this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Today I Learned (TIL)
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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.
Aren't they also pushing changes to have mobile browsers redirect to the app with no option for staying in the browser?
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.
You can just enable "desktop site" checkbook in your mobile browser, it would send non-mobile user agent to the server. That's the only way a server can detect a mobile browser.
While that's an option the desktop site is barely navigable on a desktop let alone on a mobile device
old.reddit.com is still an option, for now at least.
But honestly? I'm going to stick to lemmy as much as I can.
old.reddit.com sucks on a phone though. It's very difficult to navigate without zooming in and out all the time to click on links.
Felt like they were doing that for a while. It's why I went on Boost. I refused to be pushed onto their mobile app.
It could stop you from using the browser altogether and point you to the app.
That's what they're currently testing out, yes.
It will, actually.Reddit has been testing forced app usage via blocking mobile browsers entirely, like Pinterest does, for around 2.5 weeks.
What an unnecessarily user-hostile move. No wonder they’re going to implement it.
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.
I was under the impression the initial plan just started with top api usage apps, which I didn't think would affect my app yet. Still left immediately and now turns out my app was shut down.