
Ask HN: Why is Reddit on mobile so obsessed with making me use their app? - blickentwapft
Reddit constantly hassles me to use their app on mobile.<p>Why do they care so much?<p>I really don’t want to use their app. I just wish they’d give up and let me use the browser in peace.
======
sixo
It is pretty offensive that they say "reddit works better on the app" when the
only reason for that is that they broke everything on mobile (on purpose?) in
a series of badly-implemented redesigns.

I'm never going to install it, and I have all but stopped reading it because
these prompts are so obnoxious. That's probably +$ for Reddit though.

I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only
_themselves_, and then expect users to engage with it because it exists. Users
are able to identify when something is valuable to them. If you make it
valuable they will use it. Consider the difference on an ecommerce site
between a comment section vs a few company-picked "testimonials" above the
fold. _Everyone_ knows the testimonials are garbage. Maybe your conversion
goes up a tick the first time you put them on the site, but when a repeat
viewer sees the same ones again they're going to roll their eyes and register
you as untrustworthy. Whereas a (reasonably-managed, honest) comment section
provides loads of information that's actually valuable to the consumer.

~~~
ShorsHammer
I use Redreader on android. The experience is magnitudes better than the
"real" app

It's free and opensource, available on f-droid or if you are so inclined
google playstore.

[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/)

~~~
PlotCitizen
In a similar vein, I use Apollo for iOS[1] and it's also magnitudes better.
The official reddit app is starting to catch up, but it's designed with
advertisers in mind, whereas you can use a different app and pay for ads to go
away, or use the old, web version with a blocker.

[1] [https://apolloapp.io/](https://apolloapp.io/)

~~~
comprev
Apollo is among the best. The developer Christian is super engaged with his
user base, and the local animal shelter. He has donated $10,000s to them
through fundraising!

~~~
jackietreehorn
I second this. Big fan of Apollo and I have bought it as well.

------
jakevoytko
Other people are saying "ads," but the story is probably more expansive.
Mobile apps have better hooks for pulling people back into the app, like popup
notifications. Reddit has natural lifecycle points where they can do this:
when people respond to your comments or comment on your posts. They could also
notify users of events like their yearly Secret Santa. I wouldn't be surprised
if their engagement numbers were much better on mobile: since they can draw
users back into the app with notifications, they have better ad views, more
people buy Reddit Gold, more people comment (which leads to other people
having content to read), etc.

~~~
Ozzie_osman
This is correct. It's about retention more than monetization.

With the app, you can not only send notifications, but you also have the app
icon which reminds people of the apps existence. Even little things like
"badging" (when the app icon shows a dot or number to indicate new
notifications) and even that can have a noticeable impact on retention (we're
all programmed to click into anything with a notification).

Also, they can recommend better content for you. I don't know if this is still
possible and whether reddit does it, but an app used to be able to get the
list of other apps installed on the phone, and many companies used that as an
input into their recommendation systems (along with your location, etc).

~~~
mbesto
> retention more than monetization

FWIW, retention _is_ monetization.

~~~
spenczar5
I don’t see how. Can you explain how a company makes revenue purely by
retaining users? I think they still need a monetization scheme separately.
[edited for clarity]

~~~
tehbeard
In the context of Reddit, it's only a no-ad website if you're running adblock.

~~~
spenczar5
Sorry, I was unclear - I was trying to pose a hypothetical, not to say Reddit
has no monetization.

------
braythwayt
I’ve given up on reddit on mobile. From time to time I drop in on it using
Safari on the desktop, but it’s not worth it to me to deal with their
engagement-ification in their mobile app, or obvious crippleware of their
mobile web experience.

I’m not pissed off about this: It’s like dropping in on a bar I used to enjoy
a decade ago, to find out it has been redesigned a few times and everyone’s a
new face.

Sometimes, that’s a really cool experience: “Say, this is neat.” Sometimes,
not. But times must change, and we either change with them, or get left
behind.

I am not going to change and become an engagement addict, clicking on shiny
baubles out of boredom. So in reddit’s case, I am a part of its past, not its
present, and I must accept being left behind in its wake.

~~~
crims0n
> It’s like dropping in on a bar I used to enjoy a decade ago, to find out it
> has been redesigned a few times and everyone’s a new face.

That is honestly the best analogy I have heard to describe my feelings towards
the site. It's still reddit... sort of, but its not _my_ reddit. I joined
during the digg exodus and I don't know if it's because I was younger or what,
but for a while reddit seemed like that go-to bar: always warm, inviting, and
socially enriching.

~~~
sinfulprogeny
And today, the once best feature for finding new stuff: the front page /
popular, is just misery porn and American politics. If you don't already have
a healthy list of subscribed subs with actually good content, I find that it's
really difficult to find new stuff.

~~~
throwaway889900
I just have my bookmark for the front page set to r/all, bypasses their dumb
location sorting and provides a bit more variety of content.

------
csilverman
Web browsing these days really feels like wandering through a market filled
with panhandlers and pickpockets—you're just trying to look around, and
everyone's up in your face demanding stuff in the most obnoxious way possible.

As a web designer/developer, this approach offends me. At the risk of sounding
like I'm taking this more seriously than I should, I believe that good design
is founded on respecting ones' users. Reddit throwing what's essentially an ad
in my face every time I try to use their site is bad design because it is
disrespectful to me, the user.

Maybe their app _is_ a better experience; there are more respectful ways of
highlighting it. As immature as this sounds, _not_ using the app is almost a
matter of principle for me at this point, because I don't believe in rewarding
disrespectful design.

~~~
laurent92
This is extremely interesting. Could the webbrowser of the future be the one
which sways the nagging boxes away, and lets you access actual content? How
would we reach that? (or, as more probable: this is the end of the webbrowser,
it will die of a million cuts, and all smart TVs are on specific apps, all
mobiles run on apps, and the one simple-to-use website that will remain
forever will be... HackerNews).

Edit: And the only way to sway those nagging boxes away is to have a code of
conduct, which is how appstores can impose a no-nagging experience.

~~~
mywittyname
I use firefox on android and immediately switch to reader view. It works
wonderfully. The content takes up the entire screen, text always stays where
you want it, scrolling response is instant and my phone stays cool while
reading it. Plus you have dark and light themes for browsing.

Unfortunately, Firefox for iOS is built on Webkit, so there are no plugins for
it, so this approach doesn't work on my iPad.

------
searchableguy
Use an RSS reader. You will like the lack of feeling of being forced to
comment on things you don't care much about in retrospection. No tracking or
ads, only content. You can filter shady sites or posts from appearing.

Here are some readers.

0] [https://github.com/GetStream/Winds](https://github.com/GetStream/Winds)

1]
[https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS](https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS)

2] [https://github.com/feedbin/feedbin](https://github.com/feedbin/feedbin)

3] [https://github.com/yang991178/fluent-
reader](https://github.com/yang991178/fluent-reader)

If you like something closed source, try feedly.

Reddit provides rss for now. For sources that don't, you can use rss.app or
similar.

[https://www.reddit.com/wiki/rss](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/rss)

One more useful thing some readers provide is an email address that you can
use for subscribing to newsletters.

~~~
keepingscore
I built a better rss feed for reddit to use with Feedly.

Notable features: * Links to the content rather than the comments * Embeds a
summary of the content * Supports images, gifs and videos * Extra query params
(nsfw block, up vote limits) * Open source
[https://github.com/trashhalo/reddit-rss](https://github.com/trashhalo/reddit-
rss)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/rss/comments/fvg3ed/i_built_a_bette...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rss/comments/fvg3ed/i_built_a_better_rss_feed_for_reddit/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/rss/comments/galitc/my_improved_red...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rss/comments/galitc/my_improved_reddit_rss_feed_now_support_videos/)

~~~
jhardy54
Yes! Bonus points for using software made by a Scuttlebutt friend.

------
yodon
As a conversion optimization question, I suspect Reddit would get better
conversion on their "do you want the mobile app" banner if they only showed it
randomly about 10-15% of the time. By showing it every time, they cause
viewers to remember their "why would I want that - I don't" decision from the
previous time they saw the question. Reducing the frequency would likely
result in more people considering the question as a fresh new question
independent of the previous viewing when presented with it the second time,
increasing the odds they go with the install (by definition these are people
who didn't install the first time, so their remembered decision is by
definition no, so encouraging them to consider the question again as a fresh
question can only improve the conversion effectiveness of the prompt over
their remembered decision).

~~~
polote
I have nothing against you, but this is always super funny when you get some
random people suggesting how to improve the conversation rate of an app, which
probably have several people working full time on the issue.

Yes there are always ways to improve, but some people working there are expert
on this specific topic, if the topic is important for the company they
probably already do what is the best

~~~
brainless
Did you know that companies that get on top 10 of most stock exchanges around
the world don't actually stay there in like 10 years? They slip drastically,
anywhere in the world.

