As quoted from the linked post.
It looks like you’re part of one of our experiments. The logged-in mobile web experience is currently unavailable for a portion of users. To access the site you can log on via desktop, the mobile apps, or wait for the experiment to conclude.
This is separate from the API issue. This will actually BLOCK you from even viewing reddit on your phone without using the official app.
Archive.org link in case the post is removed.
Reddit finding ways to actively make things worse, while lemmy rapidly improves.
Finding ways to shove more ads in your face and make tons of money. The issue is super simple at the end of the day.
It almost looks like Reddit is trying to commit suicide in the fastest possible way.
I still have an account there. But I will delete it the moment the Apollo goes dark.
Unfortunately, non of this will matter. There are too many mindless zombies OK with consuming garbage content.
That’s okay, kinda a fresh start for the rest of us who do migrate! It’s an evolution process and we are adapting and so hopefully reap the benefits of quality content and real interactions!
They already made the mobile site practically unusable by constantly reminding you to use the app. The mobile browsing experience was just terrible. They can just show the same adds in the mobile browser…
I’d guess they’re trying to proactively prevent people from using adblock on mobile browsers.
Precisely. They can only enforce ads on the mobile app
Ironically, I’d just set my browser to desktop mode, and use the old reddit desktop interface. The more they modernized, the more entrenched I become.
ahahaha the reason I finally stopped using Yelp was because their mobile site would only load part of a review and would force redirect to their app if you tried to expand on any reviews. Rather than download the app or change user agent, I just gave up.
every website and their mother wants you to download their app nowadays.
Jeez. The speed at which I’ve gone from “man it sucks that Apollo is shutting down but I still really enjoy Reddit and will suffer the first-party client” to “wow, Reddit is really trying to destroy their service and it’s probably best I don’t invest any more time there” is insane… going to draft up some thoughts and a probable farewell message for my frequented subs and followers there. End of an era.
Stages of grief Speedrun any%
It’s getting worse by the minute. I really really hope Lemmy usage picks up.
It seriously is. I’ve been on the site for all of 30 mins now and I am loving it so much more than reddit
Why? It’s a less mature platform with less features and not enough content. I get the idea of it being attractive but it’s like Mastadon without the content you’ve got an uphill climb.
Because it doesn’t actively try to make your experience worse
The problems with lemmy are actively trying to be solved, the problems with reddit are artificially created in order to make the user miserable.
I’m loving it, there isn’t half as much karma farming bs and pointless arguing in any of the subs I’ve joined. The content will come if folks don’t give in and go back.
The main reason is that although the concessions we make may seem ever so insignificant, they pile up and dettach you from what you were looking for in the first place. You barely see your acquaintances posts on instagram or facebook anymore. Twitter is on it’s way to become a cesspool. Every new Reddit “feature” just makes the experience worse. It won’t be long for those platforms to all converge into a big mind grinder for propaganda.
In fediverse there is no valuation seeking to ruin things, and there won’t be for the foreseeable future, so it’s good ground to build upon, it’s just good sense.
Take the content problem for example. You can think of that as an opportunity to be the content you want to see.
It feels a lot more snappy, clean, and modern. I think most of that is because it hasn’t accumulated a lot of the bloat and feature creep that Reddit has over the years. The biggest downside, though, is that the community is much smaller and there isn’t a lot of the niche content that Reddit is so good for.
As soon as more of those niche communities start to pop up, there won’t be much reason not to use it over Reddit. It’s like a back-to-basics version of Reddit.
Exactly. Every advantage I hear that Reddit has over Lemmy comes from the community, not the platform. Add or move those communities to Lemmy and I don’t think people will see much reason to use Reddit.
The struggle is going to be getting the community to actually move over here.
Like it or not, Lemmy takes work to use and understand. It’s not the best metaphor, but Lemmy is a custom built PC whereas Reddit is a plug-and-play console. Mix that with the growing pains new platforms need to go through, and it’ll be tricky to pull new people in.
