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Comment by IgorPartola | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know about your last point. Their devs can’t seem to get their website to be usable on mobile at all. Safari/latest iOS and the site has issues with zoom (it’s not desktop level of zoom but it’s way too small but only after you log in and make a comment or a post). Images and videos load about half the time. The site cannot for the life of it remember that I don’t want to download the app. Half the user settings are still tied to the old desktop site. Reddit chat does not work on mobile. DM inbox is a mess. Search UI is clunky as hell.

I understand their focus is on users downloading the app, but this is just sloppy poor craftsmanship.

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This is almost certainly intentional. It's been a trend for a while for companies to make their websites as shitty as possible so you're basically forced to use their app.

Facebook is doing this on mobile, they want users to install the app.

I refuse to, and I will abandon reddit when 3rd party apps stop working.

Facebook moweb works really well, in my experience

Interestingly, Instagram web has been going in the opposite direction - it is getting more features previously only available in the apps.

Still buggy as hell, but they are improving it.

And full of unwanted 'reels'

Only when that crap can be turned off it will be as good or better than a year ago.

Facebook is doing this. Their website is not only lacking features but it's also glitchy to the point of being dysfunctional. The scrolling jumps multiple posts at a time with no user input, posts missing like/comment buttons, CSS messed up where some posts are cut in half. I'll delete my account before installing their Spyware app though.

Firefox on Android with no extensions.

It is. I've worked at a huge website that relies on ads. Ads trump any good UX.

Reddit has had a mobile website that worked very well for years (Since the beginning?) They disabled it about a month ago to funnel everybody to the "new" mobile site, which barely works and serves only to funnel users into the app.

It's not sloppy or poor craftsmanship, it's intentional.

I have noticed no change for years and for years now it’s been broken for me. Different devices, all standard configuration, all up to date OSes. Once you log in and interact with it, it goes wonky.

I’m effect, I guess what you and others are saying is that it doesn’t matter if Reddit has good devs or bad, they are going to put out a terrible product.

Were you using i.reddit / compact mode, or the default mobile layout?

Default. This is what it looks like for me when I load the page: https://i.imgur.com/ed1ETWK.jpg

This is what it looks like when I click on a post: https://i.imgur.com/wqNAofO.png

This is on an iPhone 14, iOS 16.

It's my understanding that the website that worked fairly well was i.reddit.com (which was disabled recently)

Side-by-side comparison (i.reddit.com on the right): https://old.reddit.com/r/redditmobile/comments/7kaqgb/could_...

Exactly so. I mean look at it this way: You and I both know that the frontend of Reddit isn't exactly a complex machine. Even poor developers could make it work. Everything that happens is a choice made at a project management level or higher.

iirc there was a post from a former reddit developer over a year ago who said this was intentional. The changes made to the site increased certain metrics, and that's all that mattered despite being slower.

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