
Reddit gets its app to 50m Play Store downloads - arbhassan
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/09/02/reddit-gets-its-app-to-50-million-play-store-downloads-mostly-by-making-the-mobile-web-experience-miserable/
======
jchw
I can only imagine half of the downloads came from people trying to select the
“web” option on the popup and missing.

On a serious note, it must really be a good strategy to utterly ruin the web
experience, if you want to get more people on your app, because its been the
hot new thing for a while. At least with Reddit, third party clients are well-
supported, unlike say Twitter. I use Apollo on iOS.

~~~
nanagojo
The twitter dark pattern of forcing you to refresh is so stupid

~~~
fouc
What is that all about?!

I've been wondering, every time I click a twitter link in iOS from say slack,
I get the stupid partial load and then the refresh message.

~~~
guessmyname
Twitter UI uses a token to authenticate all operations with their own API.

When you use the mobile application the token is refreshed automatically.

When you use the web version it does the same but only if you are logged in.

It happens to me all the time. I don’t use Twitter myself but many people in
my circle of friends and colleagues do. They constantly share stuff that is
posted on Twitter and almost every time I click these links I get the error
message because the token in my web browser storage has been invalidated, so I
have to reload the page one or two times to force the UI to request a new
token so I can see the content and then forget about Twitter for a couple of
hours until another friend or colleague shares another link and the circle
repeats again.

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rayalez
In addition to that google's AMP made reddit totally unusable, after clicking
on a link it kept taking me to logged out version which hides most of the
comments, and sorts them by "best".

Remember that there's an [https://old.reddit.com](https://old.reddit.com), it
still works great, I use only this version now. There are browser extensions
that automatically redirect you to the old version (not on mobile,
unfortunately).

~~~
kinow
Yeah, I thank everyday I'm able to browse with old.reddit. Tried a few times
on mobile, but it's really hard to use old.reddit on the small screen. The new
web interface is OK on mobile, a bit slow.

~~~
strombofulous
i.reddit.com is very good for mobile

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mikkom
One hidden gem that many people don't know about (and which I prefer over
apps) is....

[http://i.reddit.com](http://i.reddit.com)

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threatofrain
You can still find the older but better web version at old.reddit.com.

~~~
agumonkey
set in my options as default and never ever wanted more

~~~
Zamicol
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-
redirec...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-
redirect/dneaehbmnbhcippjikoajpoabadpodje?hl=en-US)

~~~
strombofulous
And
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowse...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowser.browser)
so you can install that extension on your phone

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varbhat
Use

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

[https://github.com/QuantumBadger/RedReader](https://github.com/QuantumBadger/RedReader)

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

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

------
swarnie_
The app is probably the only reason Reddit has any commercial value.

The website version is almost unusable without old.reddit.com and a
reformatting/feature adding plug-in called RES. I have to assume there is a
huge crossover between people who will seek out plugins and people who run ad
blocks or VPNs. I'd love to see a breakdown of just how little Reddit make per
user on ads on the web based site.

This is before we begin to discuss the major functional problems with
Reddit...

\- Any community over 5k-10k users dips in quality extremely quickly.

\- Any unprepared sub which gets randomly hurled on to the top of /r/all will
have issues for weeks if not months after.

\- Geo related subs reflect the actual locations so poorly its an
embarrassment to the city/country.

\- The voting system which along with subscriber growth only helps speed up
the hivemind effect.

\- Finally powermods who seem to treat reddit as a second job, manipulating a
large amount of the content based on their own personal feelings.

~~~
dageshi
"Nobody goes there any more, there's too many people..."

~~~
swarnie_
"The people who used to go no longer turn up because the quality has dropped
so far"

Take a look at /r/investing, its the same 4-5 companies and the same boring
daily questions.

~~~
dageshi
Well yes, that's the nature of reddit and has been since subreddits were
introduced. There's always been a tension between newbies coming in and making
identical posts asking identical questions and the people who've been there
longer who're bored of seeing the same questions asked day after day.

Usually there's some attempt to ban the newbie posts to make the sub more
interesting for the more experienced participants, but this cuts off the
supply of new posters and the sub begins to decline. Alternatively more
knowledgable people get bored and drift away.

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emptyfile
I user Reddit Is Fun app religiously for the past 5 years.

The moment they decide to cripple 3rd party apps is probably when I'm quitting
reddit. Don't even get me started on the new design which I opted out of.

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laurencei
Ironically Reddit ruining the mobile experience and pushing to use their app
so badly forced me to download a 3rd party App to read Reddit (Apollo).

By doing this I no longer see any Reddit ads.

If they hadnt pushed so hard to use their app and ruin the entire Reddit
mobile experience, I would still probably just be browsing on their website
(which would give them some ad eyes).

Now I'll never switch back - Apollo is just awesome for Reddit.

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drivingmenuts
Reddit isn’t a high enough priority in my life to warrant having a specific
app for it, and I prefer a browser for most websites. I do have banking apps
and a couple of other types, but it just seems like a waste of space just to
browse a website.

Pretty much the only reason I have a Reddit account is so I can filter the
feed.

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mrbonner
How could I disable Google AMP for reddit searches completely :)

I’m more annoyed of that than their mobile site.

~~~
cvhashim
Stop using google search :P

~~~
mrbonner
You are right. I tried Bing and the results are without the AMP links crap.
Now, I just need to figure out how to force reddit links to i.reddit.com from
Bing search!

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gnicholas
Is there a way for the content blockers on iOS to block the annoying app
download banners (used by Reddit, LinkedIn, and so many others)? I would pay
99¢ for an app that did a good job of blocking all of these.

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mcintyre1994
I'm amazed that Reddit still has such an open API that you can build apps that
are far better than their own, and yet they make the mobile web experience so
bad to try to push people toward the app.

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r721
Recent reddit app discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208958)

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arbhassan
Seems like this post got shadowbanned. It doesn't appear on the front page nor
the second or third. while posts with way less points and comment activity are
visible. Also the title got changed from the original one.

