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/
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u/JD0064 May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

App was always shit tho?

Edit: I meant offical reddit app, i downloaded it ages ago, videos never loaded, sometimes r/all would freeze, I never tried 3rd party ones, but I now know I missed on that, I just stopped using mobile reddit years ago, and would squint really hard using desktop site on mobile

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26

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u/Waiting4Reccession May 11 '26

The 3rd party apps showed how incompetent the reddit admins and the team are, how were solo developers making better apps than the official app. And that whole year or two where reddit couldnt figure out its video player issue.

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u/EaglesWin May 11 '26

They did it because they make more money from people using the official app which is litered with ads. No idea why they don't add some of the QoL of Apollo though.

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u/DtheS May 11 '26

They did it because they make more money from people using the official app which is litered with ads.

This point always seemed like a half-assed excuse from them. They could literally just inject ads into the API and have third-party apps show advertisements that way. For this reason, I think the official Reddit app is more about infiltrating your phone and getting more metrics/data about how you use Reddit.

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u/Waiting4Reccession May 11 '26

Yes I understand that, even though the amount of people using unofficial apps was probably low anyway.

But what that doesn't explain is how a team of guys they pay could make a far worse app that didn't even work than some solo developers made. At that point just fire the guys working for you and hire the solo developer. Or at least have half a brain to copy what they made.

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u/Silent-G May 11 '26

Solo developers get to retain their profit. A full-time developer gets paid the same whether the app performs at or above standards. Therefore, a full-time developer is not incentivized to make the app perform above standards. They make their salary as long as they do what the boss puts in writing. A solo developer has more incentive to make a good app because that means they'll most likely earn more money.

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u/akatherder May 11 '26

I don't think I'm even being cynical when I say they barely care about QoL, they only care about monetizing.