Really? Maybe I'm in an A/B test but on mobile for me every page load pops up a dialog that says "this looks better in the app" and they only load a limited number of comments and gate the rest behind the app.

Apollo was by far the best reddit browsing experience on mobile and it seems like the API price was a direct action to shut these third party experiences down knowing their experience was sub par.

Are you using old.reddit.com by chance? If so I have a sneaking suspicious that's going to go away in due time.

You're right, but a lot of people do use third-party apps on their mobile phones since the official Reddit app is crap. From what I've read, third-party apps are also the only way for moderators to perform while they're away from their desktops since the official app is extremely limited in that regard.

Even on desktop, a lot users and mods use Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) [0] because the "default" Reddit is crap too, lol. I'm sure other HN users would also be using the "old" version of reddit, old.reddit.com [1] since it still performs better somehow. RES has also mentioned that it should continue working fine, but they're not entirely sure about it either. [2]

[0]: https://redditenhancementsuite.com/

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/

[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/RESAnnouncements/comments/141hyv3/a...

Have you tried any of the third party android apps? Definitely a step ahead of old.reddit and many times better than the current default...

It's best at a desktop with old.reddit and res, but the better apps are a close second.

There's some third-party clients similar to what Twitter had this time last year, with Apollo being the most popular to the point of having its icon/screenshots in Apple's WWDC presentation last week.

I think the biggest impact, though, is some moderators rely on tools/clients to make their (voluntary) jobs easier. If those tools disappear, then a lot of these subreddits will probably shut down for lack of moderators. And I heard that /r/blind mods literally cannot use the existing Reddit site/apps.

Yes, there’s a large group of users that use 3rd party apps like Apollo

The simple answer is "yes". Many many many people use Reddit through native apps and not the website.

What's funniers is that people that use an app are more likely to pay (pay for the app and by extension pay for reddit)

From what I’ve read, they’ve been running an A/B test blocking the mobile web surface from working so would not be a leap to suggest they want to drop to be an app only product.