I stopped using reddit once they required logins for old reddit. But this genuinely seems like a terrible business decision. Requiring logins just to see content has to be bad for growth. I feel...
I stopped using reddit once they required logins for old reddit.
But this genuinely seems like a terrible business decision. Requiring logins just to see content has to be bad for growth. I feel like most people I know just hit the back button anytime a website throws up a modal and says "login to continue".
Nah this makes sense. Reddit has been investing in their app significantly and it’s paid dividends in their user metrics. It’s not the kind of thing that would appeal to people who go on tildes,...
Nah this makes sense. Reddit has been investing in their app significantly and it’s paid dividends in their user metrics. It’s not the kind of thing that would appeal to people who go on tildes, but people who go on tildes aren’t a very numerous nor lucrative market, so it doesn’t really matter.
It also puts a lot of pressure on search engines. Google’s AI answer is heavily dependent on Reddit data. The more Reddit locks down their data, the more they have search engines like Google over a barrel. I suspect the next time their deal renews it will be very much more expensive for Google.
The most recent numbers I can find, though. is that many people do in fact visit reddit without an account. I imagine that is a non-trivial amount of ad revenue. Google still has an 8 figure deal...
but people who go on tildes aren’t a very numerous nor lucrative market, so it doesn’t really matter.
The most recent numbers I can find, though. is that many people do in fact visit reddit without an account. I imagine that is a non-trivial amount of ad revenue.
Google’s AI answer is heavily dependent on Reddit data
Google still has an 8 figure deal with reddit. Maybe Claude and OpenAI will feel it, but this is actually a huge win for Gemini.
Even then, this probably just turns into a game of cat and mouse with how to scrape reddit. If 30 year legacy suites like adobe are being reverse compiled, some website that isn't trivially indexable isn't going to be be a real moat.
I suspect the next time their deal renews it will be very much more expensive for Google.
Who knows? Google can do the above and join the scrape race, or they can argue against how AI-ridden the site is and argue terms down.
And it makes using some things especially difficult. After reddit did the api stuff that killed phone apps I quite successfully quit using it unless it popped up on google. I moved my brainless...
And it makes using some things especially difficult. After reddit did the api stuff that killed phone apps I quite successfully quit using it unless it popped up on google. I moved my brainless scrolling activity to twitter.
TWICE they pulled some shit to try to claim I was a robot and that I had to give them my face or an ID. The first time I did some nonsense where I made hand signals. That let me back in for like 2 more months but that is no longer an option. I've had my same twitter account since 2009 and now I can't log in.
Which means I can't functionally use the site. I have to use nitter instances if I want to see anything beyond the initial post and a low res version of the picture on the post. All while twitter, like reddit now, is mostly bots anyway that are able to post scott free. It's beyond stupid.
Yeah, I don't get this one. Everything else has been shitty for people, but good for the next quarter. This one seems like... a very bad idea? Won't that just kill traffic?
Yeah, I don't get this one. Everything else has been shitty for people, but good for the next quarter. This one seems like... a very bad idea? Won't that just kill traffic?
I still use old reddit, I go 3 pages deep before it becomes cumbersome to browse and I decide thats enough internet for me today. They took away my third party app so I use old Reddit on a mobile...
I still use old reddit, I go 3 pages deep before it becomes cumbersome to browse and I decide thats enough internet for me today. They took away my third party app so I use old Reddit on a mobile browser like a total freak.
I’ll still continue to use it long as it’s there. Ive seen the new Reddit and it just doesn’t look appetizing.
You can download it from normal app stores. It's allowed for disability accommodation, so it's probably safe. You can also still use the old apps, I believe with a free personal API key. Some...
You can download it from normal app stores. It's allowed for disability accommodation, so it's probably safe. You can also still use the old apps, I believe with a free personal API key. Some people are still using rif because @talklittle is the man.
Welp, I think this pushes me to the point of no return. Everything I liked about reddit in the past is either gone already, or on the chopping block. Will probably grab a beer and just enjoy...
Welp, I think this pushes me to the point of no return. Everything I liked about reddit in the past is either gone already, or on the chopping block.
Will probably grab a beer and just enjoy what's left until the wheels fall off.
TL;DR: Are you ready for the pain of using a third party Reddit client in the year of our Luigi 2026? Just today I was struck by how annoying it is to actually use Reddit. I have an allergy to...
TL;DR: Are you ready for the pain of using a third party Reddit client in the year of our Luigi 2026?
Just today I was struck by how annoying it is to actually use Reddit. I have an allergy to advertisements, and I'll go to ridiculous lengths to satisfy this neurosis, and I just picked up my iPhone Duo (I promise this is relevant). So, because my pain needs to be good for something, I'm recounting my experience here.
