I just don’t understand the thought process. They could’ve just shelled out $10M for Apollo and made that the official Reddit app. Then give users the choice of ads or pay for ad free experience.
so basically they’re making a massive gamble that most people will just switch over to their garbage app. Maybe they will, but for sure the power users, big sub moderators & regular posters are all coming to Lemmy. You know, all the people that made Reddit worth visiting.
Personally I think this will be the end of Reddit.
Well, Reddit did shell out money for a third party client. They bought the iOS app Alien Blue in 2014 and turned that into an official app before quickly abandoning it for their client in 2016.
They bought the app , and then destroyed it.
They should have learned for their second try, and just bought the app, then not destroyed it.
If your core offering can be recreated by a bunch of hobbyists in the their spare time, and your value is 100% the content your users create and moderate then perhaps you’re not the great product company you thought you were and you should leave product creation to others.
But hey, perhaps it’s a good idea to take the reasons for using your site away and see what happens.
After all, your friends take their private planes everywhere while you’re forced to fly first class occasionally - and you want that money.
That would never happen though. The icentives of Christian Selig and the incentives of Reddit are very different. People like it because it’s not made by Reddit
That is the crux of the issue, yeah. Reddit needs to make money, which requires enshittifying their app to serve more ads…which drives people away from using their app.
Lemmy’s lack of profit motive is probably the best thing going for it. The decentralization is good too, but I still think it’s secondary to the fact that it doesn’t need to try to make a profit
Yeah I used that before Apollo :)
Realistically Reddit will survive, but it will be a zombie of its former self, kind of similar to how Digg is these days. Let’s just hope it kills their valuation and /u/spez has to answer for it.
I really hope it survives, only because I want to preserve and archive all of it’s content. Sure, there’s a lot of duplicate data and links to other places, but there’s also a lot of unique things there. If it dies before it can be properly archived we would lose most of it, with only internet archive keeping some. That would be sad.
I think that it’s been fairly well archived prior to July 1st. Now that API access is blocked, further backing up becomes harder.
There are some off sites reddit archives, given enough time, there will be a way to find data without visiting reddit.
…digg still exists?
MySpace does too!
Some of the communities I was in on Reddit don’t seem to want to move. They’re ones where users don’t go to Reddit, they go to r/whatever, and have usernames matched to the sub.
I doubt Reddit can survive on those sort of users, in those sort of subs, but many of them will stay on Reddit as long as it keeps working
I now only use Reddit for those subs, but rarely since I now only use Reddit thorough it’s old web interface with Reddit Enhancement Suite
Relevant screenshot for those interested
US makes up just over 42% of total traffic, of which just over 70% is on mobile. No stats about 1st party / 3rd party apps usage.
Huh didn’t expect India to be that high up.
In developing countries it’s far more common to use the internet via mobile.
Elaborate?
I live in India and barely anyone I know uses reddit. So to see it being 3rd on the list is pretty surprising. Although to be fair, with the population we have, even a small percentage is a big number.
Aisa laga hi tha.
I feel we are underestimating the power of NSFW content. Do you think people would pay to look at Ullu, AltBalaji content? Reddit is money free consumption place for them.
Also, I have a different experience. In the past few years, I have seen a lot of people around who have started using Reddit a lot.
I’ve always just used the mobile site. Tried the official app once and disliked it immediately.
The remaining 30% computer users might be me googling all my IT problems
Reddit is the new Quora or Yahoo! Answers
Quora is so disgusting. I thank reddit will become just like quora . Reddit + to read full answers , they show you related topic under question instead of the answers , etc .
Need that slide feature for one handed mode for… Reasons
you know, now that you mention it, I should really look into using lemmy for all the things I used reddit for
Better yet would be a shared knowledge base of “just how to do stuff” without any corporate overlords and just moderation to prevent danger or harm for spreading. Like wikihow, but not so shit. Just have basically your notes.txt file for work but with more contributors. The problem with these threaded support threads lasting forever as “here’s how to do stuff” is they exist as snapshots and time makes things malleable
I’ve used TiddlyWiki for work notes for ages. I used to just keep my Wiki on a thumb drive, but now I use Dropbox and “TiddlyWiki In The Sky”. Have it open in another browser tab.
Searchable, tags, all the good Wiki stuff.
I used TiddlyWiki for years and dearly love it. I’ve been using Logseq to fill that need as of late because TiddlyWiki just ran into bugs too often for me to comfortably and happily rely on it
*TIL that 70% of US traffic on reddit WAS from users on a mobile device
Until July 1 2023 🪦
Rip <your favourite 3rd party app>
Exactly why reddit wanted all 3rd party apps gone. All they could see was dollar signs going down the toilet.
Now they see it burning
They had dollars while you were on the toilet. Now it’s flushed down the drain.
I’ll sue the desktop site on my phone before I’ll use that hot garbage they call an app. It loads faster and works better plus not fucking video ads or that Jesus shit ad they are pushing.
Back when I used reddit… weird saying I know, I consumed Reddit on my phone, my ipad, and desktop in various combinations, pretty much constantly. Phone/ipad during work, and additional desktop use after. Desktop using Reddit Enhancement Suite (unusable without really), and Apollo for mobile. Spez made going cold turkey on Reddit stupid easy for this heavy user of over 10 years.
It’s like going to your favorite donut shop every day for a decade, where your on good terms with the employees, but the boss is shit but you hardly ever see him so it’s ok. Then one day, instead of the usual server, Spez shows up, and hands you your favorite donut with a scoop of shit on top, and says that’s how they serve them now. Yeah, I’ll go somewhere else, thanks.
