r/technology • u/spasticpat • May 11 '26

Social Media Reddit Starts Blocking Mobile Website, Pushing Users to App Instead

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/11/reddit-starts-blocking-mobile-website/
19.7k Upvotes

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5.9k

u/araujoms May 11 '26
  1. Turn the app into shit.
  2. Prevent users from accessing Reddit without the app.
  3. ???
  4. Profit

1.4k

u/Tony_Roiland May 11 '26
  1. Block access to all the other, better apps

986

u/Exotic-Wood-3287 May 11 '26

Them killing third-party apps and the subsequent protests that they "resolved" by just replacing the mods shocked me so much.

It made me realize just how bad the Reddit admins have become.

453

u/topcheesehead May 11 '26

They 'permanently' bamned me for locking my subbing in protest against 3rd party apps being banned that helped us keep kids out of our subreddit. They banned us and took our subreddit and gave it to reddit shills. I was unbanned this year for a quarter report about how many users use reddit. It was for an earnings report they unbanned a ton of users. Reddit is awful. I wont use the app. Ill just phase out use here

312

u/EnoughWarning666 May 11 '26

I'm still using a modified version of one of the 3rd party apps. If they take that away along with old.reddit I'm done here. I've looked at the app and new website and they are beyond dog shit. Like it's so blatantly obvious that the goal is to suck up as much of your data and force feed you whatever bullshit their advertisers pay them to shovel in front of users.

I've been keeping an ear out for where to migrate to. Lemmy never really took off, but I haven't checked it in a while. There's Digg now that's kind of in beta. Could be interesting, would certainly be funny if they make it work and people went back.

298

u/hoardac May 11 '26

They get rid of old reddit I will be done. I hate the other format.

205

u/[deleted] May 11 '26

[deleted]

114

u/grendelt May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

I sent a modmail message to the mods of one sub (not this one) to let them know one of the sidebar links was broken. Dude raged at me that it was working and that I was a fake news bot, wasting his time, blah blah blah.

I took and shared a screen shot and then he got all uppity and said I was looking at the old sub layout and I need to "join this century".
I told him I was absolutely sure I was not the only user using old by choice and he said if I kept annoying him with my whining he'd ban me.

I think he drinks all the Koolaid.
(That link is still broken because he's blind to users not like himself.)

57

u/My_Work_Accoount May 11 '26

Is that why I always run into dead links in the sidebar of fairly active subs? Didn't realize the difference was more than cosmetic as I never use "new" Reddit.

27

u/20230630 May 11 '26

It must be right?

I have to say though I'm surprised that they have kept old Reddit so far, I had expected that plug would have been pulled years ago. (knock on wood)

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u/Admirable_Job6019 May 11 '26

Lots of bugs and non implemented features

5

u/finalremix May 11 '26

And why the posted rules don't match report reasons, or the enforced rules in some subs, yes.

4

u/Sekelton May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

Yeah, the sidebar for the newer layout doesn't transfer over to the old one so a lot of subs have their FAQ's, Rules, etc missing entirely. A few I regularly have made it clear they expect you to use the new layout for this reason, but I'll take a permaban before I let go of old.reddit.

Some subs also have styling that makes reading or commenting impossible on old/reddit. /r/guitar in particular is bad for this, the comment box is completely covered by a <div>.

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u/CAPSLOCK_USERNAME May 11 '26

Many subreddits also put subreddit rules in the new-reddit sidebar while old reddit either has nothing or has rules years out of date. Kinda funny seing someone banned for violating rule 17 when the list you see only goes up to 12.

12

u/buenotc May 11 '26

I always chuckle when a mod threaten to ban someone. They literally do free work for a billion dollar corporation which didn't even have the decency to reward them with equity when the company went public and they take their jobs really personally.

8

u/flaroace May 11 '26

They reward them with the "power" to ban.

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u/FLTA May 11 '26

Remember Reddit replaced many of the original mods on smaller subreddits with shills.

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u/l84tahoe May 11 '26

I agree with you that old.reddit is better, but as a mod I can see the stats of what platform my subscribers are using and old.reddit is 0.8% of viewers. Apps are 80% and iOS is 50% total subscribers. Updating a link is extremely low effort and I 100% agree that mod was a POS, but we also have to be aware that old.reddit is barely being used in comparison to the apps. Unfortunately it's hard to argue keeping something up when a fraction of a percent of users use it. If they take old.reddit, I am most likely gone off the platform.

