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Reddit experimenting with blocking mobile browsers (old.reddit.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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/

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Gotta weigh in here and say overwriting comments like that can hurt the end user more than it hurts Reddit. A lot of traffic to Reddit is intentional, with posts and comments showing up in search results from ddg/google. I know I've found my own posts from troubleshooting the same issue years later. Sure, delete/overwrite comparatively useless comments and posts, but leave up other useful content and use an ad blocker instead. That will hurt them more than deleting content, but still allow others to find the info they need.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

It's true that it will hurt people long term but it will drive traffic away more than deleting the inane stuff. No website like that should be such a central repo when it's unstable like this. The internet has survived link rot and info loss before.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're not wrong, but also I'd like to move away from the world of "site:reddit.com" being the go-to troubleshooting/advice-seeking search, and my posts turning up in such searches would be driving traffic to reddit, which I don't want to do. I also don't want my account history used for advertising purposes, and across the life of an account I tend to share more personal specifics than I'm comfortable with sharing in aggregate.

But you're not wrong, either. I can see both sides of this one. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had a higher proportion of tech support posts and similar that are the most likely to show up in searches and solve someone's problem I might feel differently, I don't know.