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Comment by kumarvvr | Hacker News Reader

Reddit has allowed the third-party app system go too far and now they are struggling to contain it.

I remember when Twitter did the same thing, but they realized it early and did it when there were not too many apps that users were used to.

I feel Reddit will come out fine from this. A minor hiccup. Mods will be replaced, apps will be forgotten and users will talk about this whole thing in some AskReddit thread.

The sad fact of the matter is there are no viable alternatives to Reddit for the average redditor.

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Are you sure? I've used Reddit for 15 years and it's the first time I don't really have a good way of using it, besides the desktop (on old.reddit).

On mobile (where I used to spend reddit most time) their own app is so crap I don't even have it installed, so I have no easy way to browse. On Chrome I'm not even logged-in, so I only use it whenever a google search leads me there, but I don't post or do anything meaningful.

All in all, it feels like a really stupid move. If you are going to kill the apps, then have a decent alternative. Otherwise, just charge them a profitable but not stupid amount. And if reddit is losing money, maybe just look at their headcount and start there...

The funny thing about the "good" ways of accessing reddit is that the community has already "ported" them to lemmy.

- https://github.com/rystaf/mlmym - old.reddit.com styled client for lemmy

- https://wefwef.app/posts/lemmy.world/all - voyager which is almost pixel perfect recreation of apollo (but in a web app that you can just "add to homepage" on ios)

You don't even need that much, at least in lenny.world you can change to a compact (light\dark) theme in your profile that is very close to old reddit.

You are on HN, and you are not the average reddit user.

I use old.reddit, and I am also not the average user.

Most of them use the newer UI.

Most of them are not even aware of what an API means.

Most of them don't care.

I have been observing the site for sometime now, and except for pics and a few others, I did not find any much difference between before and now.

Also, most users use the official reddit app.

While you’re correct, it is a not insignificant number of users who were using third party mobile apps. Depending on the subreddit, I saw stats of up to 30% in data uploaded to various channels. Of course, some of these users will convert to the official app, but many, like the user above and myself, will not. It sucks. Time will tell if losing the active minority is worth it.

I feel like this would be a good space for a Firefox (Mobile) extension to make a usable mobile experience?

Kind of like using Firefox mobile with Ublock and YouTube background play add-ons to watch YouTube

I’ve only used their app? Why is it so “crap” in your opinion?

The common complaints are:

* Low information density, even on the “classic” setting.

* Auto-play videos which cannot be disabled. Only auto-play on the feed can be disabled.

* A terrible video player.

* Ads.

* Lack of basic QOL features like swipe to upvote/save.

* A terrible navigation bar at the bottom, suggesting users performs activities Reddit wants, rather than activities common for the user.

In general, the app has been designed to be profitable for Reddit, not intuitive and functional for users. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.

Not simping for Reddit (surely they don’t need it), but I think you’re over blowing the negatives in this list.

- not sure what you mean by information density. I’m not sure how much denser information could be without making the font smaller

- auto play videos can absolutely be disabled (even on ads)

- video player seems to work fine to me?

- ads are part of their revenue stream. And as far as ads go, they’re not even intrusive or annoying. If ads keep the site going, I’m happy to have them

- swipe to vote would be nice, but Pushing the vote button really isn’t torturous

- I only use the notifications button on the bottom and it’s right there, so not sure what the issue is.

Maybe the app was a lot more terrible when you last used it but I don’t think it’s as bad as you think it is.

> not sure what you mean by information density. I’m not sure how much denser information could be without making the font smaller

The existence of the share and vote buttons under each card and comment means fewer submissions and comments are visible on the screen at any one time.

> auto play videos can absolutely be disabled (even on ads)

Only on the card view. If you tap on a video submission it will auto play.

The rest of your comments are opinions, and while I respect them, I don’t agree. I tested the app before making that reply. Maybe you should accept that different people like different things than you do?

It's so infuriating to use. Impossible to get the context of a comment when you have clicked to it from a notification. The "back" button follows a completely useless, near-random stack of things you have done in the past. And the main navigation is hidden most of the time so you have to hit "back" an arbitrary number of times to even get to the point where you can start doing something. It was designed by a tree stump.

Literally 1 million trackers if r/save3rdpartyapps is to be believed.

> Reddit has allowed the third-party app system go too far

did everyone forget that reddit didn’t have an official app for years? they ended buying one of those for their official client

there was never going to be an easy way to rip that bandaid off because their platform grew with the help of these developers

They already have 'come out fine' from the whole fiasco. The majority of users already used new reddit and the official app because they haven't actually used old reddit or the third party apps that were available to begin with, and with few exceptions pretty much every subreddit that went dark was already back and fully open a week or so after the blackout.

Stripping API access was just a giant 'fuck you' and experience downgrade to the small group of savvy users who won't ever use new reddit no matter what roadblocks are put in their way.

> Stripping API access was just a giant 'fuck you' and experience downgrade to the small group of savvy users who won't ever use new reddit no matter what roadblocks are put in their way.

This small group includes the moderators and power users who make most of the content and moderate it.

Reddit might pull it off but we need to wait and see the long run effects. It feels like the structure is intact but it has rotted from the inside.

"go too far" in what sense?

The posting bots ("The words in your comment are in alphabetical order! I have read 4534654573657 comments and yours is only the 425834061th one in alphabetical order! Isn't that interesting?") are annoying as a wedgie on a hot summer's day but they seem to be the only thing that's still around.

Things that actually improved the Reddit experience, like third party mobile apps, are gone. And so therefore are many users.

Apollo and RIF made modern advertising-infused Reddit usable for the blind, for mods, and for power users. Instead of at least working with popular apps by offering fair fees and reasonable deadlines, Reddit just killed them.

I've seen too many declines, and I'm inclined to think this is the start of Reddit's. They are destroying their community to get to that IPO. But we'll see.

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