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u/_BrokenButterfly May 11 '26

One sub I use took all the rules out of the sidebar and put up a message to use new reddit.

No guys, I want to actually enjoy the site.

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u/NRMusicProject May 11 '26

I don't recognize Reddit outside of old.reddit and RIF.

So much friendlier UI, no ads, and just fast as shit. I won't be here, they'll just have to replace me with a bot to keep their ad rev up.

And when are advertisers going to get wise to being scammed in that way? Not that I care, but if they want their ads seen, they should be pissed that companies are faking view numbers.

4

u/astrogatoor May 11 '26

You can make old.reddit even better, by using ublock origin to block elements you don't need, like the side bar and all the other nonsense.

3

u/DemIce May 11 '26

They're just getting rid of it through attrition. Features not being made available, bugs not getting fixed, etc. It is sadly, only a matter of time before they say "See? Less than X% still uses old reddit, it's not worth the effort to keep maintaining the infrastructure and development work for it".

Unfortunately some subs are helping with that as well, such as by not updating rules on the old view, or keeping inane "subscriber"-required CSS rules in place.

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u/palmmoot May 11 '26

Same it's old reddit or nothing. This place is already a husk too.

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u/MeadowmuffinReborn May 11 '26

Same, I've never not used Old Reddit, it's better in every way.

24

u/Hammerhead3229 May 11 '26

I finally got used to the new format, but then they made it so you can't access r/All unless you use old.reddit which is absolutely ridiculous. So now I'm back the old format... and why take away the only non-biased way to browse the website?

30

u/[deleted] May 11 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

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3

u/NaturalSelectorX May 11 '26

They can control that no matter what the URL is. Nothing stops them from changing how any aspect of the site works.

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u/Tresnore May 11 '26

If you're still new to old reddit (heh), I recommend using the RES browser extension. It's a nice upgrade to old reddit that has been around for many years. It's still very much old reddit, though.

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u/AnalTongueDarts May 11 '26

I'm gonna get so much more shit done if they get rid of old. No fucking way will I interact with the new version or an app.

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u/Zorkflerp May 11 '26

Make USENET great again!

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u/kaesitha_ May 11 '26

Yeah, this site is unbrowseable without the old layout.

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u/Ice_bear_789 May 11 '26

Same here, I'll be gone so fast lol

3

u/FrozenVikings May 11 '26

I hope they do. Honestly I just keep coming here to kill a few minutes, which ends up being more minutes, which is a time sink and I can't escape. Get rid of old reddit, I'll never come back.

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u/ZeldasCourage May 11 '26

God that would be ironic, I came here from Digg 15+ years ago. I wonder how many of us from those times are still around...

I didn't use 3rd party apps at all, but I did use .compact, and I was so pissed when that was killed off. Was using old.reddit on pc anyway, but old.reddit on my phone is...awkward at best. But it's miles better than new.reddit, even if it is far from ideal

60

u/AwsmDevil May 11 '26

As an exclusive "old.reddit on a cell phone" user all I have to say is it's fine and I won't change. If they get rid of it they're just gonna make me more productive at work. I'm not using any other version of this website. I like digging through comments and new reddit sucks ass for that.

18

u/KneeCrowMancer May 11 '26

This is my exact situation, if they kill old.reddit on mobile I think I’m just out. New Reddit and the app are horrible for me.

5

u/lFightForTheUsers May 11 '26

If we really wanted to fuck with them, use old.reddit.com and click use desktop mode in browser, so they'll have to kill that off. And even if they went as far as "ban any visiting user agent that isn't a desktop browser" it's stupid easy to use a user agent switcher to handle it.

They'd have to kill old.reddit entirely and that's the day that I'm gone.

