Reddit Pushes Web Visitors to App
I’ve recently developed a daily habit—perhaps one I should cut back on—of visiting several subreddits to keep up on things like audio production and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But I was surprised this weekend to suddenly find myself cut off; Reddit simply would not let me visit the site on my mobile phone.
Instead, a new overlay popped up, saying, “Get the app to keep using Reddit.”
There was no way to skip, bypass, or close the overlay. It did not provide any instructions or alternatives for continuing to use the mobile web version. What it did offer was a large button I could press to get the app. If I did so, the overlay told me, I would be able to “search better” and “personalize your feed”—two things I don’t care to do.
[…]
The block seemed curious, given that Reddit began as a website, and websites generally want traffic. […] But some services, including X and Instagram, aggressively push users toward apps—or at least toward being logged in to them.
So far this is just an experiment for “a small subset of frequent logged-out mobile users.”
Via Nick Heer:
It sucks that the open web is getting torn apart because commercial websites are incentivized to direct people to apps where large-scale scraping is a bigger challenge.
Previously:
- Only Google Can Crawl Reddit
- Twitter Now Requires Logging In
- Reddit API AMA and User Revolt
- Apollo Shutting Down June 30th
- Disabling Universal Links
Update (2026-05-11): See also: Hacker News and MacRumors.
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Surely the main reason is that it's way harder for the casual phone user to block ads in apps. I also hate apps for missing all the other conveniences of a browser, e.g. search on page, quick zoom, history.
@ED this is absolutely one reason.
The app can also request and usually get all sorts of other invasive permissions and information.
Reddit was dead the moment Huffman took over. He made it abundantly clear from day one that the purpose of reddit from now on is to be monetized by all possible means. He should be a "see also" in the dictionary entry for the word "enshittification."
@someone else Not sure why you're giving them the benefit of the doubt in this case. Reddit has been trying to force people to use the app in multiple ways since before the AI apocalypse hit websites. Sometimes, people really are just malicious
> visiting several subreddits
He can use RSS so he doesn't have to visit each one, but then he'd also face the fact that Reddit is severely rate limiting RSS feeds to the point where a subreddit with high volume will miss many posts when the reader can finally crawl the feed again.
For now, just use a browser extension (I use RedirectWeb on iOS and macOS) to redirect all requests for Reddit to Old Reddit.
But, yeah, eventually you'll have to kick the habit. We need more people of fortitude who will be willing to do that. I do accept that some subs have a really great SNR and are probably unsurpassed, but we need a contemporary alternative that's not intrinsically growth-hackable like this.
Usenet, perhaps?
I only occasionally visit Reddit on my phone, thankfully. For the most part I visit on desktop using Vivaldi + uBlock Origin Lite (the latter to scrape off the promoted content.)
That said, I'm now choosing dedicated forums elsewhere wherever the option exists. Yes, some subreddits are genuinely useful, but I've found that even in those with active moderation, the repetitiveness of posts and the creep of AI-generated material are a major drag.
I wouldn't go as far as suggesting we all go back to Usenet, as that wasn't without its problems, even before spam-carpet-bombing via Google Groups laid waste to most newsgroups. But that's one option, as are hosted forums or even mailing lists.
Just don't suggest Discord. It pains me to see so many subreddits pointing to there. And while it hasn't enshittified as far or as deep as Reddit, the gap is closing.
I have so much history on Reddit that Apollo, an app that hasn't been in development for quite a while now, holds the distinction of being the one thing I sideload on iPhone. The user experience is miles better.
I would have happily paid some subscription money just to be able to continue to use Apollo. Alas, for whatever financial and/or personal beef issues, Huffman and Selig couldn't agree to that. So I'll continue to use a hacked Apollo on iOS, and will continue to use old.reddit.com on the Mac.
First, Twitter was hit by the bot scourge. Now it's Reddit, and it's starting on Hacker News, too. All of these sites are doomed. The only winning move is not to play.
I let OpenClaw read these sites for me, and it gives me an update with relevant posts twice a day so I know what's going on, but I no longer visit any of them. They sometimes surface interesting news, but the discussions are just brain poison.
I'm not sure if this has changed recently, but when I get hit with those "download the app" interstitials, I'd just let it sit there for like 10-20 seconds and then it would seem to automatically redirect to the webpage.
There are Reddit apps out there that allow you to input your own developer app identifier and use them that way. For personal usage, that's more than enough leeway. Maybe push doesn't work, but still the app could have functioned.
Even if Selig doesn't feel he can charge for such an app, Apollo should have been released as open source without support.
