

We have to assume that smart people are working at Reddit, that they have tested the living crap out of this model, and have found it to be optimal.

>We have to assume that smart people are working at Reddit,

Debatable.

My guess would be it's meant to annoy you into submission.

> My guess would be it's meant to annoy you into submission

No reason to believe that this is not considered to be optimal by the company.

> We have to assume that smart people are working at Reddit

I wish more people in HN thought this way. Perhaps it's there because it's working and getting better engagement is the way to go.

Please don't suggest them more ideas to make this even more annoying than it currently is :) (and yes, I would consider reducing the frequency of displaying it as an increase in annoyance, for exactly the reasons in the parent comment)

How are fewer interruptions more annoying than more interruptions? I’ve reread the parent comment a few times and I don’t see how it could be worse than it is now.

I believe the parent commenter's logic is that reducing the frequency of the presentation increases the amount of decision making the viewer goes through when it is presented. The commenter's belief is that the added decision making effort would be more annoying than the benefit from the reduction in frequency.

Anti-tracking cookie defenses will mean that, for sites you don't visit with sufficient frequency, any remembered decision will be forgotten a week after your last visit.

I believe this is why cookie warnings have suddenly skyrocketed, and why Google Recaptcha treats us all as robots suddenly. It means that the form of 'intermittent' tracking you describe will only work for everyday Reddit visitors, not for those sufficiently occasional to see their cookies purged.

> and why Google Recaptcha treats us all as robots suddenly

Reading that I realized I would not expect to be happy to look like a robot (to another robot I might add) on the internet just 5 years ago.

Reddit shows the same fucking message on nearly every page, which is the worst possible implementation you could have. As with others commenting here, I refuse to use Reddit on mobile anymore.

You don't need to track users forever on end to only show messages a small percentage of the time. Just showing it sometimes on a new visit is good enough to not be annoying. Even better if you wait for a few site interactions before even considering displaying the message. Also, don't show messages more than once for users who have logged in.

This is not a difficult problem to solve. Companies just refuse to understand that no-means-no.

What you describe has been the case for years if you use "old reddit" on a mobile device. There's a big "GET REDDIT MOBILE" banner at the top of every page that disappears when dismissed, only to reappear randomly a few days or weeks later.

I have nothing against you, but this is always super funny when you get some random people suggesting how to improve the conversation rate of an app, which probably have several people working full time on the issue.

Yes there are always ways to improve, but some people working there are expert on this specific topic, if the topic is important for the company they probably already do what is the best

Ah, but you discount the fact that sometimes people and companies do stupid things

> if the topic is important for the company they probably already do what is the best

Having worked at many companies, I find that statement very bizarrely naive. I don't understand how anyone with any real world experience could possibly actually believe what you said.

Yeah, vaguely reminiscent of... something something “burning platform”... :-?

Trust me. Some Product Manager is leading these design decisions and product experience, probably against the advice of Devs or UX folks.

> which probably have several people working full time on the issue

I think you grossly overestimate the intelligence, creativity, and willingness to optimize of most FT employees.

Did you know that companies that get on top 10 of most stock exchanges around the world don't actually stay there in like 10 years? They slip drastically, anywhere in the world.

Yeah, so companies aren't led by super humans. They make stupid decisions all the time.

That's probably because those decisions are hard to get right, not because the leaders are stupid. And even harder for a random opinion-haver than the CEO.

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