Worth mentioning that mobile ≠ app. Many people use Reddit in their browsers. Or the official app for that matter. This article doesn’t really give those numbers which I’m sure unfortunately place the third party app users in a smaller minority. Still, I never used a third party app personally and I was still outraged enough at Reddit’s behavior to leave. Hopefully more will follow suit.
Aren’t they also pushing changes to have mobile browsers redirect to the app with no option for staying in the browser?
Actually yes. When i began ussing reddit about some years ago i was a lurker on the mobile browser. Then they started pesterin for me to make an account at very much every turn of the corner. Then they started blocking various fucktionalities like visiting subs and blocking nsfw stuff. So i made an account and the subs where still unaccsesible saying something like “this comunity is abailable in the app” an at random too. So i downloaded the app. Used it a couple of months, then learned rif existed and never looked back. Tl;DR: Yes redit has been realistcally unusable on moblie browser for years now. At least for me. Dont know how others manage to use it like that.
Felt like they were doing that for a while. It’s why I went on Boost. I refused to be pushed onto their mobile app.
You can just enable “desktop site” checkbook in your mobile browser, it would send non-mobile user agent to the server. That’s the only way a server can detect a mobile browser.
While that’s an option the desktop site is barely navigable on a desktop let alone on a mobile device
old.reddit.com is still an option, for now at least.
But honestly? I’m going to stick to lemmy as much as I can.
old.reddit.com sucks on a phone though. It’s very difficult to navigate without zooming in and out all the time to click on links.
I’ve always browsed from their website, and a small bottom pop up inviting me to use the app appears on a regular basis, usually when I first load the page. But sometimes it loads without warning when I’m in the middle of writing a reply, then it takes me back to the top of the page. And let me tell you, that pisses me off.
I’ve always browsed from their website, and a small bottom pop up inviting me to use the app appears on a regular basis, usually when I first load the page. But sometimes it loads without warning when I’m in the middle of writing a reply, then it takes me back to the top of the page. And let me tell you, that pisses me off.
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It could stop you from using the browser altogether and point you to the app.
That’s what they’re currently testing out, yes.
What an unnecessarily user-hostile move. No wonder they’re going to implement it.
That would be a reasonable assumption to make, with one big caveat: reddit originally had no official app, so third-party apps were our only options. If we suppose that people rarely change their habits until they’re forced to (a claim that seems almost self-evident to me), then it would be reasonable to suppose that a lot of users would still be using those same 3rd-party apps they started out with. Especially considering the official app was kind of crappy from its inception.
If third-party app users made up a large percentage of users, it might also partly explain why spez is so hellbent on his crusade.
I was under the impression the initial plan just started with top api usage apps, which I didn’t think would affect my app yet. Still left immediately and now turns out my app was shut down.
Spez really killed the whole damn site, the greedy little pigboy
really makes you wonder how Swartz would feel about all this. what would he think of the fediverse? lemmy vs reddit?
Here’s hoping. Its probably gonna be bussines as usual with their ridicolous culture wars.
It’s not entirely like usual. They’re still doing that thing where they repost top posts to make it seem alive.
I don’t know if it’s admins, mods or bots doing it, but there sure isn’t a lot of user generated content ob Reddit today.
That makes sense. I’m not sitting in front of my computer all day, but I always have my phone.
Switching my entire mobile usage over to lemmy is easily 90-95% of my social media time.
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I uninstalled boost today, can’t wait for Boost for Lemmy. Although Jebora is pretty nice too.
I’m enjoying Connect for Lemmy, very smooth sailing so far
Just found Connect, and this feels right at home coming from SYNC
Thanks. It’s nice. They all have their quirks but connect seems good
I just switched from Jerboa to Connect.
Jerboa is a hot mess of bugs and I really miss RiF…but it’s still a thousand times better than the official Reddit app
Is there going to be a boost for Lemmy? That excites me!
That brings warmth to my heart. Loved Boost!
Yes, and you can set it up to auto-download once it’s available if you search it in Google Play
oddly, it still works for me.
I just deleted Apollo off my phone, so I guess I’m done with Reddit for the most part.
I haven’t had the heart to delete it yet, but I’m also pretty much done with Reddit.
I checked it out on desktop today. Top 8 hits in 4 of my favorite subs were busted bot reposts. It was a short visit.
Same, I used a different app on Android but I can’t bring myself to delete it
I feel that. I just kept hitting it out of habit and it made me sad.
I replaced the reddit app with Connect for Lemmy. Instead of opening it accidentally I get the superior Lemmy experience.
Woweeee fucking sucks to be Reddit rn lol
Sure hope they don’t do anything to anger a large quantity of regular users rather than improve their native mobile apps and incentivize said users to use their official app rather than just kill the more popular third party ones…
Seeing as the vast, vast majority of mobile users are using the official app, it really doesn’t suck that much for them. I wish it wasn’t the case, but it is.
I really hope it drops a lot, but it probably won’t :/
I honestly don’t care what happens to Reddit. I’ve found something new to occupy my time. If Reddit stays, goes, prospers, flounders, or whatever, couldn’t mean less to me. At the end of the day, it’s just a fancier bulletin board. Which have existed for 25+ years at this point. Look at Lemmy or other instances of the fediverse for example, it was able to quickly and effectively pick up the people flocking, and the experience is largely the exact same thing. It’s a little buggier, but it’s early days at this volume. And it doesn’t come with any of the bullshit, you don’t like your experience for example, you can quickly find another instance and carry on.
Sure, now that I can’t have a good app I don’t care about reddit either, but if the content is on there people will still find value in it
That’s fine though, since the mods and frequent posters are likely to be pissed off, so the website will get much worse. It’s an opportunity for us.
Yeah, that’s for sure, but how large will the impact be?
Well, not anymore!