Yeah, so companies aren't led by super humans. They make stupid decisions all
the time.

~~~
lopmotr
That's probably because those decisions are hard to get right, not because the
leaders are stupid. And even harder for a random opinion-haver than the CEO.

------
krn
The fundamental answer to what changed with Reddit over the last 3-5 years –
an IPO became the main goal of the company[1](2017):

> Reddit may go public by 2020, said CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman during a
> keynote conversation at the Internet Association’s Virtuous Circle Summit on
> Monday. “The time frame is pretty far out,” he admitted. However, he also
> argued that going public was inevitable for Reddit to both reward employees
> and investors, calling it “the only responsible choice” for the company.

[1] [https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/reddit-
ipo-1202613811/](https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/reddit-ipo-1202613811/)

~~~
bjo590
Are there any other tech companies that have IPOed with the same amount of
pornography content as reddit has?

~~~
debacle
Reddit tries ridiculously hard to hide its porn, even though it's 5% of the
posts on rising and more than 20% of the posts on new.

------
simias
Reddit has been very aggressive over the past few years to increase retention.

They're barely a link aggregator anymore, they try to self-host as much
content as possible. Images, videos, they even attempted to make user-pages à
la Facebook (no idea if this caught on). They're competing with Facebook and
Instagram, not Hacker News.

On paper that's not necessarily bad, but they don't hesitate to make the user
experience worse to achieve this. If you want to link a video hosted on
reddit, there's no straightforward way to only link the video and not the full
reddit thread. Here's a random example from the frontpage:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatcouldgowrong/comments/ici161/wc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatcouldgowrong/comments/ici161/wcgw_spinning_the_propeller_of_a_remote_control/)

No way to share just the video, you have to share the garbage comments as
well. Of course many video sharing sites are the same, but Reddit was supposed
to be a link aggregator at first, not Youtube-but-worse. They've added a photo
gallery feature lately with the same limitation: you can't just link the
gallery, you have to link the full comment page. I suspect that they did that
specifically because they couldn't really prevent people to share the URL to
the image directly since that's a standard feature of the web, so by adding
galleries they can "lock in" the content. At least they don't do referrer
checks, I suppose... Well, not yet.

And yeah, as you point out, the mobile experience on a browser is atrocious.
Especially if like me you're only a lurker: if you're not logged in you can't
even browse a subreddit, it forces you to install the app (or alternatively,
you can go to i.reddit.com that still works and is much faster to boot).

Vanilla Reddit is effectively becoming less pleasant to use that those shady
streaming websites that change their domain names every month to evade
copyright enforcement. At least those website usually manage to stream SD
video reliably.

Basically Reddit tries to become Instagram for people who think they're too
cool for Instagram, and it shows.

~~~
drawkbox
The reddit video player is one of the worst/lagging experiences of any video
player since Real Player, and that had bad internet to deal with and Microsoft
messing with it constantly.

I usually don't like to rag on bad but highlight good, but in reddit's video
player they are obviously doing too much tracking in it or it was rushed
because it is not responsive many times even on a fast connection on a massive
desktop machine. It is hard to seek, hard to play/stop/pause, half the time
half way through it goes to down version that is compression glitched and
blurry, on and on.

If so much of the site is video, why not make that the slickest player of all
time? Youtube has always known how to do this. Streaming services do as well.
Open source tools are better than this. What is going on reddit with the video
player? It probably has lots to do with tracking, cost savings and more but it
is unwieldy right now.

~~~
dylz
It uses adaptive streaming (MPEG-DASH), iirc. Starts at a low bitrate and
scales upward over time.

Works great for Twitch-length stuff. For a 10 second gif-equivalent, you don't
get enough scale up time.

~~~
simias
There's no excuse to get such a bad quality for even low-res videos. Imgur,
gfycat and Youtube manage to stream higher quality video faster on the same
device on the same connection.

I also think they shouldn't even attempt to stream video under a certain
bitrate, I'd sooner have a video buffer for 10s than end up with something
that's unwatchable because the resolution is like 10x10.

And I'm barely exaggerating, I don't have an amazing connection but I can
stream Netflix and Amazon Prime in 720p without any issue, yet I just got this
on Reddit:

[https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20200819-142013_redditvideo.jpg](https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20200819-142013_redditvideo.jpg)

This is not upscaled or anything, that's literally what I saw on my screen as
the video was playing.

It's just half-assed, there's no other explanation really.

~~~
dylz
imgur and gfycat directly stream a .mp4/etc file, the opposite of what reddit
does.

Many uploads on reddit are also repeated re-uploads of compressed and then
recompressed ad nauseum videos and stolen content, so I wouldn't be surprised
if a fairly significant amount of the uploads _started_ at 360p or less,
downloaded from a phone.

> I also think they shouldn't even attempt to stream video under a certain
> bitrate

You are not the target demographic; the target are mostly on phones, where
rapid start and 360p is not a huge deal. You don't get 1080p or 720p from
snapchat or instagram. In super blunt terms reddit would rather not want you,
they'd much rather have someone with the app downloaded, all tracking on, with
push notifications on and the impossibility of ad blocking.

In your example, the video thumbnail implies that this is a recording OF a
recording - this is someone that has already uploaded a compressed version to
Twitter, where it has been further compressed, and then recorded and cropped
on presumably a phone screen, then uploaded to reddit.

If I google the text, the first reddit results are all natively in 240p
uploaded original.

~~~
simias
Those excuses don't really work for me. At some point you can come up with all
kinds of justifications, it doesn't change the fact that from a end user's
perspective it's crap.

I activated throttling in Firefox, setting it to "Regular 3G". I went to
Youtube, selected a random video I had never watched before (so no cache):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mMIOhoUcCM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mMIOhoUcCM)

It loaded for about 10 seconds then started playing at 480p. Quality was fine,
it's SD but sharp. Once it started playing it wouldn't buffer anymore:
[https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20200819-153915_youtube.jpg](https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20200819-153915_youtube.jpg)

Then I went on Reddit, same settings, this page:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/ib6gmu/i_pretended_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/ib6gmu/i_pretended_to_be_an_old_lady_alexa_at_the_same/)

Reddit ends up playing in 96p apparently (judging by the file name, DASH_96,
altough maybe it's misleading). It looks like this:
[https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20200819-153748_redditvideo.jpg](https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20200819-153748_redditvideo.jpg)

Note that in the "optimal" version of the video the text on top is perfectly
sharp.

So you can spin that any way you like, doesn't change the fact that Youtube
performs _vastly_ better in the same degraded conditions. But maybe the target
demographics are people who have a fetish for ultra blurry video?

~~~
dylz
I'm not making excuses - I am not a fan of reddit and I hate their godawful
business practices :)

They have two completely different use cases - reddit is garbage that you
infinite scroll through on a mobile phone, YouTube is content you watch.
YouTube also generally has higher/better uploaded source videos, while reddit
is a mess of reuploaded deep fried memes.

The use case for this, scrolling and keeping attention and continually pushing
new content in, loading for 10 seconds is a death knell and entirely
unacceptable.

------
nokya
Reddit's obsession to constantly show me an "ad" to install the app has
basically cured me from drifting and spending more time than strictly
necessary on the website. I hate it so much that it triggers a negative
experience everytime I visit the website and I just tend to watch links shared
to me.

Honestly, I thank them for that and I hope they don't remove it.

~~~
bhupy
I thought I was the only one. For a while I really struggled with a crippling
addiction to Reddit, and no amount of Screen Time blockers seemed to help
(it’s too easy to override).

Simply uninstalling the app did the trick. In the beginning I would open the
mobile browser out of compulsion, but the UI was so revolting that it’s
essentially cured my addiction.

~~~
nepthar
This comment is a great answer to the originally posed question :)

------
nottorp
Funny, they make me not read reddit on mobile with their insistence on using
the app.

But the real reason is tracking and spamming you with notifications to get
"engagement".

~~~
moksly
I still use old.reddit.com. Such an improved experience, even on mobile where
the format doesn’t fit.

So maybe that’s why they want you in the app? They know their website is
terrible?

~~~
jabl
At least for firefox, there's an old reddit redirect extension that
automatically rewrites any reddit urls to old.reddit.

I warmly recommend that one. Except that since the latest firefox mobile
release it hasn't yet been ported. But given that it does exist on the desktop
version, I guess it's only a matter of time until it reappears for mobile
firefox as well.

