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Comment by macNchz | Hacker News Reader

Reddit’s mobile web experience really embraces this–even as a logged in user there is a frequent “Use our app!” popup that has been made progressively more obnoxious.

Once upon a time there was a preference option to disable the popup, though it would periodically become unchecked on its own. Then the option to disable it disappeared. Then the popup started appearing not just on page load, but after a period of time while you’re partway down the page reading, instantly jumping your scroll position to the top and making you lose your place. The ultimate effect has been that I swore to never, ever install their stupid app, and I spend way less time there on my phone, which is probably a good thing anyway.

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Recently on mobile it's stopped giving me the option to even view the page anonymously, at least for adult content.

It gives me:

  "This is mature content and may not be appropriate for certain viewers. To continue, use the app to confirm you're over 18 and browse anonymously."

old.reddit.com

Its days are numbered, I think...

If they are then so are my days on reddit. The whole API debacle is already pretty rough for them. I can't imagine removing old.reddit could possibly be a good decision for them now. I have an account but only i choose when to use that account. If reddit removes choice, I'll remove reddit.

It's really striking though that all of this hate for these terrible dark patterns invariably ends in a statement like, 'leaving would honestly improve my life'. These companies have become so ingrained and good at attention economy that most people feel like it makes their lives worse, and yet also cannot stop. I have a feeling this whole social media ship could go the way of the opium wars is we don't change course soon

"Just modify part of your URL bar every time you click a link to Reddit" falls into "F you".

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/old-reddit-re...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-redirec...

This is even worse. You can't trust either Mozilla or Google to vet the extensions they publish for spyware. So you have to trust and/or verify that this extension does what it says and no more. But worse, you have to vigilantly watch the extension for any changes, even if you trust the developer today he may sell it to a spyware company at any time.

This is an open source extension, as stated in the description on both pages. The repository is linked in both, feel free to build it from source and install it locally.

You don't even need these extensions, you can set up a redirect rule in uBlock Origin (if you trust that).

I sent these extensions to remedy the stated need to manually rewrite the URL, I did not say that using these extensions is a better solution than Reddit turning off the Fuck You pattern.

To install an extension locally in Firefox you have to be using a special build or jump through other hoops. All of this goes back to the point; that Reddit is employing the "fuck you" pattern when they force you to jump through such hoops to use the version of their website that actually works.

What platform are you using to write this very comment? If it is open source (Linux etc.), have you gone through the millions of lines of code for each program installed on it?

Except I can't do that on my iPhone. No extensions in Edge / Firefox / Chrome.

There is an extension to make the non-old Reddit web experience tolerable: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sink-it-for-reddit/id644987363...

Brave IOS browser has the ability to redirect automatically which you can setup for reddit.

That has the feel of hitting some regulatory issues (e.g. Utah's law) and/or having difficulty with porn in the App Store and the content rating of the app there.

Nah, you don't need to confirm anything except indicate you want to see NSFW content, just like you used to be able to in the website itself. It's just a dark pattern to convert porn viewers to the app.

No, if it isn't NSFW content the message just changes to something along the lines of "This content hasn't been reviewed and may not be appropriate...". It's an excuse to force users to download the app, not an implementation of a legal requirement.

I noticed this too! The reddit webapp on mobile was pretty much unusable before and would constantly ask me to download the app. Accidentally visited it a few days ago and was surprised it didn't happen.

If you open any post with a lot of comments and you want to load more comments you must create an account - no option to disable. They really want to smother all mobile but the app.

That's why you use libreddit instead of the official Reddit site https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit

Forcing you to download the app for any sub marked NSFW, whereas you previously only had to click to confirm your age, is bullshit.

I'm well aware that the reason you want me to download your app has nothing at all to do with the reason you're claiming, and as a user it just pisses me off.

What is that reason? (someone driving metrics to get a promotion?)

My favorite part of Reddit mobile on iOS is that when it prompts you to view in app, it redirects to the App Store, even though I have the app installed! Then when I open the app it doesn’t preserve the page I was trying to get to. So it doesn’t even work!

They probably have an internal KPI of increasing the number of mobile installs, and these patterns probably work to increase that number

instagram is a step above though. sometimes they ask you to login to replay a video.

This is the well known strategy of squeezing a lemon.

It's very profitable, and it's more profitable the more you destroy the lemon.

I decided to uninstall Reddit from my phone. I'm still reaching their website through my browser, read the content (replace URL with old.reddit.com), and if it still doesn't work I decide that the content is not worth the time.

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