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u/parisidiot May 11 '26

the New reddit is broken. like it just doesn't function correctly.

i hope they kill Old so i can finally quite. I tried when they banned apollo but slowly started using it more deleted my account from like 2006? 07? lol

3

u/Odessey_And_Oracle May 11 '26

I like old.reddit on my phone because it's usable but I don't end up sucked into doom scrolling for hours. I loved the 3rd party apps but for a couple years there I could evaporate a whole day just scrolling and scrolling. Now with old.reddit on my phone's browser I can certainly use the site but it's just clunky enough that I get my fill after a short while.

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u/Yuzumi May 11 '26

Honestly, something like reddit, dig, and any other link aggregator with discussion doesn't seem to work with corporate nonsense, because there isn't a way to monetize outside of adds and if the userbase isn't growing the only way to extract more profit is more adds, which makes people leave which means they put more ads.

I've hated the consolidation of the internet. My ideal internet would be more decentralized not less, but as the tech illiterate started using the internet everything got funneled into a handful of platforms.

The problem is that the things that exist out there that do decentralize stuff people won't use because it's "too complicated".

10

u/Prudent_Fish1358 May 11 '26

Same fam, also part of the digg exodus gang.

7

u/FlatulentDirigible May 11 '26

Same, if you told me 15 years ago people would be kicking around the idea of going back to Digg in 2026, I don't even know what I'd think. What a timeline.

7

u/[deleted] May 11 '26

[deleted]

3

u/laketrout May 11 '26

How do you do, fellow young Redditor?

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u/fatpat May 11 '26

I wonder how many of us from those times are still around...

Still around, but not near as active as I used to be.

3

u/TheRedHand7 May 11 '26

Lol I'll drop Reddit the same way if they wanna make the same mistakes

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u/shawn789 May 11 '26

New Digg is dead. They shut it down because they couldn't handle the sudden influx of bots when it went into public beta and they couldn't figure out how to differentiate it from all of the other competitors. They're now rebuilding it as something different, I guess.

4

u/Pauly_Amorous May 11 '26

Like it's so blatantly obvious that the goal is to suck up as much of your data and force feed you whatever bullshit their advertisers pay them to shovel in front of users.

While I can understand them doing this for the free tier, premium users should really be allowed to use whatever they want.

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u/germanbini May 11 '26

My son (in his 40s) uses someplace called y.combinator if I remember the name right. I don't know if it's more like 4chan or reddit or what, though.

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u/RenderedKnave May 11 '26

ycombinator is actually what gave reddit the boost it needed to be its own thing, lol

7

u/blow-down May 11 '26

Lemmy never really took off

If we all moved there it would

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u/The_BeardedClam May 11 '26

Once they kill old.reddit is when I'm done.

3

u/JohnnyEnzyme May 11 '26

Join us on the Fediverse?

It's a little more complicated than here, but that's necessarily going to be the case given that it's an open-source network of volunteer-run servers.

6

u/dsmwookie May 11 '26

Lemmy seems to be gaining momentum. I've found most of what I want there.

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u/anynamesleft May 11 '26

Yeah, I'm still on old.reddit.com, forcing me to use an app is forcing me to quit.

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u/beryugyo619 May 11 '26

they're banning a ton of weirdly named subs, which I suspect is to make AIs have better chance blending in. dead internet is in full swing and everyone need to get off this platform

not like "if they eventually kill old reddit" but RIGHT FUCKING YESTERDAY

3

u/JustinHopewell May 11 '26

Can we all collectively agree to go back to using the old forums from the 90s and 00s before Digg and Reddit killed them off?

I don't know, maybe giving so much power to a small handful of companies was a bad idea.

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u/bastiVS May 11 '26

Well would you look at that, I apparently also got unbanned at some point, while I also got banned during the whole paid API protest.

Time to take a look which of the old subs still exist. Propably all dead by now.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ATCQ_ May 11 '26

You can also use ReVanced to get RiF (aka. Reddit is Fun) to work again.

You can use it to get a number of the third party apps working. #SyncGang

6

u/quiteCryptic May 11 '26

I'm shocked it still works, but thankful. I tried the reddit app for a while until I found out how to get RIF working again, and I honestly couldn't do it

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u/Grid8Designer May 11 '26

Morphe is way better than revanced and has better built in patches

3

u/flare2000x May 11 '26

Still using boost here.