~~~
avery42
Firefox: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/old-reddit-
re...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/old-reddit-redirect/)

Chrome: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-
redirec...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-
redirect/dneaehbmnbhcippjikoajpoabadpodje)

Github: [https://github.com/tom-james-watson/old-reddit-
redirect](https://github.com/tom-james-watson/old-reddit-redirect)

------
veqz
Yeah, it's annoying. I've also seen them block entire subreddits for mobile.
E.g. this is what I see on my Android phone when trying to read r/Europe:
[https://veqz.net/reddit_block_europe.jpg](https://veqz.net/reddit_block_europe.jpg)
(«This community is available in the app»).

My two go-to solutions are: 1\. Use old.reddit.com/ 2\. Stop using reddit

~~~
whywhywhywhy
Employees of Reddit must have a very low opinion of their users if they think
they're going to fall for "This community is available in the app".

~~~
nikanj
Their customers i.e. marketers prefer people who fall for things like that

------
whywhywhywhy
That and the layout of their "new" redesign where you go to a post and it'll
show the post, 2 comments (out of 500), not even the full threads of those
comments either and then just some unrelated posts and you have to click on
more links just to read the actual comments and you can feel your browser
choke under the weight of whatever framework they use trying to render a few
bits of text.

Noticed Twitter switching to the same pattern too, show 1-4 replies then just
some random unrelated algorithm posts from elsewhere.

~~~
cdubzzz
This design is just so damn weird. I only rarely find myself at reddit e.g.
when some obscure search query lands me there and I am always extremely
confused trying to find the actual content of posts and relevant comments. I
still don’t even understand how it works and half the time I just give up and
leave because I can’t figure out what to do to get at whatever I’m searching
for.

~~~
dustingetz
KPIs go up – "Sufficiently Powerful Optimization Of Any Known Target Destroys
All Value" [https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/does-big-business-
ha...](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/does-big-business-hate-your-
family/)

------
jamil7
Yeah ads. If you're on iOS check out Apollo, made by a solo developer and does
not display ads. I'm not sure what the equivalent on Android would be (someone
chime in if you know).

~~~
zhte415
It's not only ads.. well in the end it is, but that app's largely about
stickyness and push vs. pull.

By visiting the website, you're the one pulling, wanting to visit and viewing
the content or messages on your time. By installing the app, any message or
update is pushed to you instantly, pulling you to the website, making it less
your decision to visit, but being pulled in. A Medusa-like call that's hard
for many to resist.

Reddit are not unique in this. Even updated 'XXX sent you a new DM' from
Twitter via email for example.

Anyway, I'm shot of Reddit. Their recent purge shut down a lot of subs that
for many were mutual support groups caught in the cross-fire of admins vs.
sophisticated trolls using them as flare-scatter to escape themselves.

~~~
jamil7
Yes you're right it's not the only reason. My response was a little too
cynical. My point is less web vs app and more profitable one person show
(without resorting to ads and tracking) vs a bloated behemoth feeding the VC
monkey on it's back.

~~~
zhte415
If there's a choice between web and app, I'd take web any day: Works on
multiple devices, doesn't need updates or dependencies from an app store.

And agree on one person show / bootstrap vs bloated VC money.

------
jw1224
Quora is even worse for this.

For years they’ve had an extremely hostile user experience on their mobile
site — you scroll half way through a long answer, and get interrupted with a
modal prompting you to finish reading it in the app.

But the modal cannot be dismissed — there is no way to close it. You can’t
scroll the page, it persists on reload... rendering the site utterly unusable.

~~~
braythwayt
It’s interesting to compare Quora and Stack Overflow. They both are about
questions and answers, and they both set out to use interaction design and
aggressive curation to create a high-quality Q&A resource.

But despite having similar goals and a willingness to experiment with
behavioural patterns, they ended up with incredibly different experiences.

~~~
chiyc
I used to really enjoy reading responses on Quora, but at some point, it seems
to have devolved into pretty low quality spam and self-promotion.

~~~
jw1224
Same here — in the early days, I’d spend hours each week on it. There felt
like a turning point, around 2018, when it just sadly became “too mainstream”,
for want of a better phrase.

------
polote
Reddit as a social network has two goals:

\- Make more money than last quarter

\- Having more user engaged than last quarter

Having user engaged is much easier when you have the app installed, as they
can send you push notification. As a result of that, the number of users on
the mobile web version is probably very low, so they don't put a lot of effort
on the product and would probably love to deprecate it.

They also probably don't make the effort to optimize the monetization of those
users, as they are so few, so they push them to use the app.

And above all HN users are probably not the ones who click the most on ads, so
they don't care if you use reddit or not as you will not bring them any
revenue.

------
varbhat
On mobile,

I use

1) [https://i.reddit.com](https://i.reddit.com)

2) [https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-
Reddit](https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit)

I don't use neither the official bloated site nor official Android app. They
are way much animated, bloated,slow.

I think that current focus of reddit is to become social media. Earlier
days,reddit was focused on creating better forum,discussion platform. There is
gradual change in focus ,i guess.

~~~
jamil7
> I think that current focus of reddit is to become social media. Earlier
> days,reddit was focused on creating better forum,discussion platform. There
> is gradual change in focus ,i guess.

Theres a few people talking about the "unbundling of reddit" that's going on
at the moment. I forget where I read it but basically some larger communities
are starting to break off again into their own platforms.

~~~
Cthulhu_
There's a lot of subreddits now that advertise their own Discord server,
omitting Reddit's own attempt at hosting a chat service.

~~~
simias
Trading a centralized proprietary platform for a different centralized
proprietary platform. Sounds familiar somehow.

Beyond that, Discord is not really the same thing as Reddit. It's true that
reddit tried to compete with Discord by offering their own chat service when
they realized that many communities also had a Discord server, but they don't
really offer the same service.

Discord is IRC, reddit is BBS/usenet/PHPBB.

------
Erlich_Bachman
I've identified my biggest pain point when these companies try to pull shit
like this: it is the audacity for them to pretend like they have some
authority to decide anything for me (as a user), or even nudge me in any
directions, be it in content, ways to use their service, etc. ...

Dear Reddit, (and the likes),

You are a service company. You provide me a service. You are not an authority,
or a thought leader, or anyone who's opinion I for some reason automatically
respect or am interested in. You simply make it easier for me and users like
me, to aggregate information and to share data, in a format that we like. You
did not create that format out of thin air and you do not own it. It is we,
the users that told you that this is the format we wanted to use, by going to
your website and not competitors. You A/B-tested it from us. This does not
give you any authority or right to pretend like you know what is better for
us. You are simply a utility provider. Start acting like one. I do not care
about your opinion about anything, let alone how I should use your site, what
I should read, what I should buy or not. I just want a service, the
aggregation of information. The utility of it. I don't care about how you make
money (none of the users really do, let's be honest). If you stop giving the
utility, I will go somewhere else. If you can try to provide this utility and
also making money in the process - good for you. If you ask me to pay for your
service, a fair (!) price, I will gladly do, like I do for any utility like
electricity, clean streets etc.

The more shenanigans like this you pull, the faster the decentralized versions
of those utilities (a useful forum for quick information, in your case) will
come up and eat up into your revenue.

~~~
AtHeartEngineer
I wish I could give you gold for that comment, thankfully we aren't on reddit

------
znpy
Because Reddit is slowly becoming trash.

First their website redesign makes the whole thing slow and unusable, then
they start making the app get invasive and abusive.

All in the name of "engagement".

------
indigochill
I read somewhere just the other day that the benefit (to the developer) of an
app vs a mobile website is that apps can collect more data on the user than
mobile websites in their sandboxed browsers can. I haven't looked into this to
verify for myself and there are other reasons, like push notifications, but
I'm inclined to believe it.

~~~
criddell
Who wants push notifications from Reddit though?

------
Erlich_Bachman
Another thing they did lately BTW is these "show the rest of the discussion"
links, which seem to randomly pop up in a thread, hiding relevant replies. And
they are not even JS-based always it seems, they often reload the whole page!
And when they do, they hide the other parts of the same thread that were
visible on the previous page. What in God's holy name is that??? That is a
worse UX in every single way, than what you could have had by simply printing
all the replies like you did before. WTF is the point of that? Are you
actively trying to get me off your website and go somewhere else? That's a
hostile UI for no reason...

~~~
read_if_gay_
I guess the UX is better if you're mostly using reddit to scroll through
memes. Like you look at a meme, chuckle, read the top reply, chuckle again, on
to the next meme.

It's absolutely garbage for comment-heavy subs, but the vast majority of
reddit users doesn't visit those.

------
toddmorey
It's horrible. They've made the site itself unusable on mobile.

