[deminature]

3rd party reddit apps rival reddit's own app in terms of popularity, and will be significantly hamstrung by these changes if NSFW content can only be accessed in the official app. Lots of non-porn content is marked NSFW. It may end up having a much larger impact than reddit corporate anticipates.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

I think that's intentional. They clearly want to kill those apps because they don't generate ad revenue.

Those apps will now also have to move to a subscription-only model because the APIs will be paid, as the Apollo dev confirmed.

[deminature]

I'm trying to take the most charitable interpretation possible instead of assuming malice on the part of reddit, but it's difficult to interpret it any other way than they have decided to kill 3rd party clients and not be upfront about their intentions.

It wouldn't be so difficult to swallow if the official mobile app was high quality, but it isn't. There are major UX issues with the official app that haven't been fixed for years. The 3rd party app ecosystem is vibrant because of this. Instead of competing and being the best on merit, they have decided to play their platform-owner veto card which is very disappointing, compounded with their dishonesty about the true intent of these changes.

[lozenge]

They're a huge company, they could easily acquire five of the third party apps, add ads and keep the developers on payroll to maintain the apps. Banning apps that don't show ads of course.

[bolanyo]

A main reason people use those apps is to avoid ads. Also to avoid the reddit company's decisions about how stuff should work.

[pmoriarty]

I use Boost because it's far superior to the Reddit app and to Reddit's website (even old.reddit.com), despite Boost having ads and despite me being able to avoid ads on Reddit due to having an ad blocker.

So at least for me, using a third-party app is well worth it despite seeing ads.

[1] - https://boostforreddit.com/

[mehdix]

I have leared to ignore any promoted content i.e. ads in my reddit timeline, mostly because they are irrelevant. The app is regardless slow as hell. The Dawn app in comprasion, is extremely smooth and a pleasure to use. I'd guess the difference is the amount of tracking and analytics the official app is trying to do, I'd guess it is also not a native app.

[Mindwipe]

The last time they did that they managed to wreck it so badly in six weeks that it's userbase imploded.

Reddit's management simply have awful UI instincts.

[sizzle]

I hate when I’m hovering my thumb on a comment for a millisecond when scrolling the comments sections and accidentally collapsing a thread I’m reading, how can they not test their app with users to catch these simple usability issues?

[mrexroad]

Seriously. Makes Me feel like my scroll behavior is weird or something. Or like an idiot because I didn’t know a word and wanted to define it by tapping “Look up.” sigh

[sizzle]

Yeah try to look up a word and collapse comment thread every. single. time.

This is what you get without a competent UX team unfortunately

[karlshea]

One way to do that is fix their own mobile app so it's not a pile of trash. I wouldn't mind seeing the ads if the app was as good as Apollo.

[ajacksified]

"reddit corporate"? Like Steve, who was the original founder and is the current CEO, or Alexis, another original founder, who is the executive chairman?

There is absolutely zero way they're unaware of the impact and I guarantee you they have thought this move through thoroughly.

[vasco]

You mention it like they haven't done a ton of user hostile releases, like the constant UX dark patterns to push you to a mobile app, etc. This argument is so strange, should we refute anything against Meta with "but the original founder is there, there's no corporate"?

[xmprt]

I think the argument isn't that Reddit isn't corporate but rather that the original founders have thought it through a lot and have still decided to make this decision.

[vasco]

I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg thinks through all his major decisions a lot too. If you think a lot and your result is dark patterns, does that matter so much?

[saurik]

You seem to be assuming that if one says "they know well what they are doing" that's a defense of their actions, but I'd think it is much more often a denigration of them...

[ajacksified]

Exactly. I'm pointing out that what gp says:

> It may end up having a much larger impact than reddit corporate anticipates.

Is unlikely. I'm not adding an opinion on whether or not this is a good move, or a user-friendly move.

[deminature]

Fair enough, in that case this is Digg v4 levels of arrogance. Tons of moderators depend on 3rd party apps to moderate [1]. These people are providing free labor on an industrial scale to reddit and it might be wise not to frustrate their work.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/12qwagm/an_update_r...

[Karunamon]

Reddit moderators are, by and large, terrible people. If they quit, as the guy in your link is threatening to do, they can be trivially replaced. It is not a thing that requires much skill.

There is no shortage of people who would volunteer for something like this. The replacements might even be less terrible, both at the job (reddit is stiflingly over-moderated, as documented on r/undelete and r/redditminusmods) and in their dealings with users.

[Mindwipe]

Given in the announcement thread they got wrong about it affecting third party apps at all and then on calls with third party devs do not seem quite sure if it will effect NSFW content or not, that does not seem to be the case.

Indeed, it seems to be a chaotic mess, as most of Reddit's "throw shit at a walk and hope something sticks" development methodology is.