Also their pathetic attempts to get you to use the app are half-baked. The deep links are broken most of the time and just send you to the app store even if the iOS client is installed, where you press open and it takes you to /r/all regardless of where you came from.

it's so hard for me to contemplate how they can not fix this. You restrict everyone from viewing your website unless they install your app then a basic redirection to the said app doesn't happen.

The amount of dark patterns Reddit has introduced in their web app is ridiculous.

At first, they would prompt you to install the web app every other page load, and now they don't even let you expand comment threads.

Why spend so much time and resources on rebuilding your web app if you're gonna cripple the experience so much? The funny thing is it makes conversion rates on the web app even worse, so they have even more reason to push you onto the native version.

Yeah, I remember them randomly enabling it for years, basically gaslighting users whenever they would bring it up saying that “we shouldn’t ask you to login, if it is doing it that’s a bug”. But clearly they were just A/B testing it to the point where they could enable this all the time.

The general public are reddits audience now not "early internet adopters". I know from running a geographically based small niche subreddit that users and post volume have gone up dramatically in the past 1-2 years.

The people who hate new reddit are a tiny minority I'm afraid to say, the majority of users on the site probably never even saw the old reddit design.

The "old" Reddit we loved is precisely what kept a lot of people away - it was walls of text with basic, minimalist design language. I personally loved it (hence why HN appeals to me) but I understand why lots of folks wouldn't "get it".

I introduced my S/O to Reddit ~6 years ago. It took a long time for the site to stick. What finally did it was having the iOS application.

Even if some people actually like the new design it is bloated and dog slow even on modern computers.

I wonder if many of the new, non pc gaming users have seen either of the old or new site designs as opposed to one of the many mobile apps given how much interaction happens there and how strongly you’re pushed away to the official app.

Search has always been absolutely terrible... it's nearly 2021... how can a billion dollar outfit still have terrible search?

Because they don't care if you can search. In fact, they probably don't want search too be tooo good.

* Good search means you could find stuff easily

* Bad search means you're more likely to post again and continue the re-engagement circle.

For a platform that drives revenue through continued engagement, clicks, views, and activity... could functioning search be considered an anti-feature?

If I can't find what I want, I'll start a new post, or reply to a comment… leading to people getting notifications, leading to clicks, more replies, …

The fake upvote counter animations they recently introduced are pretty awkward.

Recently they added notifications saying "multiple people are typing" and "see new comments!" which appear on posts even when newest comments are old. It's absolutely infuriating. I didn't want to cure my reddit addiction but they are trying real hard to help me with that.

Reddit's entire experience was always gonna be shit, it just takes a lot of users for that to become obvious.

Echo chambers, flame wars, brigading, etc. – all were inevitable results of the way the entire platform is structured, and are far worse than the UI having more whitespace.

Have any better sites you recommend? I initially joined Reddit because ideas appeared to be valued over individual users (no follow at that time).

Not really, unfortunately.

If I knew how to make a Reddit with all the positives but none of the negatives I'd probably do it myself haha.

Its a terrible thing to see companies failing to compete or in this case fix their shit then arrive at the conclusion buying up smaller companies will solve their problems. The SV mindset with deep pockets is a problem.

Shit for you. Shit for me. Great for the Reddit bottom line and new user numbers.