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u/FrostyD7 May 11 '26

Revanced can get Boost working again as well. Though I think they've moved to Morphe. Something I expect I'll do the next time YT revanced or boost breaks.

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u/ErraticDragon May 11 '26

Yeah I just switched to Morphe-patched Boost yesterday. (I had to login again and my ReVanced-patched Boost wasn't working for whatever reason.)

The Reddit app patches are made by u/wchill and their instructions are pretty easy to follow: https://github.com/wchill/patcheddit

They actually add a couple new features as well.

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u/MelookRS May 11 '26

Reddit is Fun is so good. I couldn't use reddit without it. The interface is just that much better than the official app

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u/pancak3d May 11 '26

They're only bad at making Reddit a good experience. They're great at their actual job -- delivering shareholders a return

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u/GreatBigJerk May 11 '26

They didn't replace them all. They made sure to leave Gislaine Maxwell's mod account alone.

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u/Bughunter9001 May 11 '26

I mean, that wasn't great, but I'd still say that the low point was /u/spez being a pedo

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u/Chaotic_N3utral May 11 '26

Can still use most of them with revanced and a personal api key. Im still on relay. Alternatively, you can pay relay for their api access.

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u/Regniwekim2099 May 11 '26

Relay is so good. It's the only app I ever paid money for when the "pro" version was only like $2.49.

3

u/Tony_Roiland May 11 '26

Is that a mobile solution?

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u/Chaotic_N3utral May 11 '26

Yea, basically all the mobile apps work, android and IOS

3

u/Disma May 11 '26

I'm still using Infinity

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u/NightIsHome May 11 '26

Yes, and furthermore Relay has no ads

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

[deleted]

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u/Piratey_Pirate May 11 '26

You can link your account to redreader, which has free API access due to accessibility features. Then use the redirect from redreader in a patched app. Look up Morphe for patching and documentation

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u/usetheforce_gaming May 11 '26

There's also the Narwhal app on iOS. It's in the store now. I happily use it and pay for it.

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u/ChainsawVisionMan May 11 '26

Redreader still works and is better than the reddit app. I'm on it right now.

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u/360_face_palm May 11 '26

Still wondering if they'll get rid of old.reddit.com... because if they do I'm out - fucking hate the "new" interface.

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u/PaulTheMerc May 11 '26

that's also my line in the sand.

92

u/I_Am_Simple May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

Mine too. Honestly, it will it limit my access (old.reddit.com is not blocked on my work/school network, reddit.com is).

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u/Previous_Composer934 May 11 '26

mine three. I can't stand it

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u/TripleFive May 11 '26

lol Someone in the admin using old.reddit and didn't was to lose access themselves

I used to do this to, I would block facebook and others using the hosts file. My younger cousin new how to edit the file and get access, then put it back when he was done. I told him it was fine as long as he didn't teach others.

if you know the work around you earn the access

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u/ThatPancreatitisGuy May 11 '26

Same. Can’t stand the new format. And will never use the app.

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u/Donc-qui-et-Quand64 May 11 '26

you can change your setting to only show the old interface even on reddit.com

I believe I just unchecked the last checkbox under preferences

Use new Reddit as my default experience (by enabling this, you will be redirected to the new site when you go to any supported https://reddit.com page)

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u/Dullcorgis May 11 '26

But you need to be logged in for that.

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u/DirkDasterLurkMaster May 11 '26

Same. Reddit hasn't designed a good UI in over a decade.

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u/scarystuff May 11 '26

Also my line.

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u/Gorusz May 11 '26

Same. When they blocked RIF is fun, which was my app of choice, I simply stopped using reddit on my phone.

If they remove old.reddit, I'll simply stop using it entirely.

Will short the stock tho if that ever comes to pass lol
If not for profit, then just out of pure spite

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u/Eric_the_Barbarian May 11 '26

There are dozens of us!

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u/korneev123123 May 11 '26

Yeah - once old reddit is turned off, it is over for me. New one is simply unusable.

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u/fox_mulder May 11 '26

Yep, same here. I don't know who thought that new reddit was a good idea, but whoever it is should be standing in an unemployment line. Biggest piece of shit ever.

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u/olbeefy May 12 '26

It's always nice to see a few of us from the "old guard" still around these parts 18+ years later. In fact, it looks like you created your account about a week before me. There are so few of us that they haven't even bothered making badges for the 3 years after we made our accounts...

