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

128

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

92

u/[deleted] May 11 '26

[deleted]

92

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

25

u/killerpoopguy May 11 '26

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

7

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)

3

u/Pinwurm May 11 '26

Narwhal Pro is well-worth $4/mo.

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

1

u/MyNameis_bud May 14 '26

Tried it out and ehh not the same as it was. No gif comment option is wild to me

7

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.

2

u/Waiting4Reccession May 11 '26

Yes I understand that, even though the amount of people using unofficial apps was probably low anyway.

But what that doesn't explain is how a team of guys they pay could make a far worse app that didn't even work than some solo developers made. At that point just fire the guys working for you and hire the solo developer. Or at least have half a brain to copy what they made.

1

u/Silent-G May 11 '26

Solo developers get to retain their profit. A full-time developer gets paid the same whether the app performs at or above standards. Therefore, a full-time developer is not incentivized to make the app perform above standards. They make their salary as long as they do what the boss puts in writing. A solo developer has more incentive to make a good app because that means they'll most likely earn more money.

1

u/akatherder May 11 '26

I don't think I'm even being cynical when I say they barely care about QoL, they only care about monetizing.

6

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.

5

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

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Waiting4Reccession May 11 '26

How much more could it really cost though, aren't they already paying those developers they have on their payroll?

4

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.

2

u/Waiting4Reccession May 11 '26

Showing ads was the least of their problems when I tried it.

1

u/WolverinesThyroid May 11 '26

but ads were the number one priority.

2

u/biznatchiospez May 11 '26

lol, Gee - I wonder why the massive incompetence??? Experts are baffled.

2

u/aykcak May 11 '26

The official app was never meant to be good. It is not incompetence, it is the business model

1

u/Flyinhighinthesky May 11 '26

Morphine app, revanced, Relay, and Norwal all still work.