It took me about 20-30 minutes to get a handle on what’s going on, and hopefully it gets simpler as more people join!
Maybe I already had the right models in my brain, but for me I just created an account and started using it like reddit. Only thing different are the different servers.
Yeah but, referencing your analogy, if you want knowledgeable and informative conversation, you want to talk to your custom PC buddy, not the friends who only know how to plug and play. The comments sections on Lemmy are not dumpster fires like on Reddit
Well, for startes, the mobile web version does not sucks balls, I don’t see that as baby steps tbh.
It’s a less mature platform with less features and not enough content.
Well… that’s kinda why I like it lol
Yeah, there’s a really nice feel to when dealing with something simply.
spoiler
plus, instead of remembering all the key combines, you can click below which is diff from reddit app. Finally, accidental spoilers are no more!
It’s a less mature platform with less features
That’s why I like it. It literally has every feature I used or wanted on reddit already.
Lemmy is better than mastodon, for me at least. There was nothing interesting going on at mastodon, but Lemmy is thriving.
And there was a time when the same could be said for Reddit. Is Lemmy perfect? Of course not, but at least we have the ability to build something better instead of making the hippo dance to our beat, as it were.
Not to mention there’s a lot of those features that have been added over the years that we could do without. Nobody’s clamoring for an RPAN clone over here (I hope), or for three different ways to DM/chat with people.
What sort of content do you want? I’m fine with what’s her right now, but I’m more about discussion and knowledge.
Less mature and much less far along (and susceptible to) the enshittification curve.
It’s like they’re trying to kill the platform
They didn’t have a mobile app for the longest time, that’s why 3rd party became so popular. They just don’t seem to get how to run it.
Yeah, maybe it’s an exit scam. I bet some executive said, “I’ll give the higher up execs what they think they want (ADS) which is the opposite of what the users want, but we’ll all get bonuses just before the site dies.”
It’s unbelievable how’s user hostile all of these major site have become. I deleted my 11 year old Reddit account today and while it hurt a little it’s important that we send a message and not use Reddit at least until they repeal this bullshit.
Same! I deleted my 10 year account. Kinda not even sad. It was going downhill for a while now. But hey I just created my own instance for gardeners called thegarden.land so now I have a new home to grow roots and thrive!
I’m pretty sure I’m going to delete my three year and ten year accounts and just walk away for good. Honestly I was a little sad all day today, because I have a few hobbies I’m really crazy about and the cooking, baking, gemstone, and gardening communities have felt like home for a long time…but just using lemmy for a tiny little bit, I’m actually really excited! I’m having a much simpler experience here that’s refreshing. I like the content I’m reading.
Fellow account 10+ year deleter checking in! It sucks but reddit doesn’t care about any of its users despite us being the only reason it exists.
Nice! Just joined 🤓
Hey from the Garden! We had to restart the site last night. Having some difficulties getting off the ground. I think we lost all our users! Were you one of them? Could I ask you to try there again and tell me if things are working okay, if you still are logged in, etc ? I Appreciate the help. Thegarden.land
All working fine from my end 🙂
Great! Thank you
Is there a way to follow this instance directly from the Jerboa app? Sorry to be daft, clicking the link seems to take me directly to a chrome tab :(
You should be able to add it as an account, I think from the top left when you are the main feed.
Edit : went and checked, there’s a down arrow next to your name when you hit the menu icon, hit it and you should be able to add an account on a different instance
Fellow plant enthusiast here, thanks for the link to your instance!
Nice new instance! I’ll come check it out and subscribe to a community. I just made a new one yesterday too, Lemmy.pro
They’re not gonna repeal anything. The only thing that will stop this is by Reddit dying and becoming a part of web history, which is hopefully on its way to happening.
And even if they do back down this time, the next lamebrain attempt at the same thing will be brewing. Let it burn.
