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Re:Reddit app got 50M downloads by making mobile web experie... by esolyt on Friday September 04, 2020 @07:21AM (#24373943)
Reddit has some of the most obnoxious and shameless dark patterns I've ever seen.

Even if you download the app, it constantly tries to lure you into logging in by displaying a fake notification count. The good old "Hey you've got a message, login to see it" technique. If you still refuse to login, the notification count becomes 2, as if now you have 2 messages. It's quite disgusting and makes me dislike reddit. Unfortunately, I'm guessing these tactics work on the average user.

Re:Reddit app got 50M downloads by making mobile web experie... by searchableguy on Friday September 04, 2020 @07:43AM (#24374053)
They all seem to be copied from Chinese apps though their implementations suck more. Virtual currency, awards, and gacha style encouragement is very popular in Asian countries for communication apps. That's how they extract value because there are too many competitors and free apps.

Reddit might add shopping experience or real world items for purchase through coins soon. It's too obvious to not do that.

Re:Reddit app got 50M downloads by making mobile web experie... by mcintyre1994 on Friday September 04, 2020 @08:02AM (#24374157)
Thinking about it I'm a bit surprised that Reddit never built a marketplace product for subreddits. Looking back a few years I could see that actually being a pretty good product for them which would have been cool. You're definitely right that if they added it now it'd use their coins or do something utterly insane to make it terrible.
Re:Reddit app got 50M downloads by making mobile web experie... by Bronze_Colossus on Friday September 04, 2020 @08:58AM (#24374490)
They actually did have a store once upon time. And I can definitely see them bringing back to subreddits.

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/secretsanta/comments/2xdkyi/closing...

Re:Reddit app got 50M downloads by making mobile web experie... by ffpip on Friday September 04, 2020 @08:49AM (#24374423)
Subs are already selling merch.

Look at r/teenagers mods selling cheap printed shirts.