Reddit experimenting with blocking mobile browsers

lynny@lemmy.world to Technology@beehaw.org – 184 points –
old.reddit.com

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.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230611224026/https://old.reddit.com/r/help/comments/135tly1/helpdid_reddit_just_destroy_mobile_browser_access/jim40zg/

184

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%

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...

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Not surprised. They need to milk every last drop of revenue from their users free content for the upcoming IPO.

Of course they are, gotta make everyone use the shitty app to farm as much data as possible!

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Lemmy is better than mastodon, for me at least. There was nothing interesting going on at mastodon, but Lemmy is thriving.

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.

It’s a less mature platform with less features and not enough content.

Well... that's kinda why I like it lol

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.

It's like they're trying to kill the platform

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."

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

Same feelings / background here. Navigation will take me a little to grok, but I'm liking it so far.

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.

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 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.

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

TBH this is nothing new. They already randomly restrict you from viewing any type of nsfw content on the mobile browser version. It prompts you to download the app with no option to close the prompt.

Oh yeah, i noticed and it pissed me off so much. Thank god people made stuff like viewditt, where you just need to replace parts of the URL to at least see the content. Regardless terrible user experience that gets worse each year.

Some asshole at Deloitte is going to make a ton of money writing case studies about this.

And someone from McKinsey & Co. is currently making money from this as a consultant

Don't worry, PwC will make a ton of money when they're asked to help cut costs after this crashes and burns.

Damn now this is just next level bullshit. I thought that even if I can't use Infinity anymore I can still access reddit through a firefox mobile with adblock and privacy addons to make the ux somewhat bearable.

So..

Destroy reddit speedrun any% [WORLD RECORD]

Yeah the desktop site especially is why i wanted to leave reddit for the past few months, im happy they shot themselves in the foot the past week so we could move over to a different platform. I kept having to switch back to old.reddit just to see a NSFW post without an account, they made it so you cant even sort comments anymore without being logged in recently. Just malicious design. The website on mobile has been shit for years now asking you to USE THE MOBILE APP.

I'm really hoping for Infinity for Lemmy... My first experience with reddit was from Infinity. That app is great.

The dev posted on r/Infinty_For_Reddit that he's gonna try a subscription model first, and that he personally doesn't use Lemmy, so there's no Infinity for Lemmy client in the works, although he says that making Infinity For Lemmy should be easy with the API Proxy that the Lemmy Developers are making

link to the full post

Honestly this is so absurd it's funny. Peak business brain to think that people in 2023 are willing to download an app and register an account to simply access content.

Some of the Reddit community is outright hostile to the fediverse and decentralization in general. Apparently the lot of us are too nerdy over here.

I am absolutely fine with that crowd staying far, far away from us. If they like where Reddit is going, fine, by all means let them stay there.

Man, he's so professional. He gives answers that I'd expect a very experienced PR person to give, yet he's just a single-man operation developer.

"old.reddit.com isn't going anywhere"

-- a spez lie

If it stays, I assume it's because spez himself uses it

Reddit's unwavering stubbornness to continue spiraling is just plain sad. What a way to go.

Reddit had so much community favor too. The whole awards thing was born from people wanting support the website. If they really struggle to make money could have rolled out an optional subscription or something with a message that everyone would have fallen for. The incompetence is incredible.

This is the natural result of having MBAs make any decision

Having already rather violently shot himself in both feet, spez has started aiming for his other body parts.

This... is dumb. Reddit gets traffic from people using it as a secondary search engine to get relevant answers.

Most people on the Internet view it from mobile. Reddit already makes their mobile experience genuinely awful despite this. Blocking it entirely?

The herding to their mobile app is so transparent (and DEFINITELY through stick, not carrot) I'm morbidly curious to see what horrible things they planning to put in their app that they know users will loathe, that requires their alternatives to be zero.

Never thought that reddit would make so many gaffes to push me to use... bing chatgpt search.

It doesn't even work! When you google something and then are forced onto the app it just sends you onto the home page! not the one you were originally on!

They can't even figure out deep links?

Yikes this is so insane. I'm so sick of the ads and spyware laden apps. Once you look into that abyss it's hard to unsee it. It's uncomfortable to have every aspect of you monetized and viewed. It's unnatural man. I just started hardening my internet and device use this year.

Yeah. I've been conscious of it too. Moderately anyway. Ublock, pihole, vpn, browser containers, etc... It feels so bizarre that your entire online presence can be used to profile your existence for corporations to try and bleed every ounce of you for profit. I hate it. There are some good privacy communities on here already. Running my own instance and seeing ublock and pihole block literally nothing from Lemmy is incredible. This is pretty much what I wanted. Pure community. Sure there is some small technical stuff to iron out but it's like 90% there... Already.

Between this and Twitter, I feel like "enshittification" is really the word of the past year. It's incredible to watch these massive social networks completely turn on their users in the name of profit.