Wow, they’re really putting some effort into alienating their user base. What a shame.
It’s great news when the social media oligopoly shoots themselves in the foot.
So far I’ve tried:
- Facebook = Diaspora
- Irc = Matrix (Element)
- Reddit = Lemmy
- Twitter = Mastodon
Out of all the different federated solutions I’ve tried, I believe this one has the best chance to hit big. Diaspora didn’t work because the network effect is too strong with Facebook. Same with Matrix and Mastodon. But reddit is pseudoanonymous platform, you are not here because of some specific people. It’s actually somewhat a benefit when there are less people and you have more room for people to see the content you put out. And the quality of the discussion can be better when there are fewer people.
It’s still likely that everyone will just go back to reddit but we have a good chance here. The Lemmy UI is actually better and more snappy for someone who has used old reddit all this time.
I’m also an old.reddit / RiF veteran and I love the mobile browser version. Already feels like home!
The mobile browser experience in Lemmy is so much better than Reddit. I’m pleased there’s no need for an app, because it works fine in the browser.
Same feelings / background here. Navigation will take me a little to grok, but I’m liking it so far.
I may myself go back to Reddit. My girlfriend loves the cat pictures I aend her from there. I’ll just stop moderating and creating content, only accessing the site on Desktop with adblocker. I ain’t giving a single fucking cent to them, even indirectly, if I can avoid it.
Funny thing is. If we all banded together. Sire would stop functioning. Just bits replying to each other.
Same In real life. If everyone strikes we could stop corruption. If everyone did something the game is over. We don’t and do it’s divide and conquer. Same as it ever was
It does feel like there a a significant level of friction with each of these equivalent platforms though, including Lemmy. As with anything new it’ll take time to catch on but each layer of complexity will be another stopping point for non-tech people.
I only just started with Lemmy, but the only thing I’ve noticed that needs improvement is discovering and subscribing to communities. This business of searching in a second browser window for communities from other instances and then copying the URL into your own instance’s search box is way too clunky. Lemmy needs a way for each instance to carry metadata about the other instances’ communities so you can subscribe to them just by searching for their names and pressing a button.
Of course they are, gotta make everyone use the shitty app to farm as much data as possible!
I literally just had an instance of opening a nsfw reddit link from a Google search and it informed me that I could only see nsfw posts in the app…
It has been that way for a while. Anything where you have to confirm you’re over 18 will not display unless you’re logged in.
The mobile browsing experience was a huge shitshow anyway. Randomly refreshing webpage, comments never posting or posting 5 times, expanding comments would work sometimes. They actively nuked it to make people use the reddit app. Fuck them
Randomly refreshing webpage
What is it with almost every modern website constantly refreshing until it errors out on my phone? I always just assumed it was because I blocked trackers and they just gave up trying to display their cancerous page.
Why make the mobile experience good when every single website wants you to download an app?
Well, at least you could send a link to a friend who doesn’t have a Reddit account and they could view it. Now they’d be greeted with a friendly “install the app or get out” screen, and let’s be real, they wouldn’t install a whole app just to view the occasional link you’d send them.
I did use the desktop view + Old Reddit + no previews just fine for the past 10 years, but yeah, the mobile view is garbage with a capital “gag”.
Damn they turning into quora
I gave up on quora exactly for this reason lol.
I always hated quora, but somehow they got even worse.
Not surprised. They need to milk every last drop of revenue from their users free content for the upcoming IPO.
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.
It is not super difficult to do the same type of blocking with a router on software like OpenWRT. This can easily block all of the 3rd party ads type junk. The thing I can’t quite figure out is what they are able to do on their server connection. It seems like they are able to setup their own proxy and impact other traffic on the same network when they should be far more sandboxed, but I can’t prove that.
