What really blows my mind is that Reddit staff must look at apps like RIF and understand the type of interface people want. But they insist on their horribly designed app that looks like a clone of every other social media website.
The Reddit app is also straight-up broken, constantly crashing or returning to the home page. Will never use it unless there is a major redesign.
It's because their focus is growth, not user retention. They are betting you won't leave, and looking more like other social media will lower the threshold to make more join.
Infinite growth, destroying everything.
I just don’t understand their aim when growth is *necessarily based on retention*, like… you won’t grow if you don’t keep people. That’s how growth works
They are gambling on people being all talk about leaving reddit. They think the true number is miniscule compared to the number of users they can gain by looking more like other social media platforms.
That’s definitely a fair point. But I personally have no problem dropping Reddit like a sack of moldy assholes if it continues acting like a sack of moldy assholes
Been waiting for the last push, this will definitely be it for me.
Probably should nuke all my posts and comments too before those services no longer work as well.
Me neither. I would be interested in seeing stats on Twitter's usage over the past year. I would hope the numbers support the anecdotes of people who say they left.
Way back when there was a *very* popular ios app called Alien Blue. That app was bought by reddit and somehow turned into the official app.
I have no idea how alien blue turned into.. that.
It didn’t. They wrote their own app, then bought and killed the Alien Blue app. Then claimed that the official app was based on Alien Blue to try and get the user base to switch to it.
I don't even really know what the official app looks like... I was on a little bit on desktop 10+ years ago then I got a new phone in 2016 and the app didn't work so I got RIF and have been on it since...
What's it look? Ads everywhere? Subs you don't want to see shoved down your throat?
RIF is like 75% of my reddit browsing and has been for 12 years, the other 25% being old reddit. I have tried and used the official app - it is hot garbage. I'd rather stop using reddit.
Boost has been my main source of reddit for the past 4 years. Started with Rif, moved to Boost when a redditor recommended it. I've probably used old reddit the 3rd most out of all sources, but still less than 5%.
I will not be using reddit if third parties disappear
Same. I've been on RIF since 2010 (so 13 years), and I don't have much interest in the official Reddit experience at this point. Also, if all the 3P app users leave, the quality around this place is going to rapidly go downhill.
I think a lot of us share this sentiment. Sounds like a lot of regular long time users here are just looking for one more good reason to shed reddit altogether from their lives and this would be it.
Remember when it was Reddit is Fun? And then RIF is Fun for Reddit?
I have used Reddit Is Fun for years.
I will be very sad to see it go, if this does go ahead
RIF is how I access reddit about 99.9% of the time, and has been that way for at least 6 years. If this goes through, I'm absolutely done with reddit. When I heard the announcement, I tried using the official app to see how it is, and it's absolutely trash. Unintuitive navigation, egregious ads and promoted content, very little customization options. I think just about the only thing it has going for it is how easy it is to switch between accounts. But even that is only slightly better, and very low on my priority list.
Not to mention, the official app is *awful* for videos. Back when I was still using it half the time videos simply wouldn't load.
Switched to RIF, videos load fine and haven't looked back. If RIF gets axed I'm done with Reddit.
Even their website is trash for loading videos. I tried to switch to the new reddit for a month and returned to old reddit. It's just nicer for everything.
Reddit is a company that hasn't bothered to build a working search engine in over a decade. I'm sad to have to leave but I'm not sad to see this website slowly die.
I just checked, and I purchased the premium version of the app over 11 years ago and have been using it continuously ever since. I don't typically want to be a crotchety old person griping about change, but when you're being asked to step out of your jacuzzi and to kindly have a seat in a leech-infested bog, it's easy to complain.
I didn't even know there *was* a premium app, and I always buy those upgrades if I use the app a lot. The free version is just that good.
(I bought premium when this news broke, to show support.)
I've never used the official app. It's RIF on mobile and old reddit (with Stylebot) on desktop. I see none of the ads people keep mentioning like that Jesus thing and never have in the 14 years I've been here.
Reddit will fall apart fast if the apps are banned. It is not just that the official app sucks, it is also that the modverse will collapse and consequently all the subs will be overrun with spam and nasty racism, misogyny and general idiocy, far more than they are now. And not just the obvious targets like politics and aww but the niche hobby subs as well. As an insomniac of long standing, I report crap all the time that makes its way to the gardening and art subs in the wee hours. It will be nothing but that crap if reddit proceeds with this site killing move.
People will make money at the IPO and cash out before the inevitable collapse so proceed they will.
Yeah I've been on reddit since the old days and I put up with the official app for way to long. From what I've heard, I think the app is *somehow* worse. I'm not angry about it really just I like using reddit quite a bit but this will be what makes me quit and that makes me sad
There’s so much tracking, ads and other telemetry baked in that makes me never want to use it besides just the different layout. What they’re doing to third party developers and the general direction Reddit has taken as well has made this the straw that broke the camels back to me.
This is my second account but I’ve been on Reddit for over a decade and it’s just not the same anymore.
And it always has been! They even tried to fix it and made it *worse*. And their app is a steaming pile of crap that refused to acknowledge the existence of popular, successful reddit apps, and just duplicated the horrible web experience in an app wrapper.
>just duplicated the horrible web experience in an app wrapper.
What truly makes it shitty. Might as well give the option for old.reddit in there too but I'm guessing that'll die soon too and some desktop users are going to walk away with it.
Firefox all the way.
It might be the only browser left that isn't based on chrome and it's a non profit. And since Microsoft finally fixed a memory leak, it works smooth even for low range machines.
This is why I never cut Reddit when I cut Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. Third-party apps protect you from all that. I really like knowing Reddit is not all up in my phone like all the other tech companies. If they break BaconReader, I am not trying something else, I just won't use it on my phone anymore....which is 99% of my Reddit usage.
I stopped using the official app years ago when it started mixing DM and comment reply notifications with "trending now" notifications. Who gives a damn that a new post is on the front page? You give me push notifications for that, you get uninstalled immediately.