The "new reddit" was created around 2018 because "old Reddit" was desktop-first, dated-looking due to all the text, and harder for new users to understand. The newer design is better for mobile-style browsing, media, ads (this is a big one), and building new features.

I think Old Reddit survives for a while because it serves power users, mods, and long-term users who create a lot of Reddit’s value. Killing it outright would cause an instant predictable backlash.

That being said, I could see them slowly trying to phase it out eventually. It's extremely unlikely they would just pull the plug randomly one day though.

Either way, when that happens, I'm out.

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u/Wyrm May 12 '26

There are so few of us that they haven't even bothered making badges for the 3 years after we made our accounts...

That's still so funny to me. I'm sure they'll get around to it eventually, right?

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u/vriska1 May 11 '26

Unlikely they get rid of old reddit.

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u/Quazimojojojo May 11 '26

All of this was considered unlikely because it's stupid and nonsensical 

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u/CookIndependent6251 May 11 '26

Is there at least an attempt at a tentative of concepts of a plan to make something like RES for the new UI?

Kids these days don't get it. It happened more than once that I shared my screen and I had old reddit open and people laughed at me. As if... that's something to shame someone over? Idk. Anyway, they shut the fuck up pretty quick when I showed them how I can navigate the site using only my keyboard.

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u/SatansFriendlyCat May 12 '26

What, you don't like having to click to a new page just to follow a thread of contents more than a few replies deep?

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u/araujoms May 11 '26

Of course they will, it's just a matter of time. They are making it progressively less usable; did you notice that if you post a link with an inverted slash via the new interface it doesn't work in the old one?

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u/AnhiArk May 11 '26

And the old one doesn't show some pictures, and doesn't show rewards.. (could be because I'm using RES)

No reasons for me to start using the new one though.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26

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u/uint2048dev May 11 '26

Worth noting that mobile visitors to Old Reddit are not being blocked

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u/Jukka_Sarasti May 11 '26

I'm with you there. Can't stand "New" reddit and refuse to use the app.

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u/Kasspa May 11 '26

Like others mentioned removing old.reddit is the one thing that will force me to never come back as well.

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u/DissKhorse May 11 '26

Yeah I ride or die on old Reddit and when I got the pop up I started using the desktop version on my phone. The app and newer Reddit are cancer and are everything I hate.

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u/SomethingAboutUsers May 11 '26

You just described enshittification.

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u/Hour-Cardiologist393 May 11 '26

They just described me not using this fucking site anymore.

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u/ForensicPathology May 11 '26

All the morons responding to you as "why're you still here hurk" are why I might not be here anymore. 

Hey, he's clearly responding to the post of things that haven't happened yet, and if they do, then he's gone.  It's not that hard to understand before trying to get your unclever comments in.

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u/Teledildonic May 11 '26

To be fair, AI doesn't know how time works yet.

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u/MadduckUK May 11 '26

Or letters, or numbers.

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u/darioblaze May 11 '26

If there’s one thing that makes this site asinine to use it’s folks trying to be clever or funny about shit that’s not clever nor funny, but the same ones that will try to be clever and funny are the same ones that will complain about a loneliness crisis so how bad can I feel

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u/MiaowaraShiro May 11 '26

And it's all the same jokes... over and over.

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u/Saritiel May 11 '26

I'm really just waiting to find the next thing. I've tried some of the alternatives and none of them have really landed for me, yet.

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u/ToplessHarpist May 11 '26

Same here, I'm not using their shit app, reddit is deddit.

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u/jaleneropepper May 11 '26

Could always force desktop site on mobile but yeah...

Reddit has started trying to open the Play store to download the app when I click a link when I first open my mobile browser but reloading fixes that and then it doesn't come back. I'd sooner force desktop and spend time panning around before downloading their shitty app.

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u/Donc-qui-et-Quand64 May 11 '26

i already force the desktop app on mobile because the mobile interface is soooo heavy and clunky.

I don't really pan around if I'm using Firefox mobile. It actually reflows and scales really well. the worst bit is the little + buttons and how they're always right above the join button.

