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by ekianjo 1708 days ago
reddit (a YC company btw) trying very hard to male the web version unusable for mobile devices.
2 comments

100% agree and anyone who says otherwise has either never browsed Reddit on Safari on an iPhone or is being disingenuous.

The website is the epitome of scum and pulls every single annoying trick in the book to try and get you to download the damn app.

While blaming Reddit is fair, it is made a lot worse by the closed nature of iOS and Safari.

It seems counter-intuitive that both Reddit and Apple are highly successful companies.

How is it apples fault that reddit made these terrible decisions to their own mobile website? The iPhone has been around for over a decade and the mobile reddit website becoming useless and terrible is only a recent phenomenon.
I checked again on the Brave browser i use on Android and if you are logged in then Reddit is ok. If you don't login, then it doesn't let you view the post.
As much as I hate it, I disagree. There are more users than ever. old.reddit.com and i.reddit.com are fine. I have a problem with my older device on it, newer one is fine, it’s worst yes but it’s not unusable, we’re used to older technology (like too small fonts and zooming in) the new interface is more attractive to other people, we are the ones who will remember what a headphone jack was.
No it’s a grotesque technique which goes against the open web and should be condemned for the garbage that it is.

If your website is resorting to do this then your website has failed.

How is requiring an app to view submissions not making the web version unusable?
You don't need to, I didn't for a long time with an JS extension (iOS JB). I don't like the layout myself.
If requiring a JavaScript extension to make it worthwhile isn't a sign of it being unusable, I don't know what is!

The website is literally unusable - they prevent you from viewing more than a few posts without installing the app.

They literally pulled a yelp with their mobile website and made it useless other than a redirect to the app store.
What Yelp and Reddit do to mobile clients should get them de-ranked by search engines. It's terrible.