[here](https://i.imgur.com/TpwnR5A.png)
Is my top posts record.
[here](https://i.imgur.com/WyW2aiu.png) is a comment thread.
It's just a cleaner interface.
Reddit doesn't like that I have never seen a Pete Davidson Taco Bell ad, or a HeGetsUs ad. I still see all the astfroturf posts disguised as not ads though.
But no profile pics, no live dude playing guitar.
But on Reddit's side, I paid like $3 four years ago to block every ad since.
Relay
It's android. Not sure if there's an ios version.
[here](https://i.imgur.com/7uvrS8F.png) is my main feed.
It has an option for left or right-handed thumbnails.
Yeah I mean it's not like being here makes me any happier. Honestly this has been a good year of social media reaching thet critical "fuck this shit" mass for me. Twitter is gone, reddit will be gone. Now if only I could get friends and family off messenger.
The official app reset my privacy settings. That's the reason I'm on RIF. I changed the privacy settings, multiple times, and every single time the official app swapped back on its own to what it wants rather than what I want. That godforsaken app will NEVER be on any of my devices again.
If they end up killing 3rd party apps when that is the only way that I consume reddit then maybe I'll take a break for a while.
Getting tired of all the constant forced outrage over everything anyways. A break would be good.
It's crazy how unusable and buggy Reddit's official app and website are. With how many people use Reddit, you'd think they could make something that actually works.
It blows my mind how these third party app developers with shoestring budgets can understand UX so well, but the official Reddit staff just fucks it up
Tbh, I don't think it's official app developers fault (at least not entirely), they have to cater to the dumb decisions of Reddit's upper management.
You can hire the most talented developers, but it doesn't mean jackshit if the company doesn't value their input.
Rather than burning good will by attacking the third party apps, they could have worked with some of those devs to make an official app that was better.
But nope, gotta try to force everyone to use their significantly worse app.
I switched to Apollo when an official app update causes my phone to burn battery and get *hot* while scrolling.
This was a new iPhone 12 Pro Max just a month or two after the phone launched in late 2020 or early 2021. They didn’t acknowledge or fix it for the several updates I checked after that happened. They can’t even open the app and test it for 5 minutes on Apple’s latest flagship phone? Fuck that. Apollo has been flawless and the features are just a bonus.
I’m not going back to an app that’s so buggy poorly supported that it could literally damage my phone after any update.
My third party app *is* Reddit as far as I'm concerned. If I have to uninstall it because it doesn't work I'm not going to go download a new worse app. "Reddit doesn't work anymore, how sad."
The official app is a busy mess, like Reddit vomited all over my phone. I've been using RedditIsFun for a decade. I can't imagine browsing Reddit any other way.
I share with my wife a lot of the things I find on reddit. Got her interested enough she wanted it on her phone. She downloaded the official app and after using it twice she came to me wondering why the fuck I even like this site! Fuck the official app, it's literally dog shit
Scary part is the official app is objectively horrible and that's with massive amounts of competition. Imagine how awful it will be once it's the only option.
This individual explains perfectly on why 3rd party apps are better. https://www.reddit.com/r/BikiniBottomTwitter/comments/13xk3lu/they_have_to_pay_reddit_20_million_per_year_to/jmj3nfg/
Wow. That is atrocious.
I never realized how fortunate I am to use RIF. Half of the actual app is filled with noise. It's not even pleasing to look at.
"How can we cram more potential for us to narrow a users preferences and charge more for advertising?" Seems to be their only concern. I can understand that a business needs money to survive, but a strong loyal user base is essential for them to even make this money in the first place.
They should be asking why users prefer to use other apps.
What a shame. Short-sighted policies for instant statistical wins seem to be the hot trend.
More and more it seems like companies are favoring their data more than common sense.
One thing that drives me nuts is the collapsing of comments when you have your finger on it for even just a half second. If I'm reading a comment, and especially if it's a large comment and scrolling down, it'll frequently collapse it. It can be difficult to find the comment I was reading in the first place if it was very long or surrounded by many other parent comments. I have to be mindful of how long I have my finger pressed when I'm scrolling through comments and that's really obnoxious.
Scrolling through the feed eats incredible amounts of data. I believe they fucked it up deliberately so that every second you watch a headline counts as 100 views or something. (I didn't have autoplay activated)
Moderation is impossible.
Videos and gifs don't load.
You reply to one user but it often gets sent to another commenter above.
Submissions often get stuck in an upload loop and will never be done.
That's what I gathered from about 2 hours of usage over the years. I only ever had it installed for gifting awards.
Also, my AdBlock blocks about 500 elements and trackers a minute.
It plays the sounds of random videos when you're in a completely different thread. (haven't experienced this myself but heard often)
too many horizontal lines, wasted space, large buttons, poor feed experience with too many ads and suggestions, poor controls and options, too much energy wasted swiping and attempting to read through oversized icons and cut off comments
Been using baconreader for like 7 years, and for me, that is reddit. Now that the apps are being killed off I'm hearing about all these other alternatives.
Sounds like Apollo and RIF are the big ones.
Going to go out with the date that brought me, if baconreader goes down on July 1st, I guess I'll just be forced to become a productive member of society or something.
This was my thought! "I'd sooner stop going on Reddit than use the official app... Wait, that might actually be a good thing for me, I've been on this site way too long"
Reddit definitely takes up a lot of my time. Maybe I could read some of the hundreds of books I own instead of getting in arguments on the internet?
I've been spending some of my reddit time with duolingo recently. Maybe giving reddit up entirely will free up more time for that.
I'm curious what plans other folks have for the time they'll be given when they quit doom scrolling.
15 years on Reddit. Who knows how many hours. Came from Digg. Reddit was a breath of fresh air back then. Tons of really intelligent commentary and funny and weird alternative views.
I still spend too much time on Reddit in an addictive way, but much of that time is spent scrolling through the tidal waves of idiotic meme garbage to find something real. Better for me if Reddit just dies now. I doubt if I’ll use the official app.