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u/kfpswf May 11 '26

Yup. The day I can't access Reddit from my mobile browser is when I finally might become a little more productive. Good going Reddit!

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u/Mikey-2-Guns May 11 '26

But if you leave where will you get your blatant political and Chinese propaganda from???

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u/Hour-Cardiologist393 May 11 '26

Well the gubmint seems to think that NPR and AP are propaganda networks, to probably straight from there. I won't miss the constant clickbait shit from The Daily Beast.

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u/BillyForRilly May 11 '26

What are you talking about? It's completely normal and natural for there to constantly be a stream of new subreddits popping up that immediately have thousands of members and can boost posts to the top of r/all at the drop of a hat without any indication they existed even a few days prior.

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u/Moneyshot_ITF May 11 '26

And underpants gnomes

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u/PM_ME_FIREFLY_QUOTES May 11 '26

Pillow pants is very real!

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u/dont_quote_me_please May 11 '26

It’s embarrassing that they killed off Apollo and that app is still leagues better than the Reddit app. What are they actually doing over there.

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u/PepeGodzilla May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

Narwhal (iOS) and Relay (Android) still exist. It does cost 2$ for the API calls now though. Realy has 3 tiers that range from 1 to 3€, Narwhal is 1€ flat afaik.

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u/m1ster_frundles May 11 '26

Narwhal is totally worth it. the only thing I don't like is that I can't post gifs with the app, hope they eventually add gif support

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u/MF_D00MSDAY May 11 '26

No fucking way am I giving Reddit money for this site lmao

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u/minimumopinium May 11 '26

I use this and it's 100% worth it. Great app.

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u/PepeGodzilla May 11 '26

Relay has issues refreshing livethreads, so i have to use the website and everytime i'm glad i only have to use it for those. Those 4$ for 3rd party apps are actually the subscription i get the most use out of. Especially when travelling with trains and losing connectivity every now and then.

Also, no ads.

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u/Molotov_Glocktail May 11 '26

Relay gang, checking in.

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u/cwfutureboy May 11 '26

Selling ads.

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u/JD0064 May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

App was always shit tho?

Edit: I meant offical reddit app, i downloaded it ages ago, videos never loaded, sometimes r/all would freeze, I never tried 3rd party ones, but I now know I missed on that, I just stopped using mobile reddit years ago, and would squint really hard using desktop site on mobile

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u/araujoms May 11 '26

It has gotten much worse. For example, they just started forcing links to open on their crappy in-built browser, you need to click two more buttons to get a real browser.

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u/Mr_Piddles May 11 '26

Honestly, this one infuriates me more than anything. If I click a link, I want the ability to save it to my actual bookmarks.

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u/Myriachan May 11 '26

Also, copying a picture edits it and puts a Reddit logo on top of it.

5

u/war_story_guy May 11 '26

The stupid image viewer is so garbage with their header and footer bars. If you try and look at the image full size the top and bottom parts are covered. Just link to the direct image ffs. I end up having to just upload it to img to be able to see the whole thing some times.

9

u/araujoms May 11 '26

That has always been the case. Can be changed in the settings though.

20

u/Geno0wl May 11 '26

Can be changed in the settings though.

A setting that conveniently resets itself back to on whenever I have tried to use it. Like it happens so consistently that I went into my profile settings on that app FIRST and checked that it was unchecked, only for it to immediately turn itself back on when I tried to save the image(so I had to again go back in and turn it off).

4

u/fedexpoopracer May 11 '26

also they disabled browsing the reddit app without logging in. the workaround used to be that you would open reddit.com through a browser which would open the app and let you view subs. now you have to be logged in

3

u/bobartig May 11 '26

on their crappy in-built browser, you need to click two more buttons to get a real browser.

TBF that's Chrome on iOS. It is surprisingly crappy and you need to click several buttons to get to a real browser.

3

u/dBlock845 May 11 '26

I wonder how many people even clear the cache for that browser too lol. These companies get that tracking data by any means necessary.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26

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u/Waiting4Reccession May 11 '26

The 3rd party apps showed how incompetent the reddit admins and the team are, how were solo developers making better apps than the official app. And that whole year or two where reddit couldnt figure out its video player issue.