They care so much because as you browse links out to other content, they can
keep you in the app using the embedded browser. And when you read that content
and share it, you share reddit links, not the source links.

I'm sure time in app blows away time on site for mobile users.

~~~
sharker8
To turn this on its head, maybe the mobile device manufacturing duopoly has
made it impossible to develop great experiences on mobile web in order to
funnel more development work into their app store ecosystems? Why are we
blaming reddit for this trend?

------
yalogin
Its worse. They keep breaking stuff on purpose just to push people towards
their app and their new 2.0 design.

Seeing how popular the old interface is, they provided an option in the
settings to keep using the old interface. A few months ago they decided to not
honor that setting on mobile. So now many links on the site are broken and I
have to go to old.reddit.com to get around it. Took me a while but now Safari
autoprompts and fills it, so not an issue. However I can see a day where they
will fully abandon the old interface and that is when I stop using reddit.

------
DavidVoid
I'd recommend using a third party app.

 _rif is fun_ is pretty good imo.

Free version (ads):
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu.android.reddit&hl=en_US)

Paid version (no ads):
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu.android.redditdonation&hl=en_US)

------
aphroz
Because they need your data. I don't understand how a website with such bad UX
can rank so well when Google is now calculating CLS and other parameters like
this. Reddit is a mystery to me.

~~~
thatguyagain
Isn't it one of the most popular sites on the internet? I can't think of where
on Reddit the CLS is bad, do you have an example?

~~~
aphroz
It was probably very popular, but for me it has become like Quora, I don't
understand how the information is structured and I find it not relevant most
of the time.

------
mangatmodi
I worked on user tracking all my life. You can track user activities, interest
etc, much better on an app. This data is valuable for in-house use and to sell
it to the highest bidder.

~~~
hutzlibu
Do you think tracking outside the app is done?

Meaning collecting data even if the app is not opened? I would suspect so.

~~~
mangatmodi
yes yes, there are third party DMPs. Phone companies, offline stores etc. all
share data with these DMPs. It is quite disgusting. Particularly shady
practices done by FB.

But nothing can defeat first party tracking you get with the app.

------
nojvek
The thing I am most astonished is that Wikipedia is even a thing that requires
no login, no special app, no annoying popups (except the occasional jimmy
wales donation banner). It’s open. It’s fast. It’s comprehensive. You can
freely download a dump .

Reddit, quora, yelp, facebook on the other hand are Plagued with dark patterns
that give a middle finger to the user.

It makes me wonder the kind of shit we build in the name of “user experience”.
What is wrong with our industry?

~~~
solumos
> What is wrong with our industry?

Capital providers that want a return (or at least not a loss) on their
investment. More engagement + more users = decent source of ad revenue.

------
blfr
They need to somehow make up the engagement for all the interesting content
they banned over the years.

~~~
optimalsolver
They've grown to the sixth most visited website in the US (third in the UK),
so they're doing something right.

~~~
mlang23
You mean like when ethernal october hit, the internet was doing something
right to attract all these wonderful people? Just because the masses like
something doesn't mean it is good.

~~~
optimalsolver
So what should they use as a standard of success?

How many Usenet poseurs give them the thumbs up?

That don't pay the bills.

~~~
amiga_500
What's the point in producing trash if your only reason is to have enough
money to pay for the trash?

~~~
optimalsolver
"Trash" is completely subjective. And Reddit's resounding success demonstrates
that most people disagree with you.

------
josefresco
Related: I shared a link from Reddit with a non tech-savvy family member. The
next time I saw him, he had the Reddit app installed on his mobile. I asked
why and he said basically "it told me to install the app so I did". I no
longer send him Reddit links, I save the image/video and send via text
message.

------
abhayhegde
This is most likely to do with the ability to access your storage, and
constantly feed you with notifications. Those little annoying reminders to
visit the website and instill a fake fear of missing out on something.

If at all you wish to have a smoother experience and no notifications though,
I suggest Relay for Reddit on Android.

------
koolba
Short term: you can’t block the ads like you can in the browser.

Long term: to turn it into a chat app and somehow cash out.

------
blaser-waffle
Data mining. Get permissions to various parts of your phone and now they know
your location, contacts, photos, etc.

You think they're making big money off of Reddit Gold?

~~~
ronanyeah
I usually assume this of every brand that pushes their native app(s) while
intentionally degrading their web offering.

Twitter's (great) PWA is a notable exception.

------
_Microft
If anyone from Reddit wants to get an idea how annoying these ads are: I'm
using old.reddit.com instead. On a phone. Think about that.

~~~
petepete
If you're on Android, I'd recommend Reddit Sync Pro (it's a few dollars/pounds
for the paid ad-free version). It has a clean design, looks great and has most
of Reddit's good functionality.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.laurenceda...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.laurencedawson.reddit_sync&hl=en_GB)

It's a lot nicer than mobile sites or offical app.

------
dreamcompiler
It cannot really be that hard to teach a deep learning engine how to surf the
web while tailoring itself to a given user's tastes and filtering out all the
egregious crap. It should be substantially easier in fact, than teaching a DL
engine how to play a video game, because all the HTML and JS that generated
the page is available to the engine to reason about _in addition_ to the
pixels.

As an added bonus, it should be easy to teach the engine to "see" all the
monkeyboxes and eliminate them while at the same time giving no clue to the
upstream server that AI was involved in improving the human user's experience.

------
actuator
I think you should just use old.reddit.com

There are annoying quirks like some links in comments and wiki/sidebar can
take you to new reddit site and it is harder to solve this on FF mobile. But I
strongly prefer that over whatever abomination their new design is.

Even leaving aside the UI aspects, the annoying thing about their new site is,
it progressively keeps turning bad, earlier it was just that ugly banner for
app install or the collapsed comments, or the new page redirection. But now
for some reason a lot of communities fail to open in the new design. I don't
know why Reddit hates the web so much, they can very well show the ads there
as well.

------
sfblah
My reply will probably get drowned out, but part of what's going on here (for
me at least) is Google Amp. I browse reddit as a registered user, and I set
the flag for them to stop directing me to the app on mobile. The problem is,
if a Google search sends me to a reddit page, because that page is generally
served via Amp, it doesn't have my user details, so I get hassled about this.

As a test, I switched to Bing. Problem went away. I'm assuming there's some
way to disable Amp on Google as well for my account, but I haven't gone any
further in researching this.

------
Technetium
I like to use Hermit[1] to browse sites that have a dedicated app for viewing
(Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter are of note). It's marketed as a "Light app
browser". and lets you add your own with relative ease. Unfortunately they do
not have an iOS version[2] yet -- but the Android experience is quite decent.

[1] [https://hermit.chimbori.com/](https://hermit.chimbori.com/) [2]
[https://hermit.chimbori.com/early-access](https://hermit.chimbori.com/early-
access)

------
IgorPartola
If you register an account you can go to settings and turn off that prompting.
Definitely not ideal and I don’t even understand why they have an app to begin
with but this is what I did.

------
PaulHoule
It's a problem with many businesses and web sites (e.g. banks). That's why we
have "U+1F4A9 PILE OF POO".

A lot of it is that they want to violate your privacy, particularly track
where your body is. There are some legit uses: McDonald's can put your burger
on the grill when you approach the 'restaurant', if you want to snipe an Uber
driver you'll need to have somebody be bait for the trap unless you can figure
out how to spoof your location...

------
shahbaby
Resisting the urge to mindlessly browse reddit has done wonders for my
productivity and peace of mind.

It's like removing a giant time sink that was not adding any value to my life.

------
vmurthy
Edit : user
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jakevoytko](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jakevoytko)
has a much more concise view of the same. I swear I didn't steal this from him
:)

I can speculate a bit but let's look at the product from a VC POV. The key
metric for all I know they are tracking is "engagement - a.k.a amount of time
spent on site which is a proxy for number of ads viewed/clicked etc". This has
a few implications :

1\. A mobile site (e.g. on mobile Safari) can't entice a user to view articles
when Reddit wants them to. In other words, "I" open reddit when "I" want to.

2\. I haven't accessed mobile site in a while but (hopefully) it won't have
infinite scrolling which means I tire quickly of clicking "Next" and leave the
site. An app removes this possibility

3\. As alluded in #1, an app can have all sorts of notifications which entice
me to access reddit a lot more and can possibly track a lot more than a
browser will allow. This is valuable for Reddit in terms of "targeting ads"
and hopefully makes the mobile users more valuable than us plebes.

Thank you reddit for pushing the app so much. I hate it and will not install
it.

------
mcv
Reddit is hardly the only one. Way too many sites that work perfectly fine on
a mobile browser (or could have worked perfectly fine there hadn't they
crippled the experience) keep bugging me to install apps I don't need.

I really don't want to have to install a separate app for every website that I
visit. These sites should just cut it out. You can ask me once, or maybe once
a year or something, but don't keep bugging me every day.

------
kaushikt
User retention on mobile is much higher as compared to websites. Now, people
are more attention deficit. Everyone I know has a weird habit of opening their
phone and checking their "FEED" (could be reddit, could be fb or insta even).
All this on mobile.

Ads is a good reason too. In my past workspace, we spent a crazy amount of
money on facebook ads and got 80% of traffic from their mobile app.

Reddit is trying to follow the same too.