They were always going to. The pre-enshittification stage of a modern capitalist website consists of burning VC money to collect users to later exploit.

Twitter probably opened the floodgates when they managed to shaft users and cut API access without outright killing themselves. Now everyone else is emboldened to ask "why can't we do that too?".

I know Netflix has been enshitifying for a while now but that's accelerated a bit this year too. I work in tech and it's been happening everywhere.

Forgot about Netflix! Yeah they've got to be pretty close to late-stage enshittification at this point. They can only raise their prices so much while simultaneously removing content before they completely lose their users.

Unbelievable. Are they actively trying to get as many people as possible to leave their platform all together?

In a weird way, they probably are - I guess they figure that users who don't see any/many ads are not contributing to Reddit's finances, while still causing Reddit costs in terms of bandwidth, etc. In which case it makes sense to get rid of them (a bit like having an email database with 100000 people on it, but only 5000 of them ever open the emails - if you have to pay more to store those 95000 who don't, then it makes some sense to rid of them.)

Problem is, how many of those who view on old or on 3PAs are the ones making/sharing the content that brings eyes to their ads in the first place - maybe they've analysed it and decided that the loss of goodwill and incoming content from those people is more than offset by the savings to be made in having a smaller but more captive audience?

They might be right - but I hope not, because they've acted like dicks.

Seems like it’s a race to become the most hated platform. Twitter started a bit earlier, but Reddit is catching up really well.

I hate when people use passive voice in these things. It's such a slimy way to try and avoid responsibility.

"We have blocked you from using a mobile browser." is the active voice. It includes a subject ("we") and a verb ("blocked"). It says that someone made a decision, executed that decision, and is responsible.

"It looks like ... ", " ... is currently unavailable" is so fucking weaselly and irresponsible. You are 100% a complete piece of shit if you ever say something like that. You are not responsible enough to handle a Wendy's drive-through order, let alone a large organization.

I didn't know there was a word for it. I always just called it "corperate talk"

They've already made the "new" reddit web view unusable for any sub marked NSFW. I feel sorry for the web devs at Reddit that spent all this time making a responsive site that works on mobile, then to be forced to artificially block access to push app usage.

The API issue was a huge nail into the coffin of the user experience at reddit. For sure, mobile site will disappear and then old.reddit.

Everything about this is utterly tone deaf, you can see it in u/spez answer in his AMA about how the company will continue to be profit driven until it’s profitable. Bro, this is not how you talk to your user base. Your actions, policies, and strategic outlook should be toward driving the user experience and your service so that it is profitable. Not degrading all things for grinding down every extra cent at the expense of your entire companies differentiators.

Fuck spez, fuck reddit.

Are they actively trying to make people stop using the site?

As if it wasn’t bad enough to ask if I want to use the default mobile app every time I go to a Reddit page on mobile. 😕

Honestly, mobile browing (even using old.reddit) has been garbage for years because they detect your mobile OS and constantly try to push their app on you. Click on link, do you want to open in mobile app? let me open the playstore for you. And then you also get limited comments. To see more comments open in mobile app... You could do a case study in how to alienate your customers into leaving your platform on just mobile browsing reddit.

They're really trying to speedrun killing their site lmao

My mobile is experimenting with not visiting reddit.

Reddit has amazing SEO, and it looks like Spez is now hell bent on destroying that as well.

What a fucking incompetent moron. Google hates when people put roadblocks over mobile web experiences. Over the past 5-ish years they've down ranking sites that obstruct m.web.

Something like 12 years I used Reddit, but they really nailed the coffin lid shut now.

Everyone: uh, that's a lot of nails

Reddit: WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THIS HAMMERING

Wow, they're really shitting the bed aren't they?

It was always going to happen, and the best time to shit the bed, is when you've already wet yourself, because the sheets have to be changed anyway, right?

Fuel on the flames huh? Got to love their tactical timing with this. Let's piss everyone off in every possible way?

It's almost like Elon bought Reddit as well as Twitter the way this is going.

Are they legally allowed to just do that? Just shadow ban certain users temporarily for an 'experiment'?

If so... Why is that legally allowed??

Why on earth would it be illegal? What possible law could have been broken? You don't have a "right" to visit reddit with a mobile browser. They have the right to restrict access as they see fit.

A lot of this sort of A/B testing has the character of a psychology experiment. If it were conducted by a reputable research lab, it would have to pass an instituational review board who would weigh in on whether it was an ethical experiment, and among other things research subjects would always have the right to decline to participate in the experiment.

But when private companies do it, nobody holds them to the same standard of ethics in their human experimentation. But clearly people's right not to be subject to psychological experiments without their consent is being violated.

But clearly people's right not to be subject to psychological experiments without their consent is being violated.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not...