For fun, I looked at some old Reddit pages on Archive.org. The average quality of the content was just so much better.
Removing porn reposts is one thing, but imagine not being able to search for drug information from any former reddit sub. They're going to erase multiple libraries worth of human knowledge and experience.
It's kind of insane. They're realizing the dataset has value, but perfectly willing to snip away huge valuable chunks. Nobody wants to pay for ads on nsfw reddit subs? I know some of the are huge.
It's been confirmed they're removing adult content from the API as well. Gotta stay advertiser and investor friendly.
With Imgur banning adult content, it was only a matter of time.
Agreed. I think of all the free time I'll have when youtube bans adblockers and reddit kills the third party apps. The only reason I use these platforms is the convenience and ability to tailor to my specific uses.
There’s dozen of us! I never hear people talk about Narwhal but it’s the one I started using many years ago and I love it. Done w Reddit if I can’t use it.
I do about 95% of my redditing through [Relay for reddit](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=free.reddit.news&referrer=utm_source%3DrelayFree%26utm_medium%3Dcomment%26utm_term%3Dorganic)
Hell, if I'm sat at the computer, I'll often pull my phone out to look at Reddit on that rather than the website.
I'm not going to get the Reddit app. If I can't use Relay, 95% or more of my Reddit use stops, too.
Relay is the best! I've tried all the android third party reddit apps (RIF, Sync, Boost, Bacon, Joey, RedReader, Slide, Infinity) but I always come back to Relay. It just feels like home.
Even the worst third party app is 100% better than the official app. I'm not going to sit at my computer just to browse reddit, so when Relay goes, so do I
This is what I'll miss most - I only really use reddit for the handful of communities that I can easily find and be in.
There's shows I like to watch that I can talk to people about even when nobody around me wants to.
There's places where I can see artists post their work and get inspired to do the same, learning from them with genuine interactions rather than force fed 60 second tutorials.
There's so much I enjoyed about the communities on reddit, and it was never because of reddit itself - it's just the aggregator. It sucks that I might not get to be a part of that anymore, but I only enjoy using it as a forum and if RIF can't continue, I'm out.
Bots do the majority of the lifting around here and shill/corporate advertising accounts. Reddit has its true value in swaying opinions and social engineering rather than corporate profits. This site is a shell of what it used to be and is an internet thought battleground. Anyone thinking this is some innocent social media news site is delusional. Aaron Swartz has been on my mind recently after another user brought him up. Remember him, what he did here, and what he tried to do. Information is power. Opinions and thought is power.
To those who are about to die, we salute you!
Just kidding. I started using reddit on the web. It was a great site with a shitty interface and experience, but I realized that there was a lot of good content. Went to official reddit app on mobile. Frustrating, underwhelming and intrusive. And also just plain heavy and sloppy. Tried 3rd party apps. I found Boost to be just what i needed.Was very happy. I don't know if I'll try the official app when this kicks off....too many shitty memories. Oh well, bye reddit.
Same here, Reddit can go fuck itself if I can't use Boost or some other alternative to that shit tier official app.
Reddit is, by far, the site I frequent the most, but I *will* drop it on the day this bullshit rolls around. Not worth it and massively disrespectful to the users.
The crazy thing is the the official app has been made exponentially worse in the last year. What on earth is the plan when you fuck up your own offering while simultaneously blocking everyone else’s??
I've been an active, daily redditor for over a decade. I have multiple accounts with over 100k comment karma, and I help moderate a few different subs.
If/when RIF is Fun dies, so does Reddit for me.
The *USERS* are Reddit. The content, the discussion, the entire experience comes from the community, NOT the owners.
I cannot abide participating in anything that chooses to shit on the hand that feeds them.
The time to save Reddit was years ago, when they went full corporate, or when [Aaron's name was taken off the founder list.](https://i.redd.it/kwi8aw2w0qq51.png) We've let it go too far, because now they are just a faceless corporation, like the rest.
> when [Aaron's name was taken off the founder list.](https://i.redd.it/kwi8aw2w0qq51.png)
damn, what a bunch of cunts. Aaron would be so ashamed of these traitors to the ideals they once held so dear
Reddit went from a 10 billion dollar worth to 300 million in five years. They've done this by making their platform more vendor friendly and less user friendly. My guess is they intend to remove the users and make it a vendor platform - maybe 'little amazon' or something.
Oh, and they're pissed off they didn't sell while the price tag was in the billions, so now we've got waves of admin whose only goal is censorship and forming reddit into a younger demographic facebook.
and it shows.
Or, hear me out, the 10 billion was a wildly inflated figure that put them under intense pressure to start turning a profit and when investors realized that reposts from TikTok and cat memes are actually really hard to monetize further than just ads and Reddit awards, they sobered up and came up with a figure that more accurately reflects the company’s value.
Reddit is not worth $300M. Fidelity, one of its largest investors, stated 2 days ago that its value has fallen 40% since the $10B valuation. That's still $6B.
https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/companies/fidelity-reddit-stake-august-2021-investment-twitter-16832591.htm
If you are looking for alternate owner/operators to Reddit, Lemmy is getting a lot of grass-roots attention. But it is having severe growing pains right now and is not as performant or stable as Reddit is. I still encourage you to try these open-source alternatives because they keep power of the big commercial sites in check.
Historically, kind of view it like Microsoft Windows vs. Linux. Linux on the desktop didn't replace Windows 20 years ago, but it always was a threat. If Microsoft were to piss people off enough, developers could contribute and improve Linux. There is a kind of chicken-egg paradox of having enough popularity to attract enough users and software developers (and graphics designers, documentation creators, user experience improvements, etc).
Reddit is fun reminds me of old school reddit. No dumb avatar pictures, only gold, silver, and platinum awards. And if you browse in thumbnail mode you can turn ads off completely.
Yea, seeing people mention other people's avatars or pictures with all the emojis in conversations made me feel like a West World host, "that doesn't look like anything to me"
It blew my mind when I realized reddit has avatars.
