1y ago

TIL that 70% of US traffic on reddit is from users on a mobile device.

www.semrush.com /website/reddit.com/overview/

147 comments

I just don’t understand the thought process. They could’ve just shelled out $10M for Apollo and made that the official Reddit app. Then give users the choice of ads or pay for ad free experience.
so basically they’re making a massive gamble that most people will just switch over to their garbage app. Maybe they will, but for sure the power users, big sub moderators & regular posters are all coming to Lemmy. You know, all the people that made Reddit worth visiting.
Personally I think this will be the end of Reddit.
- Well, Reddit did shell out money for a third party client. They bought the iOS app Alien Blue in 2014 and turned that into an official app before quickly abandoning it for their client in 2016.
  
  They bought the app , and then destroyed it.
  They should have learned for their second try, and just bought the app, then not destroyed it.
  
  Yeah I used that before Apollo :)
- Realistically Reddit will survive, but it will be a zombie of its former self, kind of similar to how Digg is these days. Let's just hope it kills their valuation and /u/spez has to answer for it.
  
  I really hope it survives, only because I want to preserve and archive all of it's content. Sure, there's a lot of duplicate data and links to other places, but there's also a lot of unique things there. If it dies before it can be properly archived we would lose most of it, with only internet archive keeping some. That would be sad.
  
  ...digg still exists?
- Some of the communities I was in on Reddit don't seem to want to move. They're ones where users don't go to Reddit, they go to r/whatever, and have usernames matched to the sub.
  I doubt Reddit can survive on those sort of users, in those sort of subs, but many of them will stay on Reddit as long as it keeps working
  I now only use Reddit for those subs, but rarely since I now only use Reddit thorough it's old web interface with Reddit Enhancement Suite

*TIL that 70% of US traffic on reddit WAS from users on a mobile device
Until July 1 2023 🪦
- Rip <your favourite 3rd party app>

Relevant screenshot for those interested
- US makes up just over 42% of total traffic, of which just over 70% is on mobile. No stats about 1st party / 3rd party apps usage.
- Huh didn't expect India to be that high up.
  
  In developing countries it's far more common to use the internet via mobile.
  
  Elaborate?

The remaining 30% computer users might be me googling all my IT problems
- Reddit is the new Quora or Yahoo! Answers
  
  Quora is so disgusting. I thank reddit will become just like quora . Reddit + to read full answers , they show you related topic under question instead of the answers , etc .
- Need that slide feature for one handed mode for... Reasons
  
  you know, now that you mention it, I should really look into using lemmy for all the things I used reddit for

Exactly why reddit wanted all 3rd party apps gone. All they could see was dollar signs going down the toilet.
- Now they see it burning
- They had dollars while you were on the toilet. Now it's flushed down the drain.
- I'll sue the desktop site on my phone before I'll use that hot garbage they call an app. It loads faster and works better plus not fucking video ads or that Jesus shit ad they are pushing.

Back when I used reddit... weird saying I know, I consumed Reddit on my phone, my ipad, and desktop in various combinations, pretty much constantly. Phone/ipad during work, and additional desktop use after. Desktop using Reddit Enhancement Suite (unusable without really), and Apollo for mobile. Spez made going cold turkey on Reddit stupid easy for this heavy user of over 10 years.
It's like going to your favorite donut shop every day for a decade, where your on good terms with the employees, but the boss is shit but you hardly ever see him so it's ok. Then one day, instead of the usual server, Spez shows up, and hands you your favorite donut with a scoop of shit on top, and says that's how they serve them now. Yeah, I'll go somewhere else, thanks.

Worth mentioning that mobile ≠ app. Many people use Reddit in their browsers. Or the official app for that matter. This article doesn't really give those numbers which I'm sure unfortunately place the third party app users in a smaller minority. Still, I never used a third party app personally and I was still outraged enough at Reddit's behavior to leave. Hopefully more will follow suit.
- Aren't they also pushing changes to have mobile browsers redirect to the app with no option for staying in the browser?
  
