[wvenable]

I've been actively avoiding Reddit during this protest and I just signed up to a Lemmy instance. The UI isn't great but the communities are already pretty hopping. I need to subscribe to a few more things but it seems to handle the fix for now.

I'm never using Reddit's awful app -- it's just not how I like to use Reddit. I'm an old.reddit.com kind of person.

[bastijn]

The point is for any that is like you my guess is there are 2 more like me. Or 20, or 200. Never checked how much people use 3rd party apps vs. total users.

Honest question, what is so bad about the Reddit app that you would give up browsing the content you like?

I experience little ads, and if I would be annoyed by it I would probably find ways to get rid of it (pi-hole style). I'm OK with how the app displays comments, I can fold them etc. Don't need much more.

[wvenable]

I've been using 3rd party apps for over 15 years -- I used Alien Blue on iOS when I had an iPhone and I bought Relay for Reddit on Android over 10 years ago. I use old.reddit.com and always have (back when it was just reddit.com).

How do I find and read that content that I like? It's a very different (and, for me, worse) experience in their official reddit app and on the non-old Reddit.com.

If I'm going to adjust to a different and worse way of browsing content, I might as well just go to a different site entirely. It's similar to how Microsoft keeps adding user-hostile features and degrading the UI on Windows every year. Most users will stay (I do) but a few more will move to Linux or Mac OS. I fully understand where you are coming from -- for you nothing has been lost. For me, it's a significant change for the worse.

[bastijn]

But in this case the alternative is not MacOS or Ubuntu, but a distro nobody has ever heard of. Third-party app users may be the more die-hard/advanced user group - and the minority - but I wonder how many of them are willing to switch to a small distro which might not have the content or might have an even shittier app experience.

If there are no alternatives, which today there aren't to the best of my knowledge, my guess is Reddit will win this stalemate. Sure, people will leave but not nearly as many as the leaders of the strike would like to think. At least, not for long.

[wvenable]

There hasn't been a strong need for alternatives so there was little motivation to make one (or improve the ones that exist). I think that's going to be changing now.

I don't expect a rapid fall of Reddit or Twitter but rather a slow decline. It's not unprecedented.

[bastijn]

That's the risk they take, indeed. Also the risk for anyone who migrates as chances are the alternative is not profitable either. In the end, to sustain the offering party needs to be profitable or at least break even.

[wvenable]

Reddit went from 700 employees to 2000 employees because they took VC money and have to grow grow grow. I'm sure one could make a sustainable business out of Reddit but nobody wants just a sustainable business.

The cycle will repeat for sure -- it's been repeating for over 20 years now.

[predictabl3]

>Honest question, what is so bad about the Reddit app that you would give up browsing the content you like?

I don't appreciate being lied to, treated like less than garbage? And I'm certainly not going to keep contributing to a platform that does that to me? Especially when this stuff is only going to get worse as they "march towards profitability"?

I gotta log off. I don't know if ppl here are young, naive, or if it's just the usual inability to remember anything from more than a few years ago, or the short-sightedness of not seeing where this is going. Catch ya on Digg.

[bastijn]

People are there of all types, no matter their age.

My take is feeling offended is a choice. Personally, I just let it slide off and continue my life. Life's to short to get offended by these things. But we are different and that's fine.

[predictabl3]

I'm not offended, I just don't really see a reason to build community or amass knowledge on platforms that demonstrate they no longer give a hot toot about the community that made them.

[bastijn]

OK, misread the tone of your previous comment.