> use old.reddit or third party apps are the power users
Are they?
> they all say they transitioned to a third party app
Have they? Who asked?
Im inclined to believe a lot of these things. I used to work for a large network of forums in the late 00s. We had a lot of traffic but didnt require 2000 employees (literally only 5 dev to manage 250mil monthly pageviews). In all reality we might been reddit if we got lucky, but we didnt. Oh well. So, I tend to side with the users, but I do understand the behaviors in play. Im not trying to be argumentative just to blindly support reddit, but so many people are just throwing out stats as if they are correct with zero proof. Its almost impossible to have an honest conversation when the facts are being made up on the spot. This whole situation has become so emotional.
>>but the vast majority of the userbase is on the mobile website or app.
proving that the world truly is insane, I use old reddit on mobile as well as new reddit is more or less unusable on a mobile browser they hard force you in to their terrible app. If I need a mobile app I use a 3rd party app as the offical app is TERRIBLE
When/if they kill old.reddit is the say I stop using reddit, I would say my usage is already down 80% since the launch of reddit, as I pretty much only use the technical subreddits for news now, staying away for all other area;s of reddit.
>Reddit seems like an example of a successful acquisition
For whom? For people who uses it since the beginning it isn’t even the same place anymore. It’s UX (and I’m not talking about the aesthetics of the new design, I don’t mind those) is legitimately the worst I’ve ever experienced and the quality of discussion has went down the drain. Even if you find a tightly controlled community dedicated to a topic you’re interested in it’s either one extreme to another or doesn’t last long.
That doesn’t even get into the constant rolling out for Facebook-tier features that no Reddit user ever wanted. I stopped using Reddit last month after ~12 years and I’ve since realized I was getting nothing but regurgitated memes and anger from a dozen people replying to my every comment who aren’t even addressing what I was saying just arguing for arguments sake.
It’s basically what Facebook groups were in 2016 at this point. I’m sure it’s a great acquisition for those who bought it, but for the old power users it’s anything but.
> because those users are almost by definition power users
Why is this the case and being repeated everywhere by everyone?
Reddit originally didn't have a mobile app and only third party clients existed. Everyone who wanted a mobile experience was using a third party app. Many of those original users never switched to the official app. How are they power users by definition?
> I don't understand why companies constantly do stuff that serves only _themselves_, and then expect users to engage with it because it exists.
Probably because most users don’t really care and those that do make excuses like “what else am I going to use?” or “I can’t stop using reddit, how will I stay in the loop?” or any one of many other excuses. If you want reddit to change, stop using them. Entirely.
>lately it seems like the incentives between Reddit as a business and Reddit as a community leader are not aligned, and that is a problem.
That's by design. Reddit is just another data mining company. Of course they'd rather have you on the app than the browser. Apps can gather info about you even when you're not using them.
> I started to think they purposely make the experience worse to push user to their mobile app.
It’s been awful for so long that this has to be the reason. The constant nags to use the app support this.
I don’t use reddit much these days but I noticed subreddits are now locked behind logins?! Since I long ago deleted my account I now switch to old.reddit.com to view. Desktop view on mobile but subreddits are “unlocked”.
> It makes sense to think of Reddit as an application rather than a company.
Saying something makes sense doesn't make it make sense. Reddit is not just an application. Reddit is millions of like-minded users exchanging thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. The software or application may affect how those users interact with the other users, but it is the users at the end of the day that define what Reddit (or this site) is.
> Eh, even if we can agree on it being fair I still don't see anything wrong with what Reddit is trying to do. While the profit might be minuscule compared to what Reddit is looking for, its still currently more than reddit is making.
Reddit has also expanded its staff count (and therefore costs) dramatically to chase new product areas and has seen big jumps in revenue. They’ve clearly been chasing growth in revenue and user numbers over profit. It doesn’t meant they couldn’t be profitable based on what they have.
> I don't think a person using a third party app necessarily implies they are a power user or better at moderation. Hell, in the beginning reddit didn't even have a mobile app and the only options were third party apps.
Not every user of a third party app is a power user, but power users and mods are almost certainly using third party apps & tools. The shutdown statements made by so many sub moderators back that up.
> Hmm, I wonder how they can provide that with such low developer counts - maybe because Reddit as a service is subsidizing the majority of the value the third party apps are capturing.
That doesn’t make any sense. They’re not replacing the platform, they’re just an interface to it. The better point of comparison is to the official Reddit apps, which are much worse in almost every way than the third party equivalents despite being built by teams of engineers. They don’t even have proper accessibility.
> It’s entirely within reason for Reddit to want to capture that value instead of giving it away to free to third party apps.
Not if it results in a drop in engagement from power users and moderators, which would in turn result in less content, a worse experience for users, fewer users returning or joining up because of that, and thus less revenue over time.
> But Reddit has repeatedly said that they will not depreciate old.reddit.com. They have zero reason to, as many of their powerusers rely on it.
