{"id":51844,"date":"2026-05-08T16:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T20:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=51844"},"modified":"2026-05-08T17:13:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T21:13:18","slug":"reddit-pushes-web-visitors-to-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/08\/reddit-pushes-web-visitors-to-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Reddit Pushes Web Visitors to App"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nate Anderson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

Instead, a new overlay popped up, saying, “Get the app to keep using Reddit.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The block seemed curious, given that Reddit began as a website, and websites generally want<\/em> traffic. […] But some services, including X and Instagram, aggressively push users toward apps—or at least toward being logged in to them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

So far this is just an experiment for “a small subset of frequent logged-out mobile users.”<\/p>\n\n

Via Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n