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.
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 sure seems like half the herd has wandered off.
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.
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.
I noticed a while ago that my Asus WRT with a custom hosts file wasn’t blocking ads anymore, too. I’m betting your assessment is correct. Shit sucks. Fuck ads.
I run a whitelist fw for my workstation, and have developed that list for years. Yes, it has been a major PITA. They can never get around a whitelist unless they self host all the ads. I imagine their servers will burn down in a day if they allow that kind of access. Plus who would pay these clowns to unverifiably show the ad in the first place. Then all the ad mongers won’t be able to mine data on their servers too.
The loss of net neutrality is still only beginning to show its impact. I think we are on the verge of an internet parallel to the Star Wars death of the Old Republic and beginning of the Rebellion. The Chrome browser is the dissolution of the Senate via Web 3.
If I am correct, welcome to Hoth. Mind your battle stations. Imperial Walkers will likely show up at any time.
I pay for adguard DNS. Rather than use an app on individual devices, I just put the official DNS into my router and problem solved when I’m at home. Works like a charm.
It is not super difficult to do the same type of blocking with a router on software like OpenWRT.
that is not something average people even know about, or would have the skills to attempt. not even close.
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
It’s not as common to push users to apps on desktop, but its a tried-and-true practice on mobile. I’m sure companies would do it if they could, but app stores and app lockin aren’t as strong on desktop as on mobile
Sorry that that wasn’t obvious, but the desktop bit was mostly a joke!
But yeah; on desktop extra applications you have to download are definitely a hard sell.
good point. one thing to not is revanced supports reddit so you can also block ads that way. and android has a few dns-based blockers.
It’s a bizzare move though, given that basically every other social media in the world doesn’t block mobile browsers.
Facebook infamously does for Messenger. But yes, I think it’s a sign of their desperation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I would have thought so of myself, but yet, here we are
These federated let me things really really remind me of the way Reddit used to be about a decade ago. And frankly, now that I found the Jerboa app, I really don’t miss Reddit at all.
I just wanted to find a place where I could scroll around and chat with other nerds. And that’s basically what Lemmy is.
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.
They’re going to do the Instagram thing where you can view a teaser but then it forces you to the app.
This is why I never got into instagram. So often I just couldn’t view the image. I’m like, imgur is better than this.
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 ;)
There’s some communities on Reddit that don’t yet exist in other places; so I’m going to continue browsing those rarely; but once they move somewhere else I’m moving with them.
I thought I’d be making a long-tail exit as well, but I’ve been looking at my feed of mostly niche subs with an especially critical eye this week and concluded that even there, the signal-to-noise ratio had hit the point the web did as a whole that initially drove me to Reddit.
I’ll still use it to declutter Google results, but I expect that utility to decline as helpful, detailed posts become fewer and fewer. There’s still some distance to Facebook-level network lockdown.
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.
Maybe they’re trying to get a poor valuation so they can reverse course afterward and get a boost.
go cry to the government and VC to get some subsidy
It seems to me that they are telling the investors that they might shrink but what is left will be on a much more profitable basis moving forward.
I wonder if some of it is fluffing the metrics too, like “Since we announced that third party apps are going away, we’ve had X thousand downloads of the official Reddit app” (meanwhile not mentioning that they’re forcing a majority of mobile users away from the mobile website)
Spez must have seen that “reverse funnel” episode of IASIP and thought it was an idea worth stealing. “We’ll just funnel everyone into our broken app and then endless profit!”
I wonder if it’s like malicious compliance with their VCs 😂😂😂
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.
old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere
– a spez lie
I honestly don’t think theyll remove it, since reddit relies on mods and mods really prefer old reddit than new reddit
But I wouldn’t be surprised if they did something stupid like limiting it to only mods
Mods also rely on third-party apps that use the API, and those are being shut down. I don’t think they care about the mods at this point.
Well, mods also relied on 3PAs so…
sorry off-topic but what’s up my username buddy 💙
“here’s your new mobile mod tools, peasants!”
– spez, probably
Stop blackmailing him.
It’s literally the same wording as that the API isn’t going anywhere, and the same reasoning as why it won’t go away. Reddit is definitely stupid enough to get rid of it
“The API isn’t going anywhere, we’re just deliberately pricing it out of reach! See? It’s different!”
- spez, probably
This is both informative and unfortunate.
I, for one, welcome my Louis Rossmann overlord.
I’m waiting for him to talk about this in a video now lmao
Aye aye! Aware of any Rossmann communities over here yet?
Given the nature of the platform, I think everything is a Rossmann community. ;)
If there isn’t already a right to repair group, we should make one!
Yepp! Found a self repair one on Lemmy.ml, although it’s been inactive for a year:
https://lemmy.ml/c/selfrepair !selfrepair@lemmy.ml https://lemmy.world/c/selfrepair@lemmy.ml
Searched on feddit browse for a Rossmann one and there isn’t any yet 😟. I don’t think my instance allows new groups so I’m hoping someone makes one soon
Now I’m trying to figure out how to subscribe from Jerboa.
Since I’m using the app right now, I’ll have to recite this from memory. But at the bottom of the screen you should see a button second from the left three lines.
Click on that and search for a group in the top portion. Click on the group once found, and there there is a subscribe button. As of yesterday clicking it appears to do nothing. In fact it does work. Exit the list and go back in, you will be subscribed.
Let me know if you figure it out, I had to do it through the browser
Yeah, I had to do the same.
At least one user has to be subscribed to a community for it to get federate if i understood it correctly
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.
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.
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.
They want to force more people to download the app so that they can show potential investors how many people are using the app, and so they can mine data off of phones with the app. I fucking guarantee that’s what this is.
They are gambling that the people who incidentally land on reddit using their phones to search for things will be more likely to download the app than stop using reddit when it comes up in a search.
This will cause search engines to deprioritize reddit threads in search results due to the ‘bounce factor’.
logged-in mobile web experience
If it’s blocked for logged in users, why would that effect search engines?
The implication here is that if they are testing it on logged in users, then they will eventually roll it out to ALL users, whether logged in or not.
Lots of users use search engines to find topics or solutions on reddit. Since the inbuilt search function of reddit is so bad, it’s easier that way.
Reddit is one of the best places to find tech support for more niche topics like open RGB, but you have to fund them somehow.
To give them their due (little as that may be), this only seems to prevent users from logging in to the mobile web interface, not from viewing content as a random user from Google.
Which means users will log out if they want to use reddit that way, and they’ll get even less traffic and data from them then before. The user-generated content they want to sell to AI training models or advertisers will just be less and less and less…
This just further incentivises my intend to delete my accounts and leave Reddit entirely if literally no account is more useable than having one.
Never thought that reddit would make so many gaffes to push me to use… bing chatgpt search.
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
nail gun noises
Ditto. What a shit show this whole thing has been and probably will be, shall be interesting to see what happens when the ipo gets released.
Having already rather violently shot himself in both feet, spez has started aiming for his other body parts.
It’s getting worse by the minute. I really really hope Lemmy usage picks up.
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.
Right, but I’ve seen tons of comments that say “I’ll at least use the mobile site instead of your app”. If they do this now, then those people will just leave. Plus, blocking mobile site is a dumb move.
It’s a dumb move but it’s in line with their goals. Giving third party Apps the “Fuck you quote.” price is also dumb when they could have offered a reasonable price and got some cash out of it.
Regardless, this interaction is from a month ago, so if anything it’s not reacting to the current situation but was a clue as to what they were and already are planning.
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…
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.
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.
Reddit’s unwavering stubbornness to continue spiraling is just plain sad. What a way to go.