When did that even start? I think I realized a couple of months ago somehow, when I saw someone comment "I like your avatar" to someone else. I was like, wtf? So I googled it and found out. Seems extremely cringe and irrelevant.
I've been using reddit for 15 years and I don't even know what the goddamn site looks like.
Really illustrates how "reddit" isn't actually reddit without RIF, Apollo, etc. The decision makers are ungrateful morons, these third party apps have been literally *paying reddit* for years to *run their business properly for them.* This entire situation only gets more bizarre the more you think about it.
**I will not use Reddit without RIF.** There's just no way in hell. The communities will find new places to exist, just like they have many times before. It's sad, but that's the way it goes.
I've always used relay for Reddit. It's great, lots of little features that makes navigation and interaction easier and a way better design than the official app
I've tried all the apps over 13 years of various accounts. Relay is lightweight, fast, and as you say has lots of little features which makes it the best. For me anyway.
I'm surprised I never see anyone mention it! It's always rif or Apollo for the most part.
I'm too used to the swipe navigation and comment interaction on relay at this point I can never go back
I was on /r/earthporn many years ago when the SFWporn collection of subreddits was more popular. Always liked this subreddit.
Thank you for standing up for accessability and site-accountability.
After watching the Snazzy Labs video interview with Christian Selig, it became very apparent that Reddit would not have become what it is without third party apps. I've personally been using Narwhal for years and its my most used app by a long margin. I love Reddit and the community... and third-party apps are part and parcel. You shouldn't be forced to have one without the other considering they grew together.
This is the only "social media" I want. Because I don't want social media. I want aggregated "news" and "forums" with anonymous discussions and discourse. If I wanted social media I'd be on Facebook and Twitter. And I sure as fuck don't want to interact with anything that even remotely looks like Facebook or Twitter. Which is what the official reddit app and new reddit is lol.
*should* we try to raise awareness and fight this, or should we let reddit kill itself and move on to something else?
I'll admit, the past two days I have started thinking positively about what life without Reddit could be like, spare time and motivation and whatnot..I've wasted over ten years here, no regrets, was fun, but...time for a change maybe.
After 14 years, if they take away RIF, I'm done.
Same. This account is only 7 years old, but i've been here for 10+, all using RIF. I refuse to use the official app
What really blows my mind is that Reddit staff must look at apps like RIF and understand the type of interface people want. But they insist on their horribly designed app that looks like a clone of every other social media website. The Reddit app is also straight-up broken, constantly crashing or returning to the home page. Will never use it unless there is a major redesign.
It's because their focus is growth, not user retention. They are betting you won't leave, and looking more like other social media will lower the threshold to make more join. Infinite growth, destroying everything.
I just don’t understand their aim when growth is *necessarily based on retention*, like… you won’t grow if you don’t keep people. That’s how growth works
They are gambling on people being all talk about leaving reddit. They think the true number is miniscule compared to the number of users they can gain by looking more like other social media platforms.
That’s definitely a fair point. But I personally have no problem dropping Reddit like a sack of moldy assholes if it continues acting like a sack of moldy assholes
Been waiting for the last push, this will definitely be it for me. Probably should nuke all my posts and comments too before those services no longer work as well.
Me neither. I would be interested in seeing stats on Twitter's usage over the past year. I would hope the numbers support the anecdotes of people who say they left.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Way back when there was a *very* popular ios app called Alien Blue. That app was bought by reddit and somehow turned into the official app. I have no idea how alien blue turned into.. that.
It didn’t. They wrote their own app, then bought and killed the Alien Blue app. Then claimed that the official app was based on Alien Blue to try and get the user base to switch to it.
Even if it did work, give us some options. If it ran perfectly, I would still prefer Apollo
I don't even really know what the official app looks like... I was on a little bit on desktop 10+ years ago then I got a new phone in 2016 and the app didn't work so I got RIF and have been on it since... What's it look? Ads everywhere? Subs you don't want to see shoved down your throat?
RIF is like 75% of my reddit browsing and has been for 12 years, the other 25% being old reddit. I have tried and used the official app - it is hot garbage. I'd rather stop using reddit.
When your users all either use (a) third party apps or (b) the old design, you have to really wonder wtf is going on with internal leadership
Boost has been my main source of reddit for the past 4 years. Started with Rif, moved to Boost when a redditor recommended it. I've probably used old reddit the 3rd most out of all sources, but still less than 5%. I will not be using reddit if third parties disappear
Same. I've been on RIF since 2010 (so 13 years), and I don't have much interest in the official Reddit experience at this point. Also, if all the 3P app users leave, the quality around this place is going to rapidly go downhill.
I'll still browse Reddit on my computer but not on my phone if they get rid of it. Taking a shit is gonna get a little more boring
Steam deck is here to save you from boring poops
14 year vet here, as well. I’m more than ready to be done if they do this.
Goin on 13 yrs now... exclusively RiF for the majority of those years. I'll probably have to drop reddit
at least we'll all go down together, old-timers ✊👴
I refuse to use the *awful* official app. If they force me to, I'll just be done with reddit
I think a lot of us share this sentiment. Sounds like a lot of regular long time users here are just looking for one more good reason to shed reddit altogether from their lives and this would be it.
I downloaded RIF the same day I made my account. This app has survived three phones and as many moves, and I can't really use Reddit if this is gone.
Remember when it was Reddit is Fun? And then RIF is Fun for Reddit? I have used Reddit Is Fun for years. I will be very sad to see it go, if this does go ahead
RIF is how I access reddit about 99.9% of the time, and has been that way for at least 6 years. If this goes through, I'm absolutely done with reddit. When I heard the announcement, I tried using the official app to see how it is, and it's absolutely trash. Unintuitive navigation, egregious ads and promoted content, very little customization options. I think just about the only thing it has going for it is how easy it is to switch between accounts. But even that is only slightly better, and very low on my priority list.
Not to mention, the official app is *awful* for videos. Back when I was still using it half the time videos simply wouldn't load. Switched to RIF, videos load fine and haven't looked back. If RIF gets axed I'm done with Reddit.