~~~
prepend
Is user retention really higher on mobile? Or is it that web users can’t be
tracked so look like they drop off and come back.

I think people make too many definitive statements and bad assumptions based
on what they can measure. Leaving off understanding gaps where data doesn’t
exist or never will.

~~~
ninth_ant
Measuring retention is going to be mainly useful for logged-in accounts. And
that is is something that could be trivially measured and compared between
platforms.

My guess based on experience in this area in other companies is that app users
will report a better experience, stay much longer, and return more often.

~~~
prepend
I use reddit a lot through my browser and about half the time I’m not logged
in. I’m still retained, but not measured accurately.

------
Daedren
I'd wager it's because the average user only blocks ads in the browser.

------
ant6n
Related, why had the reading experience on everywhere become so useless: only
the first 6 posts or so are loaded and you constantly need to wait to load
more posts. It’s an annoyingly sluggish experience - even with their anti-user
pattern of hiding 90% if each conversation by default, they could at least
preload the data and show it instantly.

------
crispyporkbites
No one has actually answered this - the short answer is that mobile users who
use the app have a higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) that mobile users who
do not use the app.

The difference is high enough that converting one user will more than cover
the CLV losses of all the other users who are driven away by the popup.

The reddit marketing team will be trying to maximise CLV and A/B testing
tonnes of different ways to do this.

For reddit CLV is based on ads and premium subscriptions/reddit gold, and
these figures for mobile app users will be based on a number of factors
including data mining, ability to send push notifications to device, control
over the ad experience, avoidance of ad blockers, likelihood of returning to
reddit, posting frequency etc. Using the website, especially on mobile, will
make a lot of those metrics fall off a cliff when looking at CLV, and I
wouldn't be surprised if an app user has a 20x or 30x CLV than a mobile web
user.

------
cmorgan8506
The following is mostly speculation. I don't really know the inner workings of
the Reddit business model.

Businesses that rely on advertising revenue will always seek optimal channels
for peoples attention. The mobile app gives them two very import things:

1\. Push notifications. Push notifications give companies the ability to
advertise to you without you even visiting their website. Also, it allows them
to piggyback on the Pavlovian response that has been conditioned in your brain
by smart phone companies. Essentially this allows them to "mainline" their
product into your brain. Just woke up? McDonalds breakfast PN. End of a long
day of work? PN from reddit to remind you to binge their content for your
entire evening.

2\. People can't run adblock on mobile applications. Even if that only
accounts for 10% of it's users, it's still a huge increase in ad revenue.

------
asaramis
This has been the most infuriating thing, and as someone who works in media -
can trace it directly back to the hire of the former Time Inc COO:
[https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/can-she-make-
brands...](https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/can-she-make-brands-say-
yes-to-reddit/92225/)

They turned Time Inc into a spammy content factory - did huge deals with
Taboola/Outbrain, along with creating stuff like a short FB video show about
brunch foods. Came over to Reddit and keeps spouting off these huge
proclamations about billions of users. They came over right after the huge
raise so it's clear that the clear mandate is to commercialize at every
possibly touchpoint.

------
phoe-krk
I do not browse Reddit using the web browser; I use the free Slide client,
available on F-Droid.

[0]
[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.ccrama.redditslide/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.ccrama.redditslide/)

------
rognjen
I've noticed this as well. It has gone on for a significant time now. That
leads me to believe that they have data that says that it's more profitable to
alienate users that hate it rather then remove it. I'd be very interested in
seeing that data.

As part of this they have also other things that they do that I think are
downright dishonest, for example, when you land on a subreddit and are asked
to log in or use the app, the top bar logo link no longer leads to homepage
but to /register. For me that's why shady and made me immediately leave the
site but it's still there which suggests that it works on a significant part
of the userbase. Again, I'd really be interested in seeing their data.

------
throwawaysea
It has gotten really obnoxious, especially if you aren’t signed in. Apart from
the multiple pop ups that require dismissal on each page load, there are also
dialogs that can’t be dismissed or bypassed on content marked sensitive/NSFW
that only let you see the post if you use the app. With the hostile design
choices and ever more draconian censorship, I’m hoping one of these Reddit
alternatives like Ruqqus gain enough traction to recreate the old days of
Digg/Reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/...](https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/list_of_active_reddit_alternatives_v5/)

------
morrbo
They recently redesigned their mobile site as well and added some major flaws
(you can't even see the user who submitted it on /hot unless it is promoted,
switching the "vote" and "share" buttons etc.). Its death by a thousand cuts
tbh.

------
miiiiiike
I wish it was just prompts. Some days I can't even access Reddit through my
phone.

Randomly locking subreddits for mobile users saying: "Sorry mobile browser
user, but, /r/xyz is only available on your device through the mobile app." is
just infuriating.

------
zelly
Most mobile websites are intentionally gimped because native apps can target
ads better.

But Reddit is one of the worst. I wouldn't ever visit the site if it didn't
rank so high on search results. I've noticed the frontend has gotten worse and
worse every time I look at it. Ever since they changed to a React type
frontend, at least 5% of the time the comments won't even load. It just
doesn't work. Reddit really is a cautionary tale of attacking your users. I
expect it to follow in Mozilla's footsteps as another company that makes no
money but pretends it's a unicorn.

------
TheRealDunkirk
I desperately wish I could still use the old Google feature to block certain
sites from appearing in results. Reddit threads frequently get into the top 5
of my searches on gaming or programming questions, and clicking through gives
me the question, and the first line of the answer, and then I have to deal
with all the garbage the site now stuffs down your throat. To top it off,
Reddit NEVER has usable answers to what I want to know. 99% of the time, that
first answer is something unrelated, and that's the extent of the thread. The
bottom line is that they're royally screwing up search results, and I often
add `-reddit -site:reddit.com` to my searches now.

------
wuliwong
It is kind of amusing that they are so aggressively pushing their mobile apps
when prior to april 2016, they didn't even have official mobile apps. Probably
shows the differences in strategies before and after the acquisition. For me,
when I am clicking on browser search results that bring me to reddit, I almost
never want to switch to the mobile app. It breaks my flow. If i do not find
what I am looking for in the reddit post, I need to switch apps back to the
browser app instead of just tapping the browser back button.

Tangential annoyance: the youtube app attempting to have me sign up for some
premium service _every time_ i use the app is frustrating.

------
weinzierl
It's bad, but not as bad as Grammarly which outright refuses to serve me their
otherwise perfectly working website on mobile in order to force me to use
their spying keyboard. To add insult to injury I'm a paying customer already.

------
mumblemumble
To everything others have said, I'll add this:

It's probably not that they "care so much", it's that they simply don't care.
The random people who occasionally navigate to a Reddit thread from a web
search, but otherwise don't engage with Reddit in any consistent way, are
basically just white noise to them. It's a demographic that represents such as
small and unreliable source of revenue that it's just not worth thinking much
about from a business perspective.

One certainly wouldn't want to risk reducing the conversion rate among people
whose attention is easier to capture, just to mildly appease the never-
downloaders.

------
shusson
Recently I noticed that reddit will hide posts on a mobile browser and try and
force you to use the app. e.g `/r/AusFinance`. You can get around it by going
directly to `/r/AusFinance/new`. Terrible experience.

------
mattwad
The annoying part for me is I do use an app, and I'd love to open it. But I
don't use Reddit's app, so the popup is worthless. If they had a way for me to
pick the app to use, I'd happily open the redirects!

------
sizzle
Cause then they get deeper access to mobile data collection that they can
monetize beyond the web browser. I consider this a dark pattern, shame on you
for obfuscating your true intentions Reddit.

------
sportsaw
I admit that I like Reddit for product or local-area research.

But whenever I find myself filling my time by scrolling through popular subs,
I end up feeling like shit. They're teeming with misanthropes and the low-
IQ'd. For example "Ask Reddit: What's one thing you wish guys knew?" or
whatever. Or r/WatchPeopleDieInside (you mean watch someone have a
disappointed look on their face... why is this entertaining?).

