[Cthulhu_]

Instead of direct monetization, they probably measure by engagement. If a service has a permanent presence on your device, you get a LOT more engagement and recurring visits than a web version. Websites on mobile are one-time, visit-and-forget/move on things.

I'd love to be proven wrong though; what websites see daily, recurring, long time active usage?

Also not to be underestimated is that a mobile app will always have better UX than a website. Think of the subtle things like page transitions. Navigating Reddit still causes full-page reloads, whereas on the app it's a much more organic process. Speed is also an important factor.

[allerhellsten]

Exactly this. To give you a datapoint from our properties: Our web site attracts 90% of the users, but only 60% of the actual traffic. In all metrics like retention, frequency and time on site, mobile leads by factors of 2-5.

Part of that is definitely self-selection, but as some people already said, other notable effects are push notifications, mindshare, loss aversion (you're on somebody's device already, so they can just as well use it) and partly better performance.

So much about the users, but Monetization is much better as well, mostly due to mobile ad-IDs, which especially on iOS lets you extract double the revenue per user due to targeting. Ad blockers are harder to bypass.

In the end, a mobile app will get you anywhere between 2-10x the revenue per user you attracted to your property, so that's why Reddit is pushing so hard.

To stay in Reddit's lingo though:

`LPT: https://old.reddit.com`

[GekkePrutser]

I understand, but they're also pushing many users away with this behaviour.

It's what I like about HN.. It feels like they don't even care how much users 'engage'. I bet they don't even run a report on it. They just let us do our thing here and not worry about it. As a user this is a much nicer experience.

[PakG1]

Easy for HN to do that. HN is not incentivized to make money. The people who run HN do not care if HN does not make any money. In fact, they have zero monetization strategies for HN.

[zozbot234]

HN has ads on its front page. Not many of them, and they are quite hard to spot at a glance (mixed in with the content, not clearly marked as such) but they're there.

[chipotle_coyote]

AFAIK, the only ads are the ones described in the FAQ:

> A regular "Who Is Hiring?" thread appears on the first weekday of each month (or Jan 2). Most job ads are welcome there. Only an account called whoishiring is allowed to submit the thread itself. This prevents a race to post it first.

> Another kind of job ad is reserved for YC-funded startups. These appear on the front page, but are not stories: they have no vote arrows, points, or comments. They begin part-way down and fall steadily. Only one is on the front page at a time.

I'm not sure either of those qualify as ads in the sense we're talking about Reddit ads -- the first one doesn't bring in any revenue to HN (or cost "advertisers" any money); the second one seems like it's a perk for "graduating" YC and it's unclear whether it's something HN makes revenue from, either.

[fauigerzigerk]

I've never seen an ad on HN. They must be really hard to spot.

[waterhouse]

There's currently one on the frontpage for GiveCampus, shown below a regular story:

  14. The Haunted House – Privacy on Google Street View (harpers.org)
      8 points by b0b10101 1 hour ago | flag | hide | 1 comment
  15. GiveCampus (YC S15) hiring Sr Engineers who care about education (lever.co)
      1 hour ago | hide

Distinctive features: no upvote button, no point value, no flag link, no comments.

[krapp]

The only reason HN isn't incentivized to make money directly is that its owned by a company that makes money on it indirectly.

[thunderrabbit]

Your answer reminds me; we are focusing on Hacker News as if it's its own thing, but part of the answer is right in the URL. HN is a part of ycombinator, which presumably pays the bills.

[quakeguy]

Sadly the grave accent is breaking your link ;)

[marcosdumay]

> what websites see daily, recurring, long time active usage?

Reddit

Do you really think that people would stop going to reddit if they used the site instead of the app on their mobile? (But, of course, the people more prone to recurring visits are more likely to install an app.)

> mobile app will always have better UX than a website

And again, it's reddit we are talking about here. The app experience is just horrible.

[badassiel]

someone compared mobile and web (with data from study) as Web, easier to attract, difficult to retain and vice versa for mobile.

Could be the reason why web to app migration practices are followed. best of both worlds.