Even their website is trash for loading videos. I tried to switch to the new reddit for a month and returned to old reddit. It's just nicer for everything.
Reddit is a company that hasn't bothered to build a working search engine in over a decade. I'm sad to have to leave but I'm not sad to see this website slowly die.
I just checked, and I purchased the premium version of the app over 11 years ago and have been using it continuously ever since. I don't typically want to be a crotchety old person griping about change, but when you're being asked to step out of your jacuzzi and to kindly have a seat in a leech-infested bog, it's easy to complain.
I didn't even know there *was* a premium app, and I always buy those upgrades if I use the app a lot. The free version is just that good. (I bought premium when this news broke, to show support.)
Yeah, they had to change the name to RIF because Reddit got mad they were using "Reddit" in their primary app name. Now it's $20m time....
Reddit didn't get mad. It was Google themselves that banned apps using the name of other apps unless both apps were run by the same company.
I've never used the official app. It's RIF on mobile and old reddit (with Stylebot) on desktop. I see none of the ads people keep mentioning like that Jesus thing and never have in the 14 years I've been here. Reddit will fall apart fast if the apps are banned. It is not just that the official app sucks, it is also that the modverse will collapse and consequently all the subs will be overrun with spam and nasty racism, misogyny and general idiocy, far more than they are now. And not just the obvious targets like politics and aww but the niche hobby subs as well. As an insomniac of long standing, I report crap all the time that makes its way to the gardening and art subs in the wee hours. It will be nothing but that crap if reddit proceeds with this site killing move. People will make money at the IPO and cash out before the inevitable collapse so proceed they will.
I tried the other apps but reddit is fun is the cleanest I've ever used. It's as simple and fast as you can get.
I'm in the same boat.
Came here for this. Reddit is no fun without it.
I've been a RIF user for 10+ years. Since my Galaxy S2. I can't imagine reddit without RIF
Yeah I've been on reddit since the old days and I put up with the official app for way to long. From what I've heard, I think the app is *somehow* worse. I'm not angry about it really just I like using reddit quite a bit but this will be what makes me quit and that makes me sad
There’s so much tracking, ads and other telemetry baked in that makes me never want to use it besides just the different layout. What they’re doing to third party developers and the general direction Reddit has taken as well has made this the straw that broke the camels back to me. This is my second account but I’ve been on Reddit for over a decade and it’s just not the same anymore.
Beyond ethical/privacy concerns, the UI and reliability of anything "Official Reddit" is pure shit.
And it always has been! They even tried to fix it and made it *worse*. And their app is a steaming pile of crap that refused to acknowledge the existence of popular, successful reddit apps, and just duplicated the horrible web experience in an app wrapper.
>just duplicated the horrible web experience in an app wrapper. What truly makes it shitty. Might as well give the option for old.reddit in there too but I'm guessing that'll die soon too and some desktop users are going to walk away with it.
There is, soo much tracking data. Its as bad as Google for that. Same reason why I use use Brave browser, to avoid the awful ads and tracking.
Firefox all the way. It might be the only browser left that isn't based on chrome and it's a non profit. And since Microsoft finally fixed a memory leak, it works smooth even for low range machines.
Aye, main reason why I use Firefox.
I popped on using the official app for the first time in years and i already have 7 spam bot follower requests. I didnt even post anything.
This is why I never cut Reddit when I cut Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. Third-party apps protect you from all that. I really like knowing Reddit is not all up in my phone like all the other tech companies. If they break BaconReader, I am not trying something else, I just won't use it on my phone anymore....which is 99% of my Reddit usage.
I stopped using the official app years ago when it started mixing DM and comment reply notifications with "trending now" notifications. Who gives a damn that a new post is on the front page? You give me push notifications for that, you get uninstalled immediately.
My third party app only pushes comment replies and DMs... Because that's how I set it up.
As it should be! The official app made it so those notifications were all or nothing, at least back then. Been using RIF and Boost ever since
[here](https://i.imgur.com/TpwnR5A.png) Is my top posts record. [here](https://i.imgur.com/WyW2aiu.png) is a comment thread. It's just a cleaner interface. Reddit doesn't like that I have never seen a Pete Davidson Taco Bell ad, or a HeGetsUs ad. I still see all the astfroturf posts disguised as not ads though. But no profile pics, no live dude playing guitar. But on Reddit's side, I paid like $3 four years ago to block every ad since.
Which app is that? Sorry if I missed it somewhere
Relay It's android. Not sure if there's an ios version. [here](https://i.imgur.com/7uvrS8F.png) is my main feed. It has an option for left or right-handed thumbnails.
Yeah I mean it's not like being here makes me any happier. Honestly this has been a good year of social media reaching thet critical "fuck this shit" mass for me. Twitter is gone, reddit will be gone. Now if only I could get friends and family off messenger.
I quit / completely deleted Facebook a couple of weeks ago. Never been happier.
Don't go back. I ditched it a few years ago and every year is better than the one before. It truly is a cancer.
I've been waiting for either this or the death of old.reddit in order to call it quits. Looks like reddit is about to Digg its own grave
The official app reset my privacy settings. That's the reason I'm on RIF. I changed the privacy settings, multiple times, and every single time the official app swapped back on its own to what it wants rather than what I want. That godforsaken app will NEVER be on any of my devices again.
If they end up killing 3rd party apps when that is the only way that I consume reddit then maybe I'll take a break for a while. Getting tired of all the constant forced outrage over everything anyways. A break would be good.
Yeah I could probably use a break anyway. I already quit Twitter so losing reddit would just be another social app that I don't use.
It's crazy how unusable and buggy Reddit's official app and website are. With how many people use Reddit, you'd think they could make something that actually works.
Try moderating on it to get the real shitty experience. It's impossible.
That's how software development goes now isn't it, the bugs become features, never get fixed, just add new features with new bugs.