Reddit is like any popular entertainment (music, film, Nascar...), with a
typical bell curve of un-intellectual stimulation.

~~~
mcphage
> Reddit is like any popular entertainment (music, film, Nascar...), with a
> typical bell curve of un-intellectual stimulation.

There are a lot of good subs, but the big ones ain't it.

------
mixmastamyk
Because the 'suits' decided you'll be (nearly) forced to use it, like it or
not, to improve their KPIs... read quarterly bonus.

Abandon the site and perhaps they'll learn it was a bad idea.

------
noisy_boy
My second most useful decision to leave social media was to stop using Reddit
(except browsing r/<programming_language> groups occasionally). No points for
guessing the first one.

------
fierarul
Because a mobile user tracked with native ad frameworks brings in much more
money than a mobile user tracked via the web browser.

Reddit deserves their Digg moment so much. I shall cherish the day it arrives.

------
teekert
Because getting ublock origin working in the app is more difficult? Also: Why
does it always show me "Continue in browser" with a Chrome icon even though
I'm on FireFox mobile?

~~~
BenjiWiebe
Didn't they recently change it so that you do see a Firefox logo when on
Firefox?

~~~
teekert
I did see that a couple of times, but not anymore.

------
spamizbad
Because there's some product manager somewhere with a line on a spreadsheet
called "Mobile App Engagement" and their career status depends on that number
going up.

~~~
dcwca
Which is a good metaphor for the success of Reddit as a company.

------
adrianmonk
Simplest possible explanation: by writing this post, you've put more thought
into it than they have.

Perhaps someone wanted to increase app install numbers (and/or user
engagement), this sounded like it would work, and they did it. Simple as that.
They did not ponder whether it might have negative effects. They just did it
and moved on to something else.

Of course I have no concrete evidence of this, but with the state of product
management in our industry, I can't dismiss the possibility.

------
kumarvvr
Data collection. More data, more targeted the ads, more income.

I guess at some level, their data costs too go down with an app, when compared
to a site.

Also, with constant notifications, apps have a better chance to become
addictive. At some point, someone saw data of the time spent by users on their
site, to that on app and thought, wow !

It allows for better gamification and better avenues for making users buy
awards for posts.

I have seen more 'gold' posts than ever after the app became popular.

------
xvilka
The desktop site version also became unimaginably slow. I didn't even know
it's possible to make it so for something simple like the message board.

------
ta1234567890
Anecdata: It also completely stopped working on my iPhone 6 about 2 weeks ago.
The site will only load the header and logo, then stay stuck as if it was
loading forever. Same thing happens on safari and chrome, nothing happened
after clearing all browser data. Currently going to old.reddit.com, but the
mobile experience with that is pretty bad. I guess it's a good thing, as I'm
using it a lot less now.

------
luxuryballs
It’s less obtrusive if you browse via: old.reddit.com and the much superior
legacy interface allows you to see more content with a much faster load time
:)

------
snwfog
I recently launched an alternative Reddit client, because like you, I am also
very annoyed by this behavior [1].

Here is the link if you want to check it out:
[https://rdddeck.com](https://rdddeck.com)

[1] [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/deck-for-
reddit#comment-11...](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/deck-for-
reddit#comment-1112359)

------
Pick-A-Hill2019
Greater analytics and no ad-blocking. I took a quick look at the Android app
permisions

Identity: add or remove accounts; find accounts on the device

Contacts: find accounts on the device

Other: use accounts on the device; toggle sync on and off; run at startup;
read Google service configuration; draw over other apps

(I deleted a lot of stuff but left the things that Reddit might find more
useful). Compare that to the information about the user Reddit would have via
a web login.

------
brnt
Apps means it's easier to hook up privacy-violating analytics that can both do
a lot more than web-analytics and is harder to block for the user.

------
zeveb
And why is Reddit so obsessed with its redesign? I cannot think that more than
single-digit percentages prefer the slow, ugly, comment-hiding redesign over
the fast, attractive, _useful_ old design.

Just write the redesign off as a failed experiment and build a new design off
of the old one. Seriously, even at Reddit what proportion of employees and
developers use the new design when given the option?

------
JulianWasTaken
This doesn't answer the question, but with Firefox on Android + uBlock, just
block the element from being displayed with the element zapper.

------
dec0dedab0de
The real question is why does everyone use bootstrap, when twitter is also
constantly saying the app works better on mobile than the webpage.

------
mrlala
I don't see anyone else mentioning this in the thread- I have used a mobile
app called "rif is fun" (it used to be called 'Reddit Is Fun' before reddit
forced the change).

I have used this app for like 7 years, it is fast, simple, and keeps the old
style format. If you want to use reddit but don't want to use the garbage that
their interface has become, check it out.

------
stjohnswarts
Remember with commercial stuff: if you're not paying for it you are paying for
it some other way. In this case ads and personal information. Currently you
are circumventing info they want from you to make you more valuable to their
customers. You are not their customer unless you get reddit premium. Then I
suspect it will still bug you to download the app

------
jaypeg25
Are you on iOS?

I was on Android until a few months ago. If I was sent a Reddit link it would
open in the Reddit app I liked, no need to ever even look at the mobile site.
I was shocked that that seemingly basic feature ISN'T available on iOS.
Instead my options are view the Reddit link in browser or on the official
Reddit app.

Most of the time I just choose not to click the link because of that.

------
ronyfadel
Ads and tracking (i.e. $$$) On Desktop, uBlock Origin blocks 13 trackers on
the reddit.com frontpage. Use Reddit in incognito mode on mobile, and you'll
see how many ads there are. With more users blocking ads and content trackers
on mobile, Reddit would rather monetize you (the user) in their app where you
don't typically block trackers/ads.

------
stevepike
The most infuriating part of this is that they haven’t implemented a
functional deep linking system. I mostly come across Reddit on my phone from
google, and would happily use the app to read whatever page I’m trying to get
to, but the “open in app” button opens the App Store (even with the app
installed). This is on iOS, maybe android is better.

~~~
solumos
Nope, Android sucks too - it either does the same thing (links to Google
store), or deep-links to an incorrect page.

------
bdefore
The Reddit Enhancement Suite extension/plugin dramatically improves the
desktop experience: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-
enhancement...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-enhancement-
suite/kbmfpngjjgdllneeigpgjifpgocmfgmb?hl=en-US)

------
supernova87a
By the way, maybe others don't know but I think old.reddit.com is a way better
clean browsing experience than the new crap.

------
perceptronas
My guess: tracking. On web you are limited how much you can track. On apps you
are free to exploit your users as much as you want.

------
pi-victor
not sure if i'm the only one, but for me, on the latest macbook pro 16' top
spec, the browser stops responding once i scroll enough. it's un-fucking-
usable. if i click on a video after browsing for a while it's as slow as if
i'm browsing from my toaster. the rest of the tabs work fine.

i hate the UI/UX for reddit, it's atrocious.

------
bitwize
As a general rule, things "work better on the app" because the companies
deliberately crippled all other means of access to get you to install the app
so they can harvest location, call history, contacts, and all manner of sweet,
sweet data. The app isn't there to benefit you, it's there to benefit the
company.

------
Keverw
Quora does this too. Can read first topic, but then they want you to login and
then another topic or so they want you to download the app. I think apps do
this because of push notifications and being on your home screen is likely to
draw you back into their app and increase the metrics. I think it’s annoying
and a dark pattern.

------
surround
r/mobileweb is the “official” subreddit for the mobile interface, yet it’s
filled full of complaints that go completely ignored.

Try the legacy mobile website [https://i.reddit.com/](https://i.reddit.com/)
there’s no thumbnail view but otherwise it’s much faster and less annoying.

------
coronadisaster
Another thing about reddit is that it is one of the only site that reloads
everything when I hit the back button instead of using the cache (I'm using
Firefox). Do they do this to be able to claim that they get more users then
they are actually getting? It's been like this for years, not sure when it
started.

~~~
gruez
It's probably a consequence of them using the history api + lazy programming,
rather than anything nefarious.

------
gitpusher
It's because they follow the doctrine of "mobile app as a walled garden".
Presumably you will engage more over time if you're using the app (because you
can't leave it as easily.)

I'm not sure how effective it is. But it's dogmatic for this generation of
product designers.

------
amitlzkpa
I thought I was the only one irked by this. The instagram web-page does a
great job acting as a web-app without trying to force the user to do their
bidding. I hope Reddit atleast stops trying to force users to install their
app if not making a mobile-friendly website.