Let’s be honest. Every company says this. Some actually try to stand by their statement. Public companies very often wipe those statements from existence because some MBA found a way to increase profits 27% this quarter (who cares if it the company borders on bankrupt in 2 years) or some intern found a way to double clicks.
If someone demonstrates that old Reddit results in fewer ad views, shutting it down is a matter of when and not if.
> I watched my own partner do it. She doesnt like the app or care for reddit at al
But did she leave a review? I dont mean to diminish your anecdote; I was strictly referring to public stats. Millions of people download and eventually ignore the app, but clearly enough are downloading it and having positive feelings about it. Thats how we got to this situation.
> has abandoned its once core userbase in favour of cheap eyeballs
> seem to have no idea themselves about how to keep Reddit afloat.
That’s just not true, there have been many suggestions from things like cutting the API costs in half (so it’s 10x what Reddit makes instead of 20x), giving developers more time to transition users to higher priced subscriptions, allowing API access with Reddit Gold (or premium, or whatever they call it), etc. Not outright lying about conversations on the record would be a good start as well.
> Reddit costs a ton of money to run and has never been profitable enough to be default 'alive'.
Bullshit. Reddit is horrible overstaffed and the last numbers we have are from 2021 when they made $350M. If you can’t run a site with an all volunteer mod staff for $350,000,000 a year then you have no business in tech.
> Reddit is hanging by a thread financially and this revolt has made it worse.
Won’t anyone think of the poor company making over $350M a year? Spare me.
> This is where most of the conflict lies. Reddit the community and Reddit the business don't have the same goals in mind.
And this is the part about Reddit that I just don't get. A few years ago their users were a rather homogeneous group of nerds that had a lot of trust in the reddit management. Why on earth didn't they capitalize on that?
By doing all the latest actions that aim at getting rid of people that are now unwanted they try to get once again a somewhat homogeneous (albeit different) group of people. So maybe soon they are structurally exactly where they were some years ago except for the huge lost of trust of their users.
How is this going to help increasing their profit?
>Honest question, what is so bad about the Reddit app that you would give up browsing the content you like?
I don't appreciate being lied to, treated like less than garbage? And I'm certainly not going to keep contributing to a platform that does that to me? Especially when this stuff is only going to get worse as they "march towards profitability"?
I gotta log off. I don't know if ppl here are young, naive, or if it's just the usual inability to remember anything from more than a few years ago, or the short-sightedness of not seeing where this is going. Catch ya on Digg.
> Is the missing ADs revenue the crux of the problem?
No, it is the whole shebang which is why Reddit is forcing this extinction event for 3rd party apps.
I use the Now for Reddit Android app and Reddit Enhancement Suite extension on desktop. With this combination, Reddit has stayed visually identical for the past decade. I never saw things like NFT avatars, RPAN livestreaming or any of the things Reddit has added to make it something other than an old school messageboard.
Users like me are a disaster for Reddit because I treat it like a PHPbb forum from 2010. There is no hope of upselling me into something I would pay for. Reddit's owners however believe that they should be multiplying their wealth many times over for running a bigger Phpbb instance. That is the crux of the problem.
>old.reddit users are like 2% of pageviews now, 5-10% of uniques (Source - traffic stats for a mid-sized sub), they could just phase it out.
Yes, let's just phase it out, and drive away people who actually contribute to that forum by adding the comments and posts that are reason d'etre of reddit.
Go figure, you didn't include posts, comments, and karma breakdown in that analysis.
Seems like entirely through bad management. The choices made, from mostly serving links and text to hosting image and video which ballooned operating costs to expanding their workforce from 700 to 2000 while having no proyect worth putting that many people to work on.
> Reddit finally finds a way to possibly become profitable
Says who? Their API changes would not make them profitable. The changes, price and timeline show that the intent is to kill 3rd party ecosystem, not profitability.
> scumbags focused on profit?
Reddit is the only social media that has unpaid mods. Facebook pays people to keep conversation civil, reddit wants you to do that work for free while they release NFT profile pics.
people are not angry at reddit for wanting to be profitable, people are angry because there have been 10 years of mismanagement, 0 mod support, aggresive anti user choices and the few tools that people use to make the website not want to pluck your eyes out being pulled under them with 0 recourse
Are they?
> they all say they transitioned to a third party app
Have they? Who asked?
Im inclined to believe a lot of these things. I used to work for a large network of forums in the late 00s. We had a lot of traffic but didnt require 2000 employees (literally only 5 dev to manage 250mil monthly pageviews). In all reality we might been reddit if we got lucky, but we didnt. Oh well. So, I tend to side with the users, but I do understand the behaviors in play. Im not trying to be argumentative just to blindly support reddit, but so many people are just throwing out stats as if they are correct with zero proof. Its almost impossible to have an honest conversation when the facts are being made up on the spot. This whole situation has become so emotional.
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