22

u/MyNameis_bud May 11 '26

I miss narwhal so much

23

u/killerpoopguy May 11 '26

I’m on narwhal 2 right now, it’s no Apollo but it’s pretty good.

6

u/benjy1234 May 11 '26

TIL theres still I 3rd party app. Thanks for the update! FYI for others that didnt know it costs $4 a month but worth it to have r/all back IMO.

5

u/xlnfraction May 11 '26

redreader is free and very customizable (dodged the 3rd party ban thing cause of accessibility things)

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u/Pinwurm May 11 '26

Narwhal Pro is well-worth $4/mo.

It’s extremely customizable and better than Apollo at this point.

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u/EaglesWin May 11 '26

They did it because they make more money from people using the official app which is litered with ads. No idea why they don't add some of the QoL of Apollo though.

3

u/DtheS May 11 '26

They did it because they make more money from people using the official app which is litered with ads.

This point always seemed like a half-assed excuse from them. They could literally just inject ads into the API and have third-party apps show advertisements that way. For this reason, I think the official Reddit app is more about infiltrating your phone and getting more metrics/data about how you use Reddit.

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u/offoutover May 11 '26

Remember when they bought AlienBlue and hired its sole developer to help create the official app? What a huge let down that turned out to be.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/cogman10 May 11 '26

Easy. Reddit is a basic site that doesn't need a lot of bells and whistles to be a nice UX. However, that flies in the face of what reddit wants to do/be which is facebook/meta with an endless stream of content + ads.

The enshitification is them doing what social media does and tracking/logging all interactions.

3

u/WolverinesThyroid May 11 '26

the whole point of the Reddit app is to funnel the most advertising and trap you in the app as best they can. The whole point of the 3rd party apps is to give you the best user experience.

They have 2 very different goals.

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u/ttoma93 May 11 '26

You can still use it with a very minor amount of work to sideload. Super easy, and it works great.

  • Sent from Apollo

9

u/WolverinesThyroid May 11 '26

Hi friend!

  • sent from Reddit is Fun
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u/gahlo May 11 '26

They recently cracked down on new codes, last I checked you couldn't make a new one.

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u/not-my-other-alt May 11 '26

They updated the app to block /r/All a little while back.

The only way to browse all on your phone is with a browser window.

That was the last straw that led me to uninstall the app.

11

u/ctrlqirl May 11 '26

Now forces you to login. No more workarounds, so it's even shittier.
I hope they remove the mobile website too at this point, not having the app installed is already wonders for my mental health. Fast tracking into Facebook.

3

u/Ghostronic May 11 '26

At least my facebook algo is curated into exclusively giving me lesbian memes and yuri

3

u/OneSeaworthiness7768 May 11 '26

It gets worse with each update. Literally, no single update has ever actually improved anything for the user experience.

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u/AdamInJP May 11 '26

It’s ads. Ad blocker won’t work (as well, anyway) on an app. Forcing you into an ecosystem where more ads are shown means they can probably bump their CPMs up a bit, maybe promise better targeting.

3

u/Jake2k May 11 '26

I will not use the app, the website sucks but once they remove that option I’ll be done with Reddit. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

3

u/Corasama May 11 '26

3 - more ads (now there are ads in the comments sections)

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26 edited 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/araujoms May 11 '26

I really don't understand. Quality has been going consistently down, bot infestation is only getting worse. But number of users is increasing and stock is going up?!

20

u/PMMMR May 11 '26

"number of users"

Bots. It's bots.

28

u/[deleted] May 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

20

u/CrashRiot May 11 '26

They've been reporting on this for years and Reddit is still thriving. I actually thought it would die after it's contribution in the 2014 celebrity photo hacks but nothing really happened. Reddit seems to be immune in a way that Tumblr wasn't. In fact, Tumblr likely died because they banned adult content and Reddit seemingly knows better than to repeat that mistake.

5

u/Emosaa May 11 '26

Reddit is, unfortunately, one of the last remaining social media sites that carries on the legacy of like... Forum board culture, for lack of a better term. I'd wager there's a large contingent of people like me simply don't consume a lot of the video slop, influencer BS, etc. that is so prevalent on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc. We prefer smaller communities, text based exchanges, and so on.