------
mangecoeur
I literally caved and installed the app just because using the mobile page was
infuriating or even straight up impossible (e.g. when the full page popover
add for the app craps out and you can't dismiss it to see the content). As a
longtime user I really resent it.

~~~
brianberns
Try using the Apollo app instead. It's a clean, pleasant experience.

[https://apolloapp.io/](https://apolloapp.io/)

------
mro_name
It's mere existence requires to push to it. Having superior UX usually is
expected for an app compared to a website on any given device.

Building an app and still tolerating web usage (on the same device) requires a
level of self-confidence, few seem to have. Obviously not reddit.

------
gt565k
Even on web I keep using old.reddit.com, as the new layout is just a waste of
screen real-estate and looks more like dig.

I loved reddit's original UI, similar to HN, you can quickly scan the
headlines, not stare at empty space into the oblivion.

Bad UX all over reddit...

------
boring_twenties
Do you _actually_ want to use their godawful mobile website, or do you just
want to not use their proprietary app?

Because there are multiple third party apps that are actually good, and at
least one that is fully free under the GPL (search for Slide on F-droid).

------
rileytg
The “ad” itself wouldn’t be so frustrating if it actually worked! For the last
year or so, clicking open in reddit opens the app store even though i have the
app. i also prefer the apollo client, so either way this ad should be
something i can remove.

------
benn_88
I finally gave in and just installed the damn Reddit app. And now it sends me
constant push notifications. I thought I found an obscure way to turn them off
but now they're back sp I think I'll just do without Reddit.

------
optimalsolver
Is there a positive relationship between how much someone complains about
Reddit and how much time they actually spend on Reddit?

I don't think Reddit cares about how you feel about the platform, just as long
as you continue to spend half your day on it.

------
Nursie
There was a way, hidden deep in your user settings, to tell them "No, really,
I'm never going to use your app".

This has switched off all of those reminders and popups and crap for me on
mobile.

Last time I went looking for the setting though, it had gone.

~~~
blickentwapft
They shall hassle you to switch to their app until the end of time.

------
minusSeven
I have been using Sync and joey on android for years. Never used the official
app. I dunno if eventually Reddit removes all api eventually that makes these
app not work anymore. If that happens I will probably not use reddit again.

------
kristopolous
They're kinda going in the opposite direction of the industry.

Properties that were app only at one point, such as nextdoor, robinhood,
instagram and tinder, now have mobile and desktop interfaces that are almost
nearly all there.

It's a very 2013 era move

~~~
mywittyname
That's because they need to drive growth, and in established markets, desktop
still represents like half of all web traffic.

Venmo moved back to a mobile-preferred;crippled-desktop experience. So it is
possible that most of these properties will pull a similar move. Especially IG
and Tinder. Like with Venmo & Paypal, IG is the mobile-first version of
Facebook, and Tinder doesn't make much sense as a desktop product, outside of
maybe some messaging capabilities.

~~~
kristopolous
That's becoming old fashioned. An increasing number of people want to limit
their time with a platform and want to use a website to interface with it to
help themselves in that effort.

This is a thread with hundreds of comments, +95% of the people here have
either stopped using or dramatically deceased their use of reddit, it drove
shrink instead, vast, incredible de-growth.

They've certainly increased the number of children on the platform, which
_could_ be their goal but I don't buy that either, reddit is full of porno

Their Aaron Swartz days are long behind and they've become just another spammy
internet property run by buzzword speaking dunderheads with PowerPoint slides.

The force the app formula is stale and lots are migrating away from it

------
JackFr
Every time it comes up, I am reminded that I delted the Reddit app and why. It
was a tremendous time suck, with basically zero return on my time invested.
(As opposed to HN of course which is an everlasting fount of wisdom...)

------
baxtr
My hunch is that it’s way easier to track people in apps than on websites
these days.

------
cloudking
Everytime I use Reddit on Chrome mobile, eventually the videos and gifs will
stop playing. I have to restart Chrome to make it work again. Does anyone else
run into this problem and know how to fix it?

------
comprev
The amount of analytics data that can be pulled from mobile is insane. They
want to track everything you do. It's also less bandwidth as API calls can
just pull the necessary data to hydrate the screen.

------
zachrip
Imgur recently got the _exact_ same ui doing the _exact_ same stupid shit.

------
pgcj_poster
There's a part of me that's looking forward to the day that Reddit gets rid of
old.reddit.com, i.reddit.com, and third-party app support, because then it
will be easy for me quit Reddit.

------
rajup
Reddit is still better than some other websites (Yelp being the biggest
perpetrator), that open up the Play store link for their app when you click on
links. Annoying and rude.

------
csense
They care so much because they want to be able to track your location and
listen to your microphone for who-knows-what level of frightening analytics
and ad targeting.

------
sidcool
I even went on a twitter rant, didn't help. I left Reddit.

------
Justsignedup
All the business reasons:

\- on desktop adblockers are prevelant. On mobile not.

\- on desktop you can't send push notifications thus keeping engagement up.

\- Getting into the habit of using mobile apps gets engagement up.

------
tjpnz
What's sad is that the mobile app is perfectly usable and it's obvious that a
lot of thought and care has gone into it. I feel bad for the people
maintaining it.

~~~
dade_
I tried the app, but it doesn’t work for me at all. As a platform, Reddit is
very flexible and can be used in many different ways. Their app has been
designed for (or to create) social media crack babies that can’t stop swiping
and infinite feed of SMC (Social Media Crack). It isn’t designed to be useful
to users, so I assume it is designed to improve engagement metrics with an
Instagram effect.

In my simple case, I follow specific subreddits, but I check other ones from
time to time. The web browser is much easier to work with URLs on my phone. I
can go to specific reddit’s very easily by just typing in the URL on my phone
browser. Even better, there is still old.reddit.com which is much faster and
less glitchy (media not loading, complicated UI frames appearing resulting in
unexpected scrolling/zooming issues) than their new website for tablet and
desktop usage. Further, the new site constantly loses my place and resets to
the beginning of the subreddit losing my place.

The constant ads for the mobile app, and the automatic switching back to the
new app on browsers are a massive hurdle, so I do seek out alternatives.
However, there are some great communities and information on Reddit, so I will
keep using it until critical mass moves on.

------
t0mmyb0y
Reddit is a PoS platform owned by a company most of us revile.

------
quijoteuniv
Yeah, started avoiding reddit links just because of that and also because you
usually land somewhere else than what you where after and have to scroll. Not
interested

------
burgerrito
Life Pro Tips:

You can use their classic mobile site by going to i.reddit.com

------
InsomniacL
Reddit believe the engagement they get from the app and aggressively
advertising it outweighs the engagement lost from users who prefer to
disengage than install it.

------
zbjornson
Tip: You can turn that off!

Hamburger menu > settings > ask to open app

------
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Really Reddit isn't doing anything that isn't already a trend on the rest of
the web anyway. What you should be asking is why the web sucks so much.

------
onyva
Install lockdown on iOS. It’ll block ads anywhere i assume. It’s such an
hostile approach, like medium, I will never install their app or open an
account.

------
Angostura
Because 3rd Party apps don;t tend to show the ads, so they really want you to
get used to the official app and not be tempted away, would be my guess.

------
QuantumGood
On my old iPad mini, the app is unavailable, and therefore Reddit is
unavailable.

------
gwbas1c
Makes me wish we could have more browser plugins on mobile. On my desktop
browser I just use adblock to block annoying popup elements.

------
fareesh
Bacon reader is a pretty good no-frills client app

------
Fricken
For 5 or 6 years maybe I've been using the reddit is fun app, because I like
the UI and it doesn't pull any dirty tricks.

------
avasthe
Use i.reddit.com or use a lightweight open source client like redreader or
slide (for android, sure there is something for iOS)

------
throawayobvsly
Here's why I think this is actually good.

I used to be regular surfer of reddit's nsfw subreddit and also lurked around
randnsfw for quite a bit of time.

The simple idea that being able to open incognito and browse indulge in porn
and erase all (I mean most, uhh ahem) traces of your browsing activity is
quite soul destroying in my opinion.

The upside of this limitation even though it is extremely annoying is it stops
(to an extent) this mindless indulgence.

It actually made me be less addicted to reddit and the dark and wild usage
pattern.

------
crsv
So they can track you (the product) more effectively. You are worth more money
when exposing data accessible to native mobile.

------
nikk1
I still use the "redditisfun" third-party app on mobile. It hasn't changed in
the years that I've used it.

~~~
fredzel
It has changed its name, now it's "rif is fun"

------
alkonaut
For Reddit, just as with Twitter and several others, I’d recommend using a
third party client.

Apollo is an excellent Reddit client for iOS.

------
SergeAx
Ads (you can't block them in app) and notifications (you can block them, but
not that easy, especially on Android).

~~~
bostonpete
Why isn't it easy on Android? If you long press on any notification it gives
you the option to turn off all notifications from that app...