Problem: I would like to browse reddit on occasion, mainly for images. Yes, this means mostly adult content, their collection is still very good (until they inevitably burn that Library of Alexandria to the ground out of sheer malice) but browsing it in the app is painful. It's also not optimised for the folding display, but I can deal with this.
Solution: The app that was sort of-kind of meant to work around this, Artemis, has been... deleted from the App Store. I dig up an old build through my App Store history, and I can download it. But by now, they've removed Reddit from that app entirely and only support Lemmy and Pixelfed. Next.
Solution 2: Use a different client. I don't mind paying, but I would like to avoid it since I don't really actively use Reddit anymore. Options here are Narwhal, which has no free tier at all, citing Reddit's insane API pricing for this. Dystopia is the only one on the App Store that is exempt from the general API ban, because of some technicality about accessibility rules. It works, surprisingly, but it has not been updated since the Biden administration. It's not great.
Solution side quest: Someone revived Apollo, the app that I was using before Rexit and who's subsequent banishment from Mount Reddit caused me to abandon the platform in the first place, as an open-source project you need to sideload! I can do that, I develop for the platform, so I clone the project, make some minor changes and slap it onto my new phone. Wow! It looks so pretty, and it even has a complete folding UI before the official app does!
Problem 2: You can't log into Reborn Apollo. You have to make an application on your Reddit account settings. I try that. Without an error message, it fails every time I try. I go to the GitHub to figure this out: Lo and behold, in their infinite wisdom Reddit has disabled this self-serve development portal (but god damn inexplicably, not removed it from the menu).
The official workaround? Download Dystopia and log in, then wait for the email that confirms you've connected an App to your Reddit account, copy the App ID (it's only ever shown in that email) out of the Email, paste it into Apollo and set the user agent to mimic Dystopias. And, finally, at last, it works.
Except I still can't see adult content, it just tells me that I need to use the official app for that. That's a lie, by the way, because Moderators get to still do that. Any moderator. So I create a burner subreddit, set it to private, give myself moderation permissions, and suddenly all the smut I could ever want arrives over my pirate radio API.
Like, come on, I get wanting to limit people's access to your platform if they don't make you money, but I've never seen a more user-hostile platform continue time and time again to saw off the only branch they're sitting on, this being their user base.
In certain jurisdictions, due to age verification laws, Reddit is one of the last websites where you can freely view porn without an account. Now if you want DIY advice, tech support, or to see...
In certain jurisdictions, due to age verification laws, Reddit is one of the last websites where you can freely view porn without an account. Now if you want DIY advice, tech support, or to see boobs, you must login.
So I noticed the site doing this to me a couple weeks ago on specific subreddits but not others. I exclusively browse on my iPhone through safari and found that if you use the “hide distracting...
So I noticed the site doing this to me a couple weeks ago on specific subreddits but not others. I exclusively browse on my iPhone through safari and found that if you use the “hide distracting items” feature you can remove the 2 overlays that stop you from browsing. It is more tedious and has definitely cut down me going into the subs that require this work around, but somehow I am stubborn enough to just keep doing this.
A follow-on to the previous announcement that old.reddit.com would be login gated, you'll now be required to be logged in to use "new" reddit.
And just like that, what little relevance Reddit had before in my searches evaporates.
I stopped using reddit once they required logins for old reddit.
But this genuinely seems like a terrible business decision. Requiring logins just to see content has to be bad for growth. I feel like most people I know just hit the back button anytime a website throws up a modal and says "login to continue".
Nah this makes sense. Reddit has been investing in their app significantly and it’s paid dividends in their user metrics. It’s not the kind of thing that would appeal to people who go on tildes, but people who go on tildes aren’t a very numerous nor lucrative market, so it doesn’t really matter.
It also puts a lot of pressure on search engines. Google’s AI answer is heavily dependent on Reddit data. The more Reddit locks down their data, the more they have search engines like Google over a barrel. I suspect the next time their deal renews it will be very much more expensive for Google.
The most recent numbers I can find, though. is that many people do in fact visit reddit without an account. I imagine that is a non-trivial amount of ad revenue.
Google still has an 8 figure deal with reddit. Maybe Claude and OpenAI will feel it, but this is actually a huge win for Gemini.
Even then, this probably just turns into a game of cat and mouse with how to scrape reddit. If 30 year legacy suites like adobe are being reverse compiled, some website that isn't trivially indexable isn't going to be be a real moat.
Who knows? Google can do the above and join the scrape race, or they can argue against how AI-ridden the site is and argue terms down.
And it makes using some things especially difficult. After reddit did the api stuff that killed phone apps I quite successfully quit using it unless it popped up on google. I moved my brainless scrolling activity to twitter.
