[hbn]

I also have a very strong hunch that the day is coming where this gets deprecated. There will be some kind of big database migration or service refactor, and reddit devs will not want to be messing with that "gross, old legacy codebase" to make it continue working and so the entire thing will be taken offline.

[bdw5204]

The day they shut down "old" Reddit is probably the day a large number of people leave Reddit altogether because the main Reddit site is a dark patterns hell. I think they'll still do it though because most web sites only want the kind of users who don't know how to install ad blockers.

[clint]

the vast vast VAST majority of people using reddit are using the official mobile apps. The number of people using the web, and even alternative clients is like a drop of rain in a monsoon.

[tablespoon]

> the vast vast VAST majority of people using reddit are using the official mobile apps. The number of people using the web, and even alternative clients is like a drop of rain in a monsoon.

Users aren't equivalent though. IIRC, "the vast vast VAST majority of people" don't comment or post, either.

[bil7]

large number? Reddit has seen by far the most growth after switching to the new UI. The old reddit has already not been maintained to support new features such as polls.

[undersuit]

Maybe it's a larger number than you suspect. r/TheBoys had a controversial poll recently and had less than 400 responses for their 500k subscribers.

[sofixa]

Subreddit moderators get per-platform (old/new reddit.com, official mobile app, third-party mobile app) stats and all that I've seen share those numbers indicate new reddit.com is minority, old.reddit.com is basically invisible, vast majority is mobile apps. Of course it will be highly subreddit dependent.

[Sebb767]

I highly doubt that. Every single time Reddit comes up here, people complain and complain, but also share old.reddit.com as a work-around instead of actually leaving Reddit. It's a perfect way of keeping the hardcore users addicted while having a modern, instant-gratification interface for the majority. They know what happened to Digg, so far I don't see any indication that they're going to repeat this mistake.

[mrweasel]

My guess is that a large number of younger people use the "new" reddit, and basically pay to keep everything running with the ads they view. Many older Reddit users just go to old.reddit.com, and would sooner leave the site than use the current design.

It's absolutely fascinating that they have both versions. To me it illustrates so perfectly what the Internet was vs. what is has become. There's probably more money to be made from the infinite scrolling and dark patterns, but it's also completely unusable and comments and discussions seems to be of less concern. Just keep scrolling.

[hengheng]

I'd like to see some numbers on this, but from my gut feeling it's not a then vs now thing. Much rather, the old farts that practically live on that website are the ones providing the rest with free content.

Basically the 90% / 9% / 1% split between people reading, people interacting and people creating. I would be very surprised if the 1% contributing and creating on reddit wouldn't be using old reddit for the most part.

[joshlemer]

Yeah I guess the issue is that the share of users on old.reddit.com is diminishing to the point of being irrelevant. The number of users still on the old site is less than 5%.

It's also sad because even though the old reddit is available, it's not the same. Since all the users are using the new UI, you get a totally different type of user engagement than you used to get I feel. Nowadays it's rare to have any sense of community or long discussion and every subreddit has moved along the spectrum to shallower interactions, image posts, and less distinctive character.

[Sebb767]

> Yeah I guess the issue is that the share of users on old.reddit.com is diminishing to the point of being irrelevant. The number of users still on the old site is less than 5%.

They still run i.reddit.com, which probably only has a tiny fraction even old.reddit.coms users. Also, I'm pretty sure that quite a few power users still use the old site and they probably want to keep them in. Someone has to buy gold and repost all the content, after all ;-)