this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Today I Learned (TIL)

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Relevant screenshot for those interested

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago

US makes up just over 42% of total traffic, of which just over 70% is on mobile. No stats about 1st party / 3rd party apps usage.

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[–] tobybencollaghduff 85 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I just don’t understand the thought process. They could’ve just shelled out $10M for Apollo and made that the official Reddit app. Then give users the choice of ads or pay for ad free experience.

so basically they’re making a massive gamble that most people will just switch over to their garbage app. Maybe they will, but for sure the power users, big sub moderators & regular posters are all coming to Lemmy. You know, all the people that made Reddit worth visiting.

Personally I think this will be the end of Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, Reddit did shell out money for a third party client. They bought the iOS app Alien Blue in 2014 and turned that into an official app before quickly abandoning it for their client in 2016.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They bought the app , and then destroyed it.

They should have learned for their second try, and just bought the app, then not destroyed it.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Realistically Reddit will survive, but it will be a zombie of its former self, kind of similar to how Digg is these days. Let's just hope it kills their valuation and /u/spez has to answer for it.

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 year ago (1 children)

*TIL that 70% of US traffic on reddit WAS from users on a mobile device

Until July 1 2023 🪦

[–] gornar 12 points 1 year ago

Rip <your favourite 3rd party app>

[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago (6 children)

The remaining 30% computer users might be me googling all my IT problems

[–] TempleSquare 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reddit is the new Quora or Yahoo! Answers

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Quora is so disgusting. I thank reddit will become just like quora . Reddit + to read full answers , they show you related topic under question instead of the answers , etc .

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Exactly why reddit wanted all 3rd party apps gone. All they could see was dollar signs going down the toilet.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

Now they see it burning

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

They had dollars while you were on the toilet. Now it's flushed down the drain.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Worth mentioning that mobile ≠ app. Many people use Reddit in their browsers. Or the official app for that matter. This article doesn't really give those numbers which I'm sure unfortunately place the third party app users in a smaller minority. Still, I never used a third party app personally and I was still outraged enough at Reddit's behavior to leave. Hopefully more will follow suit.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Aren't they also pushing changes to have mobile browsers redirect to the app with no option for staying in the browser?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Actually yes. When i began ussing reddit about some years ago i was a lurker on the mobile browser. Then they started pesterin for me to make an account at very much every turn of the corner. Then they started blocking various fucktionalities like visiting subs and blocking nsfw stuff. So i made an account and the subs where still unaccsesible saying something like "this comunity is abailable in the app" an at random too. So i downloaded the app. Used it a couple of months, then learned rif existed and never looked back. Tl;DR: Yes redit has been realistcally unusable on moblie browser for years now. At least for me. Dont know how others manage to use it like that.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That would be a reasonable assumption to make, with one big caveat: reddit originally had no official app, so third-party apps were our only options. If we suppose that people rarely change their habits until they're forced to (a claim that seems almost self-evident to me), then it would be reasonable to suppose that a lot of users would still be using those same 3rd-party apps they started out with. Especially considering the official app was kind of crappy from its inception.

If third-party app users made up a large percentage of users, it might also partly explain why spez is so hellbent on his crusade.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 year ago

Back when I used reddit... weird saying I know, I consumed Reddit on my phone, my ipad, and desktop in various combinations, pretty much constantly. Phone/ipad during work, and additional desktop use after. Desktop using Reddit Enhancement Suite (unusable without really), and Apollo for mobile. Spez made going cold turkey on Reddit stupid easy for this heavy user of over 10 years.

It's like going to your favorite donut shop every day for a decade, where your on good terms with the employees, but the boss is shit but you hardly ever see him so it's ok. Then one day, instead of the usual server, Spez shows up, and hands you your favorite donut with a scoop of shit on top, and says that's how they serve them now. Yeah, I'll go somewhere else, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Spez really killed the whole damn site, the greedy little pigboy

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

really makes you wonder how Swartz would feel about all this. what would he think of the fediverse? lemmy vs reddit?

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Woweeee fucking sucks to be Reddit rn lol

[–] Rakonat 16 points 1 year ago

Sure hope they don't do anything to anger a large quantity of regular users rather than improve their native mobile apps and incentivize said users to use their official app rather than just kill the more popular third party ones...

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I really hope it drops a lot, but it probably won't :/

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I honestly don't care what happens to Reddit. I've found something new to occupy my time. If Reddit stays, goes, prospers, flounders, or whatever, couldn't mean less to me. At the end of the day, it's just a fancier bulletin board. Which have existed for 25+ years at this point. Look at Lemmy or other instances of the fediverse for example, it was able to quickly and effectively pick up the people flocking, and the experience is largely the exact same thing. It's a little buggier, but it's early days at this volume. And it doesn't come with any of the bullshit, you don't like your experience for example, you can quickly find another instance and carry on.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I uninstalled boost today, can't wait for Boost for Lemmy. Although Jebora is pretty nice too.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm enjoying Connect for Lemmy, very smooth sailing so far

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago

That makes sense. I'm not sitting in front of my computer all day, but I always have my phone.

Switching my entire mobile usage over to lemmy is easily 90-95% of my social media time.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just deleted Apollo off my phone, so I guess I'm done with Reddit for the most part.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I haven’t had the heart to delete it yet, but I’m also pretty much done with Reddit.

I checked it out on desktop today. Top 8 hits in 4 of my favorite subs were busted bot reposts. It was a short visit.

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[–] Rivers 32 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I will not sit at desk to read . Smartphone are just way better for this kind of task . Most people access the internet with a smartphone ,not a PC tower.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

Well, not anymore!

[–] inclementimmigrant 30 points 1 year ago

Yup. I work at a computer most of the day but there was no way in hell I was going to use my monitored work computer to browse Reddit.

I just wonder how much of a impact to daily engagement that the lack of third party will affect the company now. The blackouts were never going to be effective but combine that with a downward trend of engagement might be enough to fuck the leadership over.

Still, this seems like a nice place to be even if Reddit is forced to pull it's head out of its tech bro ass.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

And 50% of mobile users are on a toilet

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (12 children)

That’s gonna drop. Right?

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Probably not by too much, realistically a lot of people are going to switch to the official app

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[–] Dick_Justice 25 points 1 year ago

That's why Captain Spork is taking all these measures to eliminate the largest 3rd party apps. He wants to force everyone into using the s***** Reddit Mobile app so they can suck all that tasty, valuable user data off your phone. Becoming a millionaire off of the free content and unpaid work of other people wasn't good enough, now he wants your data so he can sell that too.

[–] AzPsycho 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is true for most online platforms. I work in Online Education as a SaaS Admin for LMS system hosting and at a conference I went to 4 or 5 years ago the UAE did an in depth presentation on their online academic outreach program. The adoption of education on mobile phones was astounding and the only other platform that mattered metric wise was Window PCs and it was a distant second.

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[–] gornar 23 points 1 year ago

And apparently (was) almost 84% here in Canada!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Not surprised, my personal browsing was almost entirely on mobile devices and 3rd party apps. My work browsing on computer is mainly for IT purposes and not logged in. Some subreddits are far better than the official support communities and they often come up early in google results.

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[–] ProximaChad 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I could never get use to the desktop layout.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I think you kinda need extensions to really make it work. New reddit was cancer. Old reddit with reddit enhancement suite and imagus (hover to show images) made the experience pretty awesome.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

not surprising, people have their phones on them much more often than their computers. Personally I browse reddit from my phone 95% of the time, only using desktop for the odd moderating duty.

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