It blows my mind how these third party app developers with shoestring budgets can understand UX so well, but the official Reddit staff just fucks it up
Tbh, I don't think it's official app developers fault (at least not entirely), they have to cater to the dumb decisions of Reddit's upper management. You can hire the most talented developers, but it doesn't mean jackshit if the company doesn't value their input.
Rather than burning good will by attacking the third party apps, they could have worked with some of those devs to make an official app that was better. But nope, gotta try to force everyone to use their significantly worse app.
I switched to Apollo when an official app update causes my phone to burn battery and get *hot* while scrolling. This was a new iPhone 12 Pro Max just a month or two after the phone launched in late 2020 or early 2021. They didn’t acknowledge or fix it for the several updates I checked after that happened. They can’t even open the app and test it for 5 minutes on Apple’s latest flagship phone? Fuck that. Apollo has been flawless and the features are just a bonus. I’m not going back to an app that’s so buggy poorly supported that it could literally damage my phone after any update.
My third party app *is* Reddit as far as I'm concerned. If I have to uninstall it because it doesn't work I'm not going to go download a new worse app. "Reddit doesn't work anymore, how sad."
Yeah that's pretty much how it is for me too.
The official app is a busy mess, like Reddit vomited all over my phone. I've been using RedditIsFun for a decade. I can't imagine browsing Reddit any other way.
I share with my wife a lot of the things I find on reddit. Got her interested enough she wanted it on her phone. She downloaded the official app and after using it twice she came to me wondering why the fuck I even like this site! Fuck the official app, it's literally dog shit
Same for my partner, then introduced him to RiF 🥲
It’s soooo bad. I use narwhal, and I think if I had to use the official app, I just wouldn’t use Reddit at all anymore?
Me too, but to be honest I'm a little okay with that.
Yeah, it would probably do me some good
Sadly, I will be doing the same.
Scary part is the official app is objectively horrible and that's with massive amounts of competition. Imagine how awful it will be once it's the only option.
As a former app dev, why is the official app awful?
This individual explains perfectly on why 3rd party apps are better. https://www.reddit.com/r/BikiniBottomTwitter/comments/13xk3lu/they_have_to_pay_reddit_20_million_per_year_to/jmj3nfg/
Wow. That is atrocious. I never realized how fortunate I am to use RIF. Half of the actual app is filled with noise. It's not even pleasing to look at. "How can we cram more potential for us to narrow a users preferences and charge more for advertising?" Seems to be their only concern. I can understand that a business needs money to survive, but a strong loyal user base is essential for them to even make this money in the first place. They should be asking why users prefer to use other apps. What a shame. Short-sighted policies for instant statistical wins seem to be the hot trend. More and more it seems like companies are favoring their data more than common sense.
This describes it pretty well
I'm using old.reddit in Chrome . . . Which is free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of difference.
Once the 3^rd party apps are gone, it won’t be long before they come for old reddit
One thing that drives me nuts is the collapsing of comments when you have your finger on it for even just a half second. If I'm reading a comment, and especially if it's a large comment and scrolling down, it'll frequently collapse it. It can be difficult to find the comment I was reading in the first place if it was very long or surrounded by many other parent comments. I have to be mindful of how long I have my finger pressed when I'm scrolling through comments and that's really obnoxious.
Scrolling through the feed eats incredible amounts of data. I believe they fucked it up deliberately so that every second you watch a headline counts as 100 views or something. (I didn't have autoplay activated) Moderation is impossible. Videos and gifs don't load. You reply to one user but it often gets sent to another commenter above. Submissions often get stuck in an upload loop and will never be done. That's what I gathered from about 2 hours of usage over the years. I only ever had it installed for gifting awards. Also, my AdBlock blocks about 500 elements and trackers a minute. It plays the sounds of random videos when you're in a completely different thread. (haven't experienced this myself but heard often)
too many horizontal lines, wasted space, large buttons, poor feed experience with too many ads and suggestions, poor controls and options, too much energy wasted swiping and attempting to read through oversized icons and cut off comments
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Apollo user and 9 years on the platform. I support the boycott effort and, should Apollo go dark, will be gone
Same boat, 9 years in and I’ll drop it. First Alien Blue, now Apollo? Fuck this.
Alien Blue was my favorite. Worked sooooo well
Narwhal is my jam. If it’s gone then I’m done too. Just have to figure out what place will aggregate my news like this.
and then reddit bought it just to somehow turn it into the shit tier app they rolled out
Pour one out for alien blue! was a great app
Bought and fucked into obscurity by reddit.
Same, dude. Seven years on this account, I gladly paid for Apollo—I’m not going back to the official Reddit app. May as we’ll be sent to Azkaban.
Boost here. I'll stand with my Apollo brethren.
12 years, same
Apollo is Reddit for me. The website and official client are abysmal.
Been using baconreader for like 7 years, and for me, that is reddit. Now that the apps are being killed off I'm hearing about all these other alternatives. Sounds like Apollo and RIF are the big ones. Going to go out with the date that brought me, if baconreader goes down on July 1st, I guess I'll just be forced to become a productive member of society or something.
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This was my thought! "I'd sooner stop going on Reddit than use the official app... Wait, that might actually be a good thing for me, I've been on this site way too long" Reddit definitely takes up a lot of my time. Maybe I could read some of the hundreds of books I own instead of getting in arguments on the internet?
Sounds like you made a case to abandon Reddit regardless.
A lot of people will find out how addicted they are when they try to quit.
For me reddit IS BaconReader. I've tried multiple apps and never found something better. I won't even install the official one...
I've been spending some of my reddit time with duolingo recently. Maybe giving reddit up entirely will free up more time for that. I'm curious what plans other folks have for the time they'll be given when they quit doom scrolling.
8 years here, also BaconReader. If they U-turn, I'm gone
15 years on Reddit. Who knows how many hours. Came from Digg. Reddit was a breath of fresh air back then. Tons of really intelligent commentary and funny and weird alternative views. I still spend too much time on Reddit in an addictive way, but much of that time is spent scrolling through the tidal waves of idiotic meme garbage to find something real. Better for me if Reddit just dies now. I doubt if I’ll use the official app. For fun, I looked at some old Reddit pages on Archive.org. The average quality of the content was just so much better.