  Actually yes. When i began ussing reddit about some years ago i was a lurker on the mobile browser. Then they started pesterin for me to make an account at very much every turn of the corner. Then they started blocking various fucktionalities like visiting subs and blocking nsfw stuff. So i made an account and the subs where still unaccsesible saying something like "this comunity is abailable in the app" an at random too. So i downloaded the app. Used it a couple of months, then learned rif existed and never looked back. Tl;DR: Yes redit has been realistcally unusable on moblie browser for years now. At least for me. Dont know how others manage to use it like that.
  
  You can just enable "desktop site" checkbook in your mobile browser, it would send non-mobile user agent to the server. That's the only way a server can detect a mobile browser.
  
  Felt like they were doing that for a while. It's why I went on Boost. I refused to be pushed onto their mobile app.
- That would be a reasonable assumption to make, with one big caveat: reddit originally had no official app, so third-party apps were our only options. If we suppose that people rarely change their habits until they're forced to (a claim that seems almost self-evident to me), then it would be reasonable to suppose that a lot of users would still be using those same 3rd-party apps they started out with. Especially considering the official app was kind of crappy from its inception.
  If third-party app users made up a large percentage of users, it might also partly explain why spez is so hellbent on his crusade.
- I was under the impression the initial plan just started with top api usage apps, which I didn't think would affect my app yet. Still left immediately and now turns out my app was shut down.

Spez really killed the whole damn site, the greedy little pigboy
- really makes you wonder how Swartz would feel about all this. what would he think of the fediverse? lemmy vs reddit?
- Here's hoping. Its probably gonna be bussines as usual with their ridicolous culture wars.
  
  It's not entirely like usual. They're still doing that thing where they repost top posts to make it seem alive.
  I don't know if it's admins, mods or bots doing it, but there sure isn't a lot of user generated content ob Reddit today.

No surprise. My reddit usage was mainly on my phone. Since Sync got the axe it's hard to justify sitting in front of my computer all day for a single site

I uninstalled boost today, can't wait for Boost for Lemmy. Although Jebora is pretty nice too.
- I'm enjoying Connect for Lemmy, very smooth sailing so far
  
  Just found Connect, and this feels right at home coming from SYNC
  
  I just switched from Jerboa to Connect.
- Jerboa is a hot mess of bugs and I really miss RiF...but it's still a thousand times better than the official Reddit app
- Is there going to be a boost for Lemmy? That excites me!
  
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayayo.lemmy&pli=1
  Here it is!
  
  Yes, and you can set it up to auto-download once it's available if you search it in Google Play
- oddly, it still works for me.

I just deleted Apollo off my phone, so I guess I'm done with Reddit for the most part.
- I haven’t had the heart to delete it yet, but I’m also pretty much done with Reddit.
  I checked it out on desktop today. Top 8 hits in 4 of my favorite subs were busted bot reposts. It was a short visit.
  
  I feel that. I just kept hitting it out of habit and it made me sad.
  
  Same, I used a different app on Android but I can't bring myself to delete it

That makes sense. I'm not sitting in front of my computer all day, but I always have my phone.
Switching my entire mobile usage over to lemmy is easily 90-95% of my social media time.

I really hope it drops a lot, but it probably won't :/
- I honestly don't care what happens to Reddit. I've found something new to occupy my time. If Reddit stays, goes, prospers, flounders, or whatever, couldn't mean less to me. At the end of the day, it's just a fancier bulletin board. Which have existed for 25+ years at this point. Look at Lemmy or other instances of the fediverse for example, it was able to quickly and effectively pick up the people flocking, and the experience is largely the exact same thing. It's a little buggier, but it's early days at this volume. And it doesn't come with any of the bullshit, you don't like your experience for example, you can quickly find another instance and carry on.
  
