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Comment by jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of Reddit's approach to mobile. They make their mobile web interface excruciating to use, and block features client side just to push you onto their app.

I'm guessing it has to do with mobile users being more lucrative?

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Its funny though - because their mobile web interface is SOOOO bad, I'm using the "Apollo" app, which means I dont see any Reddit ads, and its a much better experience.

If they didnt have such a crappy web experience, I would probably just use the native web page and see some ads.

So its actually driving people away to alternatives that reduces their revenue. Crazy...

I'm about 90% sure that reddit is going to pull a twitter and kill off API access so apps like Apollo no longer function.

The result of which will be, paraphrasing an old letter to the editor for a magazine that had temporarily stopped publishing such letters...

====

Dear Reddit,

What a coincidence. You've stopped allowing third-party apps to have access to your API, and I've stopped visiting your site.

Sincerely,

A Former User

Is that a net negative for them though? Unless you're a really active or popular poster, you're probably just costing them money browsing the site and not looking at ads.

Yeah, thought of that after I replied. OTOH, it would leave them with people not sufficiently tech-savvy to block ads, which is reminiscent of the old joke about a jury’s being composed of “12 people who weren’t smart enough to evade jury duty.” I guess they don’t care about that one way or the other as long as Some EyeBalls See Ads.

Yeah it's definitely not what you would want if you were building a community. But maybe it's ok if you just want cash.

Well, if I'm not there providing expert input on esoteric programming stuff, memes on StarTrekMemes, or participating in my local community's small sub, they'll all decline in value

Reddit will turn into a bad TikTok clone and probably die off to the real TikTok if too many people like us leave

Exactly that.

I'm pretty sure they made the math, and that's the reason old-reddit and the API are still alive despite the many threats and deadlines they published for taking them out.

In fact, I would not be surprised if most deep content come from those (despite most users not even knowing about them), because the new interface and the app are both extremely focused on shallow stuff.

To be fair, people have been saying this for years, and it's still yet to happen.

It is, however, true that they've been slowly adding features that can't be accessed via an API, so I think the more likely scenario is that they'll just try to make third-party apps artificially less competitive, betting that it might add up long term.

Sure, in another 10 years or so. They have increased headcount 10x and VC investment 10x but execution is forever stuck at "worse than Twitter" levels.

Reddit is about 10x > twitter. lol

talk about losing half your users overnight lol

I'm really surprised why the didn't just buy clients from developers like the ones who make Apollo. They are so much better than the one they make

They do the same thing to old.reddit.com (cookie banners redirect there, etc)

Like, I get that you don't update it anymore, and I don't need (or want) you to, but the new version is insanely slow on my computer, so just let me use whatever I want please.

The "new" redesign is just so bad. Viewing a post only shows comments 1 level deep, and then to see the rest of the thread you have to click "continue this thread" and then you have to go back to get to any other threads, just constant tiresome clicks...

Reading the comments on a post in old reddit is a pleasure, but in the redesign it's a complete mess. Why?

Oh and what the hell is the deal with links to content containing other completely unrelated content as well?

The day they kill old.reddit.com or API access to force me to stop using Apollo (which is an insanely well-built reddit client for iOS) is the day I'll just reluctantly stop using reddit entirely.

I barely use it anymore, but a lot of search results lead to (mostly helpful) reddit threads. If old.reddit.com dies I'll stop clicking on reddit links (even if I wanted, the new one so extremely slow for me it's borderline unusable).

More lucrative in the sense that they can collect a lot more information on the user :/

And that's it is a bit harder to block ads in-app.

You can actually disable the open in app prompt; it's kind of hidden, but if you open the menu > settings > uncheck "Request to open in app". This makes it usable for me.

Reddit is just content that you browse and occasionally leave a text comment on, it fits browser perfectly.

A taxi app, on the other hand, has a lot of functionality that is very hard to fit into a browser and implement well.

I have a location where I am and a location I want to get to. I need a way to specify the two, and a way to enter payment info. That is literally all a taxi app should do.

Why is that all the taxi app should do?

Getting a message "heavy traffic, your car has been delayed" is what everyone else seeming rational really wants. Messaging and awareness of the current state of the transaction they are in.

Before it arrives, you mean? That's still not something that a web page can't easily do.

Why not?

You have a page with a piece of JavaScript on it. Every 30 seconds it pings back "What's the status of request 12345678?" and updates a div.

If Domino's can display "your order has been handed to Steve for delivery", then a taxi service can say "Tom is stuck on the 405."

I agree, it was a double negative.

You mean the same Javascript that gets paused when you go to another tab?

Okay, that's the 90% of the taxi app. What about the other 90%?

Add the German site "ebay-kleinanzeigen.de" to this list. Some responsive design would be easy, but they'd rather have their users use the app with more ads and all the other sweet revenue juice.

Reddit mobile web is so full of dark patterns.

It really put a dent in how much I used to love Reddit.

And the mobile app is terrible terrible turd of epic proportions. The person who designed it is a monster.

My suspicion is that it's harder to monitor network traffic in an app than it is on the Web, and they want to push as much trackers as possible

You mean easier to track on app than web, right?

"This app would like to use location services"

'Allow'

'Uninstall'

try this www.reddit.com/.compact. No ads, a billion times easier to grok

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