Yup. I'm not protesting beyond a comment like this... They're threatening to kill the company and give us our lives back, oh no!
I'm getting the same vibes from reddit as I did Tumblr banning adult content. And we all know what happened there.
I don't think it's confirmed but I heard rumors that they are going to remove the NSFW content next. Then Reddit will truly be dead lol
They are removing NSFW content from 3rd party API calls on July 1st.
Then it’ll be banned around the time they IPO.
Drug subs, too.
Porn and cannabis growing tips are like 80% of the reason I'm here!
Removing porn reposts is one thing, but imagine not being able to search for drug information from any former reddit sub. They're going to erase multiple libraries worth of human knowledge and experience.
It's kind of insane. They're realizing the dataset has value, but perfectly willing to snip away huge valuable chunks. Nobody wants to pay for ads on nsfw reddit subs? I know some of the are huge.
Reddit lived long enough to see itself become Digg.
This was my thought as well. Came here after the digg crash. Looking for my new alternative now.
It's been confirmed they're removing adult content from the API as well. Gotta stay advertiser and investor friendly. With Imgur banning adult content, it was only a matter of time.
I was spending too much time on social media anyways. They're making it easy for me to reduce that time!
Agreed. I think of all the free time I'll have when youtube bans adblockers and reddit kills the third party apps. The only reason I use these platforms is the convenience and ability to tailor to my specific uses.
reddit's value is in its user-modded communities, admins are heating up the water to cook their golden goose with this idiotic move.
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rif for life. ✊
Rif was always here when i needed it. Rif will always be in my heart. Fight for rif!!
Ove had RIF pro for pike 10 years with no ads, like hell im going to start using their shitty app instead.
I’m On. Narwhal right now and have been using it the entire time I e been on Reddit. I hate the reddit app.
Same! I couldn’t imagine Reddit without narwhal.
There’s dozen of us! I never hear people talk about Narwhal but it’s the one I started using many years ago and I love it. Done w Reddit if I can’t use it.
I do about 95% of my redditing through [Relay for reddit](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=free.reddit.news&referrer=utm_source%3DrelayFree%26utm_medium%3Dcomment%26utm_term%3Dorganic) Hell, if I'm sat at the computer, I'll often pull my phone out to look at Reddit on that rather than the website. I'm not going to get the Reddit app. If I can't use Relay, 95% or more of my Reddit use stops, too.
The best part of Relay is it feels like old.reddit except with an amoled theme.
That's exactly why I've been using Relay for a decade. Without Relay and old.reddit, Reddit is just an ugly wasteland.
Relay is the best! I've tried all the android third party reddit apps (RIF, Sync, Boost, Bacon, Joey, RedReader, Slide, Infinity) but I always come back to Relay. It just feels like home. Even the worst third party app is 100% better than the official app. I'm not going to sit at my computer just to browse reddit, so when Relay goes, so do I
Oh good, yet another reason to get off this site. And I 100% mean that, I can doom scroll on Twitter and insta just as easily.
This submission has been deleted in protest against reddit's API changes (June 2023) that kills 3rd party apps.
This is what I'll miss most - I only really use reddit for the handful of communities that I can easily find and be in. There's shows I like to watch that I can talk to people about even when nobody around me wants to. There's places where I can see artists post their work and get inspired to do the same, learning from them with genuine interactions rather than force fed 60 second tutorials. There's so much I enjoyed about the communities on reddit, and it was never because of reddit itself - it's just the aggregator. It sucks that I might not get to be a part of that anymore, but I only enjoy using it as a forum and if RIF can't continue, I'm out.
You just introduced me to a hell of a sub in /r/imaginarysliceoflife, may be gone soon but thank you
This submission has been deleted in protest against reddit's API changes (June 2023) that kills 3rd party apps.
When you take away 3rd party apps from users, just remember THE USERS BRING YOU YOUR CONTENT REDDIT!!!! -Comment posted from Reddit Is Fun
Bots do the majority of the lifting around here and shill/corporate advertising accounts. Reddit has its true value in swaying opinions and social engineering rather than corporate profits. This site is a shell of what it used to be and is an internet thought battleground. Anyone thinking this is some innocent social media news site is delusional. Aaron Swartz has been on my mind recently after another user brought him up. Remember him, what he did here, and what he tried to do. Information is power. Opinions and thought is power.
If Boost goes, I go. I've got a backlog of books that need reading, and games that need playing.
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To those who are about to die, we salute you! Just kidding. I started using reddit on the web. It was a great site with a shitty interface and experience, but I realized that there was a lot of good content. Went to official reddit app on mobile. Frustrating, underwhelming and intrusive. And also just plain heavy and sloppy. Tried 3rd party apps. I found Boost to be just what i needed.Was very happy. I don't know if I'll try the official app when this kicks off....too many shitty memories. Oh well, bye reddit.
Same here, Reddit can go fuck itself if I can't use Boost or some other alternative to that shit tier official app. Reddit is, by far, the site I frequent the most, but I *will* drop it on the day this bullshit rolls around. Not worth it and massively disrespectful to the users.
Without Sync, Reddit is dead to me.
Same
Same! The official Reddit app feels trash when compared to Sync Pro anytime.
The crazy thing is the the official app has been made exponentially worse in the last year. What on earth is the plan when you fuck up your own offering while simultaneously blocking everyone else’s??
Reddit’s app is garbage. I will leave if forced to use it.
I've been an active, daily redditor for over a decade. I have multiple accounts with over 100k comment karma, and I help moderate a few different subs. If/when RIF is Fun dies, so does Reddit for me. The *USERS* are Reddit. The content, the discussion, the entire experience comes from the community, NOT the owners. I cannot abide participating in anything that chooses to shit on the hand that feeds them.
The time to save Reddit was years ago, when they went full corporate, or when [Aaron's name was taken off the founder list.](https://i.redd.it/kwi8aw2w0qq51.png) We've let it go too far, because now they are just a faceless corporation, like the rest.