  Sure, now that I can't have a good app I don't care about reddit either, but if the content is on there people will still find value in it
- That's fine though, since the mods and frequent posters are likely to be pissed off, so the website will get much worse. It's an opportunity for us.
  
  Yeah, that's for sure, but how large will the impact be?

Woweeee fucking sucks to be Reddit rn lol
- Sure hope they don't do anything to anger a large quantity of regular users rather than improve their native mobile apps and incentivize said users to use their official app rather than just kill the more popular third party ones...
- Seeing as the vast, vast majority of mobile users are using the official app, it really doesn’t suck that much for them. I wish it wasn’t the case, but it is.

Well, not anymore!

Not anymore LOL
- I mean I think I saw a chart before the change and over 50% of people use the official app. So it's less then I had thought.
  
  Depressing, but I'm also excited for new things here
- /agedlikemilk
- To be honest, I really doubt they felt the exodus. Most people don't care what Reddit is doing and /r/videos alone had more users than entire Lemmy network. I wish they felt it. I refuse to open Reddit now. They could have had a different, more user friendly approach, but no... quick and easy way to earn money.

I will not sit at desk to read . Smartphone are just way better for this kind of task . Most people access the internet with a smartphone ,not a PC tower.
- What about a laptop or tablet? I usually only use my phone when I'm on the go or in a difficult situation.
  
  laptops are bulky and phones are super convenient because they're always on and have quick pausing so you can easily pick up and put down. whenever you need to
  
  once you have a a phone , why pay 300$ for a tablet ? I was thinking to buy a tablet because I spend an outrageous amount of time reading stuff on the internet . I looked at low-end tablet and the screen quality was terrible . I look at a S7 FE tablet ,700$, way better , but should I spend 700$ for 3 inch bigger screen ? Tablet on the toilet? I don't think so. Tablet in my shower shelves , no. Tablet in my bed,maybe , but just while sitting ... What about listening to podcasts ... My phone do it and fit in my pocket , my bicycle , my car and my jogging fanny bag. So the tablet would be used only while I'm the couch or laying in my bed... but at this point I have a laptop . I have a 42 inch tv connected to my pc tower ,and a laptop that I barely use. Since I'm sitting all day long at my job. I prefer to lay down on my sofa at night ,not sit again behind a monitor on an office chair .

And 50% of mobile users are on a toilet
- I feel like that should be 50% of ALL Reddit users are on a toilet (guilty as charged). So if you have 50% of users on the toilet, and 70% of them on mobile, why that looks like a perfect 5/7 to me.
  
  I had forgotten about 5/7. Ah, back in the good ol’ days of Reddit.
- i enjoy swiping tinder when i’m taking a shit
- Lol i read your comment while taking a massive shit

This is true for most online platforms. I work in Online Education as a SaaS Admin for LMS system hosting and at a conference I went to 4 or 5 years ago the UAE did an in depth presentation on their online academic outreach program. The adoption of education on mobile phones was astounding and the only other platform that mattered metric wise was Window PCs and it was a distant second.
- Do you have any links to this research? Sounds super interesting
  
  Not anymore but they gave the presentation years ago so it may be posted somewhere. The data was very fascinating but also exactly what someone in my field already knew. I enjoyed seeing an entire countries data set vs my single institution and was pleased to see that my local trends reflected those of a country not even on my continent. I see they have a covid education trend study up also so I am probably going to read some of that info this month since it isn't tainted by my local data biases.

And apparently (was) almost 84% here in Canada!

Yup. I work at a computer most of the day but there was no way in hell I was going to use my monitored work computer to browse Reddit.
I just wonder how much of a impact to daily engagement that the lack of third party will affect the company now. The blackouts were never going to be effective but combine that with a downward trend of engagement might be enough to fuck the leadership over.
Still, this seems like a nice place to be even if Reddit is forced to pull it's head out of its tech bro ass.

