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Reddit experimenting with blocking mobile browsers
(old.reddit.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Technology
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It's one thing to test a new idea or a UX tweak or similar on a small portion of users - but just turning off a key way to access your service is so just so weird to me. How many of Reddit's decisions at this point are some version of, "hey, how angry do they get? What can we get away with?"
People need to understand that this is about tracking your eyeballs. Reddit viewed on a webpage does not provide the metadata they want. What metadata does the app provide? Things you wouldn't think about wanting as a human, but the aggregate is very valuable.
Stuff like how long did you watch that video Ad? Where did you click on screen and at what time? What content were you viewing and what course of action did you take to get there? Web viewing only shows the landing page you arrived on reddit from and the exit page that took you away from reddit. Performing these actions in the app provides metadata cookie crumbs like a trail of roach shit to every single thing you've done on reddit in micro activities.
I'm not sure. I've worked at companies using amplitude and hotjar that can record all click event and sessions on web
Users can block those with extensions so the data isn't as reliable
That's probably a big part. Web browsers can do ad blocking. Within the official Reddit app that's way more difficult.
Funneling the herd into the slaughterhouse.
Users can block those on desktop without issue. On mobile it's a bit harder so most people I know don't even if they use ublock or something on their PCs/laptops (though that is of course only anecdotal).
So if anything if that was the issue they should've shut off support for the desktop version LOL /s
It's a bizzare move though, given that basically every other social media in the world doesn't block mobile browsers.
Not blocking but LinkedIn pushes mobile browsers towards their app.
Facebook infamously does for Messenger. But yes, I think it's a sign of their desperation.
Bruh, I agree. I'm super interested to see the fallout of the community from this. I know it's super easy to say "fuck /u/spez", but how many people will truly pull through to delete their accounts and/or stop using reddit?
Already deleted any accounts I had. Overwrote all comments with this tool too.
https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
@gravalicious @Sintamo
Gotta weigh in here and say overwriting comments like that can hurt the end user more than it hurts Reddit. A lot of traffic to Reddit is intentional, with posts and comments showing up in search results from ddg/google. I know I've found my own posts from troubleshooting the same issue years later. Sure, delete/overwrite comparatively useless comments and posts, but leave up other useful content and use an ad blocker instead. That will hurt them more than deleting content, but still allow others to find the info they need.
It's true that it will hurt people long term but it will drive traffic away more than deleting the inane stuff. No website like that should be such a central repo when it's unstable like this. The internet has survived link rot and info loss before.
The more I look at this mess, the more I see elements of speedrunning. Reddit is really trying very hard to loose as many users as possible as fast as possible. It’s as if there’s a competition between Reddit and Twitter.
It's so completely wild and backwards. Imagine your not a reddit user, but a search leads you to a reddit link, and you're on your phone. You see all this stuff about downloading the app instead, and you're just going to bail, never reading the post. If there was no friction, they may have converted a new user.
They act like everyone already uses reddit and the users are so addicted they'll put up with anything.
They’re going to do the Instagram thing where you can view a teaser but then it forces you to the app.
Mean there were times when I was logged out of Reddit and was trying looking up something on mobile and the constant badgering to install the app just had me tell it to flip off and I looked elsewhere instead. Lot of people tend to do things based on how convenient it is for them and if they go ahead with this, sure maybe some will download the app but a lot of other people will just get fed up and stop, particularly if they were using the browser version so they didn't have to deal with the app in the first place.
To be honest, this may actually be true for a significant portion of the userbase.
Quora, basically.
I don't think I've ever successfully read one of those, because Google brings me to the site and then it demands I log in. They even go so far as to blur all the content. It's really really stupid.