Someone REALLY needs to make fully open source and transparent mobile hardware and put Qualcomm under the bus… on a high speed looping track. We have no idea what is really possible under the hood on any existing mobile device. Both the processor and the modem are mostly black boxes. Even with the best custom ROMs like Graphene OS, the whole premise is based on developing a verifiable chain of trust on top of untrusted hardware we don’t control.
The thing people fail to put together is that this is an issue of ownership; theft of ownership. Now we are seeing the first layers of neo digital feudalism emerging as a result of the theft.
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?
The whole blackout thing is super interesting, and to my knowledge it’s the biggest protest of it’s kind since Reddit hit the mainstream. I can’t imagine it kills Reddit soon though. It’s just the start of a brain-drain that will make Reddit lose relevancy over the next 5 to 10 years, and they’ll wonder where they went wrong. Even I’ll probably keep my alt account there, but the days of actually contributing will end for many.
But also fuck spez ;)
I deleted my 10 year and 5 year old accounts. I didn’t purge my posts and comments, as I doubt they’re truly deleted from the database and I wanted to leave that content for people who aren’t reddit. I’ve moved to the fediverse, andi think I’m here to stay.
Already deleted any accounts I had. Overwrote all comments with this tool too.
deleted by creator
Make sure it actually overwrote all your comments. PowerDeleteSuite doesn’t respect the edit rate limit. I used a fork which runs much slower but respects the limit.
Also, it’s a good idea to wait several days between the editing and deleting your account. Many users on reddit were suggesting that reddit holds on to pre-edit text for a while. Obviously archives hold onto it forever, but if your goal is to deny your content to reddit, that’s orthogonal.
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.
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.
They act like everyone already uses reddit and the users are so addicted they’ll put up with anything.
To be honest, this may actually be true for a significant portion of the userbase.
It’s funny because this is a huge issue with Pinterest and googling images, so many people automatically add -pinterest to their search terms so it’s completely blocked from the search results. Wonder if someday that’ll be reddit too.
They act like everyone already uses reddit and the users are so addicted they’ll put up with anything.
It seems like a lot of users are. I deleted my Reddit account (for whatever good that does) but have gone back to peek a few times - very few people seem to care. The black out, the app shenanigans, the power-mad mods; it’s just a minor inconvenience. API, IPO, VC, what’s that? Just gimme my crude humor and canned outrage!!
Most active users though are lurking voters only, or not logged in at all, and don’t comment/post. When they leave, it won’t be as obvious. And the more contributing users leave, the more the only ones left and talking will be the ones who don’t care.
I think a lot of people are riding the sinking ship all the way down and planning to bail on the 30th, when the apps are actually banned, too. Probably enjoying the drama of it and not realizing they could be enjoying the drama of it from, like, over here on dry land instead.
But yeah. There’ll be people who put up with it for now, or who join after and missed the whole controversy, or who straight up don’t care at all.
I think there’ll be these initial waves of people who can see the writing on the wall leaving, then after that there’ll be a steady trickle of people abandoning ship over time, with spikes whenever the next outrageous thing happens, and the whole thing will collapse gradually, perhaps over years.
Although, people have been saying that since Ellen Pao and Voat… 😅
I think you’re right to a point, but also, the whole fragmented fediverse thing is going to have to… at least be simplified if the “lurking voter” mainstream are going to end up here.
Me (enthusiastically):
“It’s federated, so you have to choose an instance! They’re all different, but they can all talk to each other! Some of them have different rules. Oh, and they can all have their own ‘videos’ community, so you have to decide which ones you want to follow. Also some of the instances are kbin and some are Lemmy, but most likely the website you log into won’t be called either of those things. And if you don’t curate your own frontpage (which doesn’t even show your subs by default) you’ll just see everything at once!”Average Internet user (starting a new Facebook account because they forgot their password):
“reddit dot com has funny gifs on it”
Yeah. There are a ridiculous amount of users that just use the official app and don’t really care about 3PAs or the whole API situation.
It’s a shame. I remember the old Reddit before all the redesign and other crap they added.
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.
