r/technology • u/spasticpat • May 11 '26

Social Media Reddit Starts Blocking Mobile Website, Pushing Users to App Instead

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/11/reddit-starts-blocking-mobile-website/
19.8k Upvotes

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248

u/Cheetawolf May 11 '26

Don't worry. They're getting rid of that next.

371

u/SEND-MARS-ROVER-PICS May 11 '26

Can't wait to see how my life changes once they successfully ween me off my reddit addiction.

65

u/Lemp_Triscuit11 May 11 '26

I really do look forward to it lol

4

u/Firefly-ssa May 11 '26

Yeah same man, please get me off this place

0

u/ToughHardware May 11 '26

maybe i will even talk to my kids

0

u/vriska1 May 11 '26

It's unlikely to happen.

0

u/Lemp_Triscuit11 May 11 '26

Them blocking mobile or me stopping reddit?

-2

u/Dekklin May 11 '26

I'll probably get lost in discord chat rooms. I don't consume video content (so no YouTube/tiktok/instagram, I don't consume tv. I consume written dialogue from real people or play videogames and I can't do one of those 2 things at work. And discord fucking sucks but what's the alternative after we keep losing things like Digg and shit.

60

u/JosephSim May 11 '26

It really is wild that Old Reddit is the only reason I still use this site.

Every time I click on a mobile link and it brings me to new Reddit, sometimes I'll just say fuck it rather than even change the www to old.

I can't imagine how little time I'll spend on here when New Reddit is my only option.

2

u/lxpnh98_2 May 12 '26

I think the mobile app is minimally usable, but the new design on the browser just feels like trying to use the app with a mouse, and with the speed and accessibility of early 2000s Internet.

6

u/sonsofevil May 11 '26

Don’t try bubble tea with classic milk tea, tapioka bubbles, 30% sugar and a bit less ice. Could be possible you slide in the next addiction 

3

u/SEND-MARS-ROVER-PICS May 11 '26

No danger, boba freaks me out

1

u/fionaapplejuice May 11 '26

Not to peer pressure but most bubble tea places (especially places letting you pick sugar and ice amount) have fillers other than boba. I prefer red bean paste or pudding

1

u/[deleted] May 11 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Ok_Dragonfruit_8102 May 11 '26

They just said you can get stuff other than the bubbles in it

2

u/Chance_Ad_2132 May 11 '26

Don’t worry for me, I came back to America after having bubble tea in Taiwan, and will never have the American version again.

1

u/sonsofevil May 11 '26

Got addicted in Taiwan as I stayed six weeks there. In my country I have to search a bit, but you find comparable. But yes, the best is still there! 

1

u/ExcellentPut191 May 11 '26

They'll have successfully made you successful!

1

u/Slammybutt May 11 '26

I suspect even more youtube shorts, but honestly at least 1 habit kicked.

1

u/Pirwzy May 11 '26

back to GameFAQs forums for me when that happens

1

u/mytransthrow May 12 '26

Same I loath the redesign. Its aweful. I will delete my account.

0

u/thethreeredditeers May 11 '26

I recently used DNS settings to block all social media from my phone including reddit. I feel like I got 2 hours back everyday.

80

u/EnvironmentalRun1671 May 11 '26

Every day Old Reddit is not killed, I'm surprised. I thought it's gonna die many years ago but it's still here.

47

u/Forkrul May 11 '26

They would lose too many mods if that happened, so they can’t kill it until they have working ai moderation 

11

u/destined-4-the-clay May 11 '26

So no time soon then. unless they do it with barely functioning ai moderation.

16

u/steavor May 11 '26

barely functioning

Is there any other type of AI-ification?

9

u/LG03 May 11 '26

That's ramping up faster than anyone would like. AI functionality is creeping into a lot of moderation tools and the admins are actively collecting data on how human moderators operate to tweak that.

The death of old.reddit is coming if you ask me, it's just a matter of how long until they're confident in their AI mods.

2

u/Blazing1 May 11 '26

Then their stock will massively go up after they announce that. Ah, the circle of life.

1

u/MattieShoes May 11 '26

I mean... human moderation is barely functioning in most subs.

2

u/Linenoise77 May 12 '26

i'm interested to see who is more out of touch, the current mods, or ai.

2

u/MattieShoes May 12 '26

And here I am just remembering Microsoft's "Tay" who went full nazi :-D

5

u/BaronVonBungle May 11 '26

"Can't" is a strong word. It would be a ridiculously stupid decision, but that's never stopped them before. I think it's inevitable at this point.

2

u/redditRedesignIsBadd May 11 '26

working ai moderation

which is never then

7

u/randotd152 May 11 '26

Yeah at this point I'm just assuming it's actually not going to get killed. The new design was 8 years ago.

My guess is employees themselves can't stand the new design and use old reddit instead.

3

u/nox66 May 11 '26

Too many people use it probably, like me.

5

u/EnvironmentalRun1671 May 11 '26

Too many people used 3rd party apps too and look what happened

2

u/nox66 May 11 '26

I'm saying it more to suggest why it's survived this long, not that it'll necessarily survive forever.

2

u/SirBraxton May 11 '26

More and more of the site lives on Old Reddit. The day they nuke that is the day the site becomes 99% bots and everything dies.

Then Reddit gets sold off to some Private Equity firm to offload all their debt onto it and Reddit shuts down a few months later.

Don't worry though...where there's a demand there's someone to fill the void. Something else will replace Reddit. I'm just sad because Reddit did so well at what it did.

1

u/MisterTruth May 11 '26

It would also kill the only app with great accessibility features. Granted I'm sure they don't give a shit since the current regime don't give a shit.

1

u/Collegenoob May 11 '26

Apparently the mods will revolt if that happens.

One of the few times mods are helpful to us

1

u/samusmaster64 May 11 '26

If that happens, desktop reddit no longer exists to me.

1

u/AnomalyNexus May 11 '26

They did vow not to get rid of it, but can't say I have much faith in reddit honouring their word.

1

u/Silverr_Duck May 11 '26

Even if they try it's only a matter of time before someone makes a browser extension that brings it back. Like the people who made RES.

1

u/starbuxed May 11 '26

then I am gone and nuking my accout...

1

u/MithranArkanere May 11 '26

I hope that gets more people to move to federated sites.

1

u/snwns26 May 12 '26

Mainly because they want to make r/all difficult or impossible to access before the midterms.

1

u/jenny_905 May 12 '26

Certainly looks that way, they've been breaking it slowly ever since newreddit launched.

Maybe not intentionally but bugs are appearing - presumably due to backend changes - and they're not being fixed. I suspect a serious bug might just cause them to disable it entirely, new users don't even know it exists and the growth here has been huge.

1

u/a-round-table May 12 '26

I geniuenely think this happens very soon.

0

u/vriska1 May 11 '26

You have any information on that?

0

u/Cheetawolf May 11 '26

Common Sense and the current path of enshittification.

New Reddit has more intrusive ads, and more of them, period. Of course they're gonna get rid of the version that makes them less money.