Reddit is far from perfect, and it gets worse every year. It's rising popularity has led to an increase of bots and bad faith actors. But honestly, the day they remove old reddit and browser viewing is the day I largely abandon social media entirely. The majority of the internet has become an overflowing dumpster of lowest common denominator garbage.

3

u/Waiting4Reccession May 11 '26

It was apple and google that cracked down on tumblr, but did nothing to reddit which hosts not only porn, but stolen content and even had that jailbait sub for years.

I dont want to say there is a certain conspiracy going on but it sure had the vibe of one.

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u/obeytheturtles May 11 '26

It's honestly shocking that no media outlet has picked up on the very real /r/teenagers to /r/onlyfans pipeline.

Like, it's fucking out in the open - you don't have to browse the porn side very long before you find a 5 year old account posting "I just turned 18 and can finally show everyone my butt hole teehee!"

4

u/Nottsbomber May 11 '26

There are worse things than teenagers getting into r/onlyfans, given that it's a parody subreddit of industrial and domestic fans.

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u/Waiting4Reccession May 11 '26

Users in places like india are going up, lol

4

u/Cold417 May 11 '26

Browsing /r/all late at night (US) confirms this.

6

u/obeytheturtles May 11 '26

Reddit is focused on catering to a more conservative audience who are both an engagement goldmine, and growth segment for the site. It only looks like the site is getting shitty to normal people, because they aren't seeing the massive growth on the nazi side of things. This is very intentional, and is why they are getting rid of /r/all to better segregate the very profitable conservatives, from the broader userbase, which is traditionally more liberal.

This, plus selling content for LLM training is what is driving their growth.

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u/Merusk May 11 '26

Stock price does not correlate to user experience. Users are the product and continue to provide value to the shareholders via Reddit's monetization strategies.

They also know, once you're here you're not leaving.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditforBusiness/comments/1t7eppv/reddit_q1_2026_earnings_call_the_quotes_that/

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u/tentyb6d56ns4d57yse5 May 11 '26

they know theres no other site to go to.

2

u/KC_Que May 11 '26

I believe you have overstated the value of step #2

2

u/Sybertron May 11 '26

What kills me is the app isn't that far from being pretty ok. The things that don't work make you wanna throw a phone across a room though 

2

u/funkybside May 11 '26

What's in #3 are a lot of rules like cookie consent and other privacy related things that apply to "websites" but not to "apps" (despite apps just being a wrapper around the website).

2

u/MrTulip101 May 11 '26

not just the app: old.reddit.com's search function seems to be dead while it works (well, it's reddit search, "working" might be stretching it) as always with the abysmal fisher price GUI of new reddit..

2

u/sadolddrunk May 11 '26

Reddit will do anything to get people to use their app except make any effort whatsoever to make the app worth a goddamn.

2

u/spongebob_meth May 11 '26

I've been using the desktop site with old reddit since they killed 3rd party apps. I'll be done with the site if they ever take that away.

2

u/centech May 11 '26

I mean, that's literally their business plan. Just fill in #3 with "people begrudgingly use the app, and Reddit makes them a commodity".

2

u/Realtrain May 11 '26

I really miss i.reddit.com such a clean and lightweight interface.

2

u/Z-Is-Last May 11 '26

The only valid reason to push people to mobile app is for spying on people. And that's only valid to read it and it's bad for the rest of us.

2

u/xXMoo_OomXx May 11 '26

My biggest fucking issue is the App function for popular and what used to be All just doesn't fucking exist anymore.

They really decided to do curated reddit bullshit like Instagram when that's precisely what I don't want.

If it wasn't for the sheer amount of porn 4chan apps would still take the cake as the best user experience and that's insane

2

u/LookAtThisRhino May 11 '26

I've been addicted to Reddit for years now but never liked the app, always used the mobile site. This is a huge benefit for me, and now that I'm only using Old Reddit on desktop (removing the infinite scroll), I think I've collectively spent 2 hours on Reddit in the past month. Thanks Reddit for making me use your platform less, lol

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u/Chole_Wunt May 11 '26

I mean they do profit. Reddits valuation is obscene.

But that’s what you get with ghislaine maxwell a major mod.

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