Not surprised, my personal browsing was almost entirely on mobile devices and 3rd party apps. My work browsing on computer is mainly for IT purposes and not logged in. Some subreddits are far better than the official support communities and they often come up early in google results.
- To me it feels like search, Google etc, got a lot worse in the last few years but if you add "reddit" to your search you get good hits because reddit is like a thread archive where your specific problem has been discussed.
  For that reason I will not be able to get rid of reddit completely and for some niche communities on there.
  I hope there will be a critical mass on here soon so that this may even be bigger than reddit.
- I came across my first instance of finding a solution on Reddit that’s been deleted. I support the user for doing it, but it’s also gonna make life a bit hard as that becomes more common.
  
  Oh, for sure! Reddit was the only thing making Google searches tolerable. I have a feeling it's only going to get worse before it gets better. Lemmy seems to be growing rapidly though, so with any luck it'll become the go to site for searches.
  In the meantime, have you heard of Archive.org? It's a giant archive of things on the internet, it's a phenomenal resource for deleted Reddit posts or comments (I've found that old.reddit links tend to work better because of how comments are loaded). Google's search cache is also handy (especially if no one thought to have the page you need archived, but Google keeps directing you to it). It's a fair bit faster than Archive.org and usually has what you're looking for if google directed you the the page, but it can be hit or miss for older content because it's less of an archive and more the last time the search engine looked at the page. CachedView.Com makes it super easy to check both and has been invaluable the last few weeks.

not surprising, people have their phones on them much more often than their computers. Personally I browse reddit from my phone 95% of the time, only using desktop for the odd moderating duty.

I could never get use to the desktop layout.
- I think you kinda need extensions to really make it work. New reddit was cancer. Old reddit with reddit enhancement suite and imagus (hover to show images) made the experience pretty awesome.
- Old.reddit.com with Res is the way. But they seem to be breaking it slowly.
  I noticed for example that chat stopped working recently. They really want you to use the new layout.

I believe it, when I first started using Reddit in 2008 it was almost entirely through desktop. By a few days ago, I had flipped to almost entirely using mobile. My habits changed a lot in 15 years

That’s gonna drop. Right?
- Probably not by too much, realistically a lot of people are going to switch to the official app
  
  I used to use the official app then started using rif just after the blackout and then moved here it seems alot of other people who used the official app are switching too
  
  I'm not going to switch to the official app. If anything thing, I'll use Firefox with UBO.
- Only by a little bit
  
  Goodness, you have 8 duplicates of this comment...

Well, I couldn't use my work computer to browse Reddit.

well reddit on desktop is completely unusable. even old reddit with RES is garbage. that’s why 3rd party clients were so important.
- I guess I got comfortable with RES over the years because I rather enjoyed using it on my desktop.
- I preferred desktop and the old Reddit layout, was really fast to do whatever I wanted.

Was*

I'm sure it won't affect them to get rid of 3rd party apps....

WAS from users on mobile. Was.

Well, at least losing 3PAs solves this problem:

Surprised it isn't more.
- It's probably damped by how absolutely dogshit the mobile web and official app versions are.
  When I use it on my phone I access with old.reddit.com, as desktop and I'm not sure how those are being counted.
  
  Same here, I am willing to deal with small phone and occasionally misclick. But not willing to deal with the spams from the new format.
  But now it's all in the past, removed all my post and comments yesterday.(keep the account so if post gets restored I can run the delete again.)

That's why Captain Spork is taking all these measures to eliminate the largest 3rd party apps. He wants to force everyone into using the s***** Reddit Mobile app so they can suck all that tasty, valuable user data off your phone. Becoming a millionaire off of the free content and unpaid work of other people wasn't good enough, now he wants your data so he can sell that too.

I would have thought that it was higher.
- Just letting you know that you're posting everything multiple times. I assume it's related to timeouts
  
  Thanks. It seems Everything I posted yesterday got duplicated 1 billion times.

LMAO

147 comments