~~~
hutzlibu
But most users do not know that.

------
dcwca
Because the mobile application is a much better, richer and faster experience
for daily active users. For a casual user who is following a link from a
google search, perhaps the web version is better. Reddit would like to convert
users from the latter group to the former, because stickiness on their
platform is what drives revenue. It's not a public service that owes you free
information at ease, it's a business.

------
tones411
Turn off the prompt. Tap the menu at the top right of Reddit, go to Settings,
and uncheck Ask To Open In App.

------
spcebar
I wonder if these web design trends are more or less annoying than the Flash
banner ads/MSIE popup ads.

------
weaksauce
i use the apollo app on ios... it's quite fantastic and a much faster and
better user experience. can't attest to the official reddit app though.

other than that the reddit app wants you to use it because there is no ad
blocker and they can keep pulling you back in with push notifications.

------
bromuro
I am pretty sure i read once “this community can be visited only on mobile
app”. I thought it was a joke?

------
MaggieL
The same reason Facebook and Linkedin do the same thing. They get more access
to your personal data.

------
heavyset_go
It drives up their mobile metrics, and they can track you better and show you
more ads via the app.

------
stevewillows
it's annoying, but you can go to the hamburger menu in the top right >
settings > and uncheck 'ask to use app'. Leave this tab open in the background
and you won't be prompted again.

There's also i.reddit.com, which works really well.

------
riazrizvi
[https://old.reddit.com](https://old.reddit.com)

It’s hassle free.

------
TiccyRobby
I use Slide from fdroid. It really has all the features I would want and is
very customizable.

------
ffggvv
one answer i haven’t seen mentioned is because mobile web is another platform
they have to maintain. and it requires a lot of dev work to make sure every
new feature works there instead of simply saying it’s unsupported and pushing
people to the app

------
billars
this summer I uninstalled the app and only browse their website on mobile,
apart being able not to crash the whole browser as the app does, it permitted
me to spend less time on reddit and detox a little..also the website seems
faster to open posts.

------
rdtwo
Between reddit mobile and google amp the reddit experience has been truly
horrible

------
st3fan
Because apps can display apps more easily and can collect (more) data more
easily.

------
pmarreck
I'd love to see how many people are on old.reddit.com vs. the primary site.

------
waltbosz
I have a theory that states "monetization ruins everything"

------
greyhair
The web works so well, why would anyone install an app? Makes no sense.

------
system2
I've been using narwhal for years and had no issues. Highly recommended.

------
manoj_venkat92
Yep, I'm not on reddit anymore. Ciao, Reddit. Twitter is way better.

------
nerbert
Go to your settings and ask them to stop prompting you to use their app.

------
SebastianKra
Why does every popular "Ask HN"-Post receive so many reports?

------
m3kw9
Makes me not want it and think they don’t know how to do any marketing.

------
geocrasher
Reddit is a wart on the butt of the Internet. Why bother to begin with.

------
msoad
Media consumption is all about retention. Websites are not good for retention.
Apps are super efficient. I finally gave up and installed the iOS app. Even my
conscious self couldn't resist the icon on my home screen and I visit the app
almost every day.

~~~
bromuro
Trying to avoid these psychological tricks became a constant in my experience
with my iPhone. Notifications were just the begin for the retention
sociologists. Now Is like... much more subtle and well thought, as the modern
stupid shows in television.

(I am addicted to a game from apple app store that is slowly becoming a
gambling game. I realized how well thought is this kind of brainwashing and i
feel cheated)

------
phtevus
It's becoming infuriating as the mobile experience is god-awful.

------
golergka
Same reason why Google always releases new projects and then quietly closes
then a couple of years later: politics.

Some product manager at Reddit has his perfomance measured by app adoption,
and not by the reputation of the company and future of it's service.

------
dgellow
In cas you want to remove the popup:

1\. Go to the website on mobile

2\. go to Settings

3\. Uncheck “ask to open in app”

------
aarkay
The reasons company do end up with experiences like this is because they
optimize for what they can measure and unfortunately user discontent with such
experiences is often delayed or hard to measure.

Large companies which have a diverse user base in the hundreds of millions
make decisions based on how a particular change affects the entire user
population. The larger their user population, the more diverse their user base
is and the harder it gets to cater to the needs of each type of user. The
folks commenting here are a vocal minority, an important one given many people
here are probably early adopters and also have the skills needed to build a
Reddit competitor, but it's hard to see the reactions of this minority on a
dashboard. A problem worth solving IMO but non trivial.

Typically initiatives like this come from a team within the company who's
objective is to improve a key metric, in this case let's say user engagement.
Some individual in the team probably spotted the trend that users on the app
are more engaged than users on mobile web browsers. They then launched an
experiment to test getting users over to the mobile app. Many users who end up
on reddit via SEO probably don't know that reddit has an app and on seeing
this end up downloading the app which makes them more engaged with reddit.
Overall on the dashboard this shows up as a win where user engagement in the
enabled group is up compared to the control and given that they give users an
option to continue using the web app there is not a significant user drop. At
this point, a decision needs to be made on whether to ship this change or not
to ship. Folks making this decision do understand that it might be annoying to
some people but the data in this case overwhelmingly supports a ship decision.
They talk about it, mention their reservations, but eventually make a decision
given the data and don't think about it anymore. They also don't have to feel
the pain as most employees have the reddit app installed and don't see this
again and again.

The key thing to know here is that there are lots of incentives in the company
to make this decision a ship decision vs a no-ship decision - the data, the
success of the team, the success of the individual who pioneered this change
but there is not enough evidence or visible push from users to not make this
change. Let's say there are some customer reports for this but unless they
reach a very high volume no one is going to notice it.

Posts and discussions like this are actually a great way to get your word
known to companies. This will probably stir a conversation in the team that
made this change and hopefully bring out some change in the experience. Don't
expect it to go away but maybe they will remember your preference of not
wanting to use the app.

------
RocketSyntax
Especially when you can redirect to apps or open apps with links

------
HeavyStorm
I do like the app, but the prompts are completely abnoxious.

------
samstave
I only exclusively use old.reddit.com in browser on mobile.

------
SeanBean62
I’m done with Reddit- please somehow keep this thing going

------
satisfaction
I still use old.reddit.com. new reddit is sooooooooo slow

------
ptman
Lemmy is an interesting federated alternative to reddit.

------
frozenlettuce
The app interface is optimized to serve ads, not content

------
ykevinator
I think it's because they want push notifications

------
arkanciscan
Because we live in the worst possible timeline

------
knob
Try this: old.reddit.com/r/$foo

A little bit cleaner.

------
honksillet
If you must use Reddit, use Alien Blue.

------
otabdeveloper4
To collect your data and show you ads.

------
WMCRUN
While we’re at it, have you met Yelp?

------
mottiden
To sell you more targeted ads, sadly

------
negina
To get your data through the app.

------
michelb
Harder to block ads in the app.

------
1024core
Reddit is busy building a Trumpian wall around itself. You can't export images
easily; you can't get a link to shareable videos. You can't browse on a
browser on a mobile device, they just simply won't let you.

On the content side: moderators are becoming more and more authoritarian: they
hand out bans if you don't toe "their" line. Diversity of opinion is frowned
upon.

It's a dumpster fire.

------
avipars
Because the 3rd party clients have their own ads... now reddit wants to get
more income and control over their mobile counterparts

------
api
To spy on you. Why else?

------
hankchinaski
some shit PM must have thought that was a good thing to add

------
croh
Same with quora !

------
FirstLvR
even oldreddit is better than reddit itself

------
aj7
Reddit:

1\. Amateur porn aggregators. 2\. Financial noobs with Robinhood accounts.

Fight me.

~~~
haunter
HN: holier than thou rich white men on high horse

~~~
aj7
You’re not wrong.

------
rorykoehler
Ads

~~~
blickentwapft
Explained in three sad letters.

------
caevv
what’s the issue with using their app?

------
naringas
tiktok is better for memes anyways

------
gsich
It's called asshole design.

------
gr2zr4
“We know that Redditors are so privacy-conscious,” says Victoria Taylor,
director of Communications at Reddit, referring to the site’s community of
registered users. So privacy-conscious, indeed. A number of sub-Reddits, which
are user-made discussion and link-sharing forums, are devoted to the practice
of online privacy tactics, education, and information. A noble Redditor
respects “Reddiquette,” refusing to reveal the personal information of a
fellow Redditor.

[https://geomarketing.com/reddits-safe-play-in-the-game-of-
ge...](https://geomarketing.com/reddits-safe-play-in-the-game-of-geo-
targeting)