No I really mean it. That's not a right that's, like, in the Constitution, but it's a principle of academic psychology and tech companies trample all over it. If it's just, like, which button design is better or what CDN makes the page load faster, it's mostly fine, but when they start asking questions like "what happens if we only show people the sad posts", it's really not fine.

Consider who "owns" Reddit. It's not a public service/utility. It turns out people can do what they want with things they own.

*save for lots of exceptions based on your wealth tier...

Why would it be illegal? It's shitty and it's obvious what they're trying to do, but I can't fathom what law from any jurisdiction this would violate.

Looks like reddit really doesn't want people to use reddit ... if that weren't obvious already

GLaDOS-Voice: This test chamber involves heavy ad-tracking and how test subjects react when locked in a shitty mobile app.

Pretty disappointing to see something I've spent so much time with go down the tubes like this. I know that for a lot of people, Reddit has been dying for years, but I've stuck to old.reddit and my Android apps, and haven't looked at /r/all in a long, long time. I unsubscribed from all of the big/default subreddits, and just hang out in my happy subs where people (mostly) are people and aren't lunatics, and it's still been a nice place.

Killing the mobile apps is pretty much the last straw for me. I'm sure I'll still click on search results from Reddit sometimes, but I won't be logged in anymore and it will only be on a browser with ad-blocking and privacy features. There is no way I'm downloading their app.

If they were to go this route for all users, I would simply never use Reddit again on my phone. And yes, I'm in the minority, and yes, I know they don't care about losing me, but man, what a bummer.

What were they thinking doing this experiment in the heat of the third-party app protest?? Are they trying to aim for their foot?

They are trying to force users into their app is what they were thinking.

Earlier today, I was reviewing some Lemmy information in Google, and one of the links was to Reddit. I didn't think anything of it, but I clicked and saw the message that's given to mobile users saying you have to view NSFW content in the Reddit app. Fine, I've got the garbage app installed already for situations just like this. I click the link, and it throws an error stating my third party app (Boost, in this case) must be uninstalled in order to open links in Reddit.

No it doesn't, Reddit. And why do you care what's installed on my phone?

Check the app permissions, and revoke the one that allows it to see other installed apps. In fact, revoke everything it shouldn't have.

How does it even know what is installed on your phone ?

I'm guessing it was something to do with another app hijacking the link or something. Either way, they shouldn't give a shit.

Their approach here seems inherently broken. People aren't going to use the app they don't want to use.

15-year reddit veteran here. Spez thinks us old-timers are freeloaders for continuing to prefer old.reddit and the third-party apps. The truth is, that site is dead and what Lemmy offers now is closer to that original vision than current reddit ever will be. Reddit is Dead. Long live Lemmy.

Steve saw Elon's work at twitter and thought, "Watch me. I can ruin a company faster."

I am not aware of Reddit experimenting with blocking mobile browsers. However, it's important to note that information and developments can change over time.

To get the most accurate and up-to-date information about Reddit's policies or any potential changes related to blocking mobile browsers, I recommend checking official Reddit announcements, news articles, or Reddit community discussions that might provide insights into any recent developments. Additionally, you can visit Reddit's official website or their support pages for any official statements regarding this matter.

This happening in the middle of the API gate seems like a pretty dumb move, even for Reddit.

Blocking all mobile access except for the official client is the whole point of “API gate”. Don’t want people to just fall back on something with equally poor monetization, gotta show them all the ads.

WE BROKE REDDIT?

YAYY

and fkkk spez

Is there a revanced reddit app?

Why, yes, actually.

You may have to search a little for 3rd-party prebuilts, if you're not comfortable doing the patching yourself.

Ah-ha, thanks, patched the apk but I dunno if I can sink low enough to use reddit any time soon. Really hoping that some of the ousted 3rd party devs come over here. Sync for reddit is one of the best apps I've ever used.

As a paying Sync user, I couldn't agree more. Good news is LJ said in one of his comments, "Won't open source Sync. Maybe implement Lemmy". Unfortunately I couldn't link it since the sub's gone dark.

Also, this. But like you, I feel dirty staying with Reddit. And it feels like we're desecrating the legacy of Sync..

Elon and Donald taught everyone that when you start being a dick, double down on it.

Love how totally out of touch with human psychology these decision makers are.

If you work really hard to gain the attention of your overlords and remain loyal for years, eventually you will be granted nothing anyways and just get shit on in the end regardless! That being said, this feels like reddit tripling down. It's ridiculous

The default site literally doesn't work on mobile anyway so it's not like it makes much difference.

It used too. They killed it though, purposefully. That's around the time I stopped going on reddit with my phone... funny thing that.

What awful timing to run this experiment.

Good news is best delivered piece by piece, bad news all at once.

The outrage against Reddit is already at its peak, may as well use it as cover to do more anti-user stuff.

My reddit account currently only exists to tell others about Lemmy

Indeed, Reddit half died for me when they did the redesign, and I only used RiF after that, now its just dead to me.