[romwell]

> old-reddit isn't mobile-engineered

Eh. I exclusively use https://old.reddit.com/ on both Desktop and Mobile, and never felt inconvenienced.

Our cell phones are large enough today to use 2008-era websites without any additional bells and whistles.

But, of course, people who are already used to whatever UI they chose are going to suffer. Alas.

[alpaca128]

At least on desktop the old UI has a bug in narrow browser windows, but besides that I also use it 99% of the time. The new interface simply doesn't bring any noteworthy value in comparison while being more annoying to use.

[Kiro]

I also use old.reddit all the time but come on, you seriously can't mean it's a good mobile experience. The text is tiny and you need to zoom in and out all the time just to be able to read anything. It becomes exhausting reading a comment thread by all the zooming. The image posts also don't have the actual image embedded, which makes it a really bad experience on mobile when you have to go to another URL just to look at it.

[calderknight]

I'm with the above commenter, I used the old reddit on mobile for a decade+ and always enjoyed it. Also, there used to be i.reddit.com which was great for mobile - but it looks like they've gotten rid of that.

I've stopped using Reddit now. I liked the freedom of speech and the curiosity of the users. Freedom of speech had been eliminated totally. Curuisity can presumably be found in some niche subreddits - but even the niche subreddits I used to frequent have fallen.

[christoph]

I agree, yet old.reddit is still 100x better to use than the main Reddit site, which really illustrates just how awful and user hostile their main website is (especially on mobile).

[Kiro]

Definitely. I don't use main reddit at all, but on mobile there are no good alternatives now when i.reddit.com is gone and third party clients being restricted. Saying "just use old reddit" is not sufficient for me at least.

[hparadiz]

The new reddit is so bad I'm sort of shocked it still exists. I really wonder what goes through people's heads when they build these things that are universally hated.

[TeMPOraL]

Contempt.

You generally don't make an ad-supported business if you respect your users as human beings, but the old -> new Reddit redesign is something really special - going through with it, and then sticking to it for so many years now, pretty much requires seeing your users as cattle.

[FractalHQ]

My college professors in economics / business taught me that customers and employees are numbers from which I must extract the maximum amount of value for the minimum amount of input. People are more like cow nipples in capitalism driven societies.

[romwell]

>I really wonder what goes through people's heads when they build these things that are universally hated.

Oh, they aren't universally hated.

Most of reddit users have only seen the "new" interface, so they don't know what they're missing.

And when they find out, they're already conditioned to use the "new" UI, so switching is difficult.

[shrimp_emoji]

$$$$

The new UI enforces age gating via sign-in (switch to the old UI, and you can get away with "Continue"), which is better for engagement.

The new UI is mobile friendly, which is WAY better for engagement. (Most users are mobile users, even though mobile devices are worse than desktop PCs in every way except convenience.)

[saurik]

I honestly think you might just be "holding it wrong"... instead of zooming in on the text, can you try just moving your phone closer to your head and see if that helps? I honestly use old.reddit.com on mobile because the font size is better: I am not zooming in and out, and I appreciate being able to see more of the thread at once. The "mobile optimized" version of the site feels like I am being forced to have tunnel vision and it makes it really difficult to read anything.

[andybak]

Yeah. I use old. mainly because I prefer it on mobile.