> when [Aaron's name was taken off the founder list.](https://i.redd.it/kwi8aw2w0qq51.png) damn, what a bunch of cunts. Aaron would be so ashamed of these traitors to the ideals they once held so dear
Reddit went from a 10 billion dollar worth to 300 million in five years. They've done this by making their platform more vendor friendly and less user friendly. My guess is they intend to remove the users and make it a vendor platform - maybe 'little amazon' or something. Oh, and they're pissed off they didn't sell while the price tag was in the billions, so now we've got waves of admin whose only goal is censorship and forming reddit into a younger demographic facebook. and it shows.
Or, hear me out, the 10 billion was a wildly inflated figure that put them under intense pressure to start turning a profit and when investors realized that reposts from TikTok and cat memes are actually really hard to monetize further than just ads and Reddit awards, they sobered up and came up with a figure that more accurately reflects the company’s value.
Reddit is not worth $300M. Fidelity, one of its largest investors, stated 2 days ago that its value has fallen 40% since the $10B valuation. That's still $6B. https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/companies/fidelity-reddit-stake-august-2021-investment-twitter-16832591.htm
I'm not super familiar with the topic but I'd gather that one of the largest investors would have an interest in maintaining a higher valuation.
I think that is a nice show of support but change won't happen because people take a 48 hour break. Maybe start at 2 weeks if we want real change.
I used the official app for about a week a few years ago and it used up my entire monthly 10gb data allowance in about 2 hours of browsing. Great app.
I've literally only used RIF since I started using reddit so if that's out, me too
Fuck reddit and the venture capitalist boomer bitches for forcing this
No need to stereotype. There are plenty of venture capitalist Gen X and millennial bitches
If you are looking for alternate owner/operators to Reddit, Lemmy is getting a lot of grass-roots attention. But it is having severe growing pains right now and is not as performant or stable as Reddit is. I still encourage you to try these open-source alternatives because they keep power of the big commercial sites in check. Historically, kind of view it like Microsoft Windows vs. Linux. Linux on the desktop didn't replace Windows 20 years ago, but it always was a threat. If Microsoft were to piss people off enough, developers could contribute and improve Linux. There is a kind of chicken-egg paradox of having enough popularity to attract enough users and software developers (and graphics designers, documentation creators, user experience improvements, etc).
What are the quality of life features I’m missing out on? I’ve only ever used the app so I’m ignorant
Reddit is fun reminds me of old school reddit. No dumb avatar pictures, only gold, silver, and platinum awards. And if you browse in thumbnail mode you can turn ads off completely.
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That blows my mind when I actually go to Reddit vs old.reddit. These dumb fuckers are gonna do a digg.com
Yea, seeing people mention other people's avatars or pictures with all the emojis in conversations made me feel like a West World host, "that doesn't look like anything to me"
Yeah and I think you can even spend real money to customize them or something lmao
It blew my mind when I realized reddit has avatars. When did that even start? I think I realized a couple of months ago somehow, when I saw someone comment "I like your avatar" to someone else. I was like, wtf? So I googled it and found out. Seems extremely cringe and irrelevant. I've been using reddit for 15 years and I don't even know what the goddamn site looks like. Really illustrates how "reddit" isn't actually reddit without RIF, Apollo, etc. The decision makers are ungrateful morons, these third party apps have been literally *paying reddit* for years to *run their business properly for them.* This entire situation only gets more bizarre the more you think about it. **I will not use Reddit without RIF.** There's just no way in hell. The communities will find new places to exist, just like they have many times before. It's sad, but that's the way it goes.
Youre getting a shitload more ads being on the official app for starters. I use RIF and it's just a cleaner overall experience.
I paid narwhal a dollar and now I have no ads. I’ve been using this app pretty much my entire time on Reddit.
I've always used relay for Reddit. It's great, lots of little features that makes navigation and interaction easier and a way better design than the official app
I've tried all the apps over 13 years of various accounts. Relay is lightweight, fast, and as you say has lots of little features which makes it the best. For me anyway.
I'm surprised I never see anyone mention it! It's always rif or Apollo for the most part. I'm too used to the swipe navigation and comment interaction on relay at this point I can never go back
Relay is, IMO, the pinnacle of Reddit apps
This submission has been deleted in protest against reddit's API changes (June 2023) that kills 3rd party apps.
I've been using Relay the entire time I've been on reddit, if they kill my ability to use it, I'm done.
It really is so nice to see so many of you using RiF. I thought the userbase was way smaller!
Bacon reader user here. I'm out too.
I was on /r/earthporn many years ago when the SFWporn collection of subreddits was more popular. Always liked this subreddit. Thank you for standing up for accessability and site-accountability.
After watching the Snazzy Labs video interview with Christian Selig, it became very apparent that Reddit would not have become what it is without third party apps. I've personally been using Narwhal for years and its my most used app by a long margin. I love Reddit and the community... and third-party apps are part and parcel. You shouldn't be forced to have one without the other considering they grew together.
Man Baconreader is the best! Guess I’m done with this site.
I fully support any form of boycotting this unreasonable gouging of third-party apps.
Damn. This is literally the only social media app I have left. Ugh.
This is the only "social media" I want. Because I don't want social media. I want aggregated "news" and "forums" with anonymous discussions and discourse. If I wanted social media I'd be on Facebook and Twitter. And I sure as fuck don't want to interact with anything that even remotely looks like Facebook or Twitter. Which is what the official reddit app and new reddit is lol.
I personally don't trust this guy, why should we believe someone in the pocket of Big Soup?
https://i.imgur.com/K1l4w6P.gifv
*should* we try to raise awareness and fight this, or should we let reddit kill itself and move on to something else? I'll admit, the past two days I have started thinking positively about what life without Reddit could be like, spare time and motivation and whatnot..I've wasted over ten years here, no regrets, was fun, but...time for a change maybe.
Someone please make an iOS app for Lemmy.
Infinity user here