TWICE they pulled some shit to try to claim I was a robot and that I had to give them my face or an ID. The first time I did some nonsense where I made hand signals. That let me back in for like 2 more months but that is no longer an option. I've had my same twitter account since 2009 and now I can't log in.
Which means I can't functionally use the site. I have to use nitter instances if I want to see anything beyond the initial post and a low res version of the picture on the post. All while twitter, like reddit now, is mostly bots anyway that are able to post scott free. It's beyond stupid.
Yeah, I don't get this one. Everything else has been shitty for people, but good for the next quarter. This one seems like... a very bad idea? Won't that just kill traffic?
They're probably betting on the idea that they're as popular as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
I still use old reddit, I go 3 pages deep before it becomes cumbersome to browse and I decide thats enough internet for me today. They took away my third party app so I use old Reddit on a mobile browser like a total freak.
I’ll still continue to use it long as it’s there. Ive seen the new Reddit and it just doesn’t look appetizing.
Hopefully Redreader's days as the last app to lurk on Reddit aren't numbered.
https://github.com/QuantumBadger/RedReader
You can download it from normal app stores. It's allowed for disability accommodation, so it's probably safe. You can also still use the old apps, I believe with a free personal API key. Some people are still using rif because @talklittle is the man.
shhh, don't tell them about it!
Welp, I think this pushes me to the point of no return. Everything I liked about reddit in the past is either gone already, or on the chopping block.
Will probably grab a beer and just enjoy what's left until the wheels fall off.
TL;DR: Are you ready for the pain of using a third party Reddit client in the year of our Luigi 2026?
Just today I was struck by how annoying it is to actually use Reddit. I have an allergy to advertisements, and I'll go to ridiculous lengths to satisfy this neurosis, and I just picked up my iPhone Duo (I promise this is relevant). So, because my pain needs to be good for something, I'm recounting my experience here.
Problem: I would like to browse reddit on occasion, mainly for images. Yes, this means mostly adult content, their collection is still very good (until they inevitably burn that Library of Alexandria to the ground out of sheer malice) but browsing it in the app is painful. It's also not optimised for the folding display, but I can deal with this.
Solution: The app that was sort of-kind of meant to work around this, Artemis, has been... deleted from the App Store. I dig up an old build through my App Store history, and I can download it. But by now, they've removed Reddit from that app entirely and only support Lemmy and Pixelfed. Next.
Solution 2: Use a different client. I don't mind paying, but I would like to avoid it since I don't really actively use Reddit anymore. Options here are Narwhal, which has no free tier at all, citing Reddit's insane API pricing for this. Dystopia is the only one on the App Store that is exempt from the general API ban, because of some technicality about accessibility rules. It works, surprisingly, but it has not been updated since the Biden administration. It's not great.
Solution side quest: Someone revived Apollo, the app that I was using before Rexit and who's subsequent banishment from Mount Reddit caused me to abandon the platform in the first place, as an open-source project you need to sideload! I can do that, I develop for the platform, so I clone the project, make some minor changes and slap it onto my new phone. Wow! It looks so pretty, and it even has a complete folding UI before the official app does!
Problem 2: You can't log into Reborn Apollo. You have to make an application on your Reddit account settings. I try that. Without an error message, it fails every time I try. I go to the GitHub to figure this out: Lo and behold, in their infinite wisdom Reddit has disabled this self-serve development portal (but god damn inexplicably, not removed it from the menu).
The official workaround? Download Dystopia and log in, then wait for the email that confirms you've connected an App to your Reddit account, copy the App ID (it's only ever shown in that email) out of the Email, paste it into Apollo and set the user agent to mimic Dystopias. And, finally, at last, it works.
Except I still can't see adult content, it just tells me that I need to use the official app for that. That's a lie, by the way, because Moderators get to still do that. Any moderator. So I create a burner subreddit, set it to private, give myself moderation permissions, and suddenly all the smut I could ever want arrives over my pirate radio API.
Like, come on, I get wanting to limit people's access to your platform if they don't make you money, but I've never seen a more user-hostile platform continue time and time again to saw off the only branch they're sitting on, this being their user base.
In certain jurisdictions, due to age verification laws, Reddit is one of the last websites where you can freely view porn without an account. Now if you want DIY advice, tech support, or to see boobs, you must login.
So I noticed the site doing this to me a couple weeks ago on specific subreddits but not others. I exclusively browse on my iPhone through safari and found that if you use the “hide distracting items” feature you can remove the 2 overlays that stop you from browsing. It is more tedious and has definitely cut down me going into the subs that require this work around, but somehow I am stubborn enough to just keep doing this.
Cool, now everyone can stop sharing reddit links and we can move on to better sites.
been asking for that for 5 years now. We'll see if this is the moment.