[sorahn]

My outcome was the shutdown of Apollo, rather than the blackout. I no longer read Reddit on my phone. (Except for a link or two clicked from something else, but even then I go to `old.reddit` instead to read the comments). That was really where I wasted the most time on it.

It’s kind of a relief. I think I was too “lazy” to stop on my own because Apollo was so comfortable to use.

[cxx]

Apollo's shutdown was a blessing in disguise, I was addicted to Reddit and wasted hours on it before going to sleep. Thanks to that event I no longer browse or even feel the need to see what's going on, it's like quitting smoking, I literally feel better and relieved that I quit. I don't think I would've been able to stop on my own either, Apollo made it too easy.

[sadtoot]

i feel this way about twitter since logged out users can't browse tweets anymore. now i can give myself just a tiny bit of friction to break the habit. i still waste time on my phone, but at least it's not quite so effortless now

[Breza]

I feel the same way. I left Reddit altogether in the protest and haven't come back. Suddenly I have hours of time back every week.

[xyst]

Now I’m addicted to TT :dead:

[Agingcoder]

Agreed it means I no longer read Reddit at all because Apollo’s gone.

I tried last week ( after a few months off Reddit) to install the Reddit app, and it’s appallingly bad. It’s so confusing that I’m not quite sure what sub I’m reading, what’s user generated, and what’s an ad ( I was never a prolific poster, commenter, mod or anything - just reading is difficult now )

So independently of the politics, I’ve tried to come back to the platform, but I can’t, because the new product is vastly inferior to the old one.

[Galaco]

> I’m not quite sure what sub I’m reading, what’s user generated, and what’s an ad

I'm unable to tell apart ads properly either quickly on reddit, and given the it's the same user action to collapse a comment and to click an ad that looks like a comment, I've misclicked on ads many, many times. It doesn't help that they place them at the top of the comments section and seem to be deliberately designed to look like gif comments.

As an advertiser I would not be particularly chuffed. I can say with confidence that my accidental ad click rate on reddit is 100%.

[Obscurity4340]

> Reddit app, and its Apollongly bad

Fixed that for you ;)

[Oreb]

Narwhal 2 is not bad, IMHO. It’s almost as nice as Apollo on the iPhone, and much better than Apollo on the iPad.

[elmepo]

Same, albeit with Reddit is Fun. Personally I used to visit Reddit multiple times per day but now I typically visit it once or twice per week, if at all. I'm sure the official app is fine, but the approach they took to third party developers soured it for me.

Ultimately I think if anything had any impact on Reddit's traffic it would have been the killing of the defacto mobile apps. The lesson any future founders should take is to kill off third party apps sooner rather than later if you ever want to do so, before user growth on those platforms becomes an issue.

[pcdandy]

Reddit Is Fun (rif) was a well-designed app that just worked. It was fast, had a customisable user interface with defaults that didn't get in the way of enjoying the content, and could run on all of my devices easily, including an Android 7 phone from 2018. It's a shining examplar of what a mobile browsing app should be like.

By comparison, the official Reddit app feels somewhat slower, even on my relatively new Android 12 phone from 2021, having a very noticeable lag when scrolling through articles and comments. For video and photo posts, there's no way of browsing the comments without clicking on the thumbnail and having it auto-play the videos every time, meaning I need to react fast to pause the video (there is practically no way of stopping this). And it doesn't support Android 7 anymore, meaning the only way to access it from my 2018 phone is via the browser.

It baffles me why Reddit would want to cut support for 3rd party apps when they were a key component in the Reddit ecosystem.

[akaij]

Apollo still works perfectly if you sideload it: https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14nzii3/how_to_c...

https://github.com/ichitaso/ApolloPatcher/releases/latest

https://github.com/EthanArbuckle/Apollo-CustomApiCredentials

[wkat4242]

What's so great about Apollo I wonder? I've never tried it before :) what does it do differently?

Edit: oh never mind, I've been digging into the links but it looks like it's iOS - only. So that explains why I've never come across it before.

[replwoacause]

Same thing here. I stopped browsing Reddit mindlessly and only end up there now if a Kagi search takes me there. Otherwise I am almost completely off the platform, which is saying a lot because I used to spend 1-2 hours a day there.

[midasz]

> if a Kagi search takes me there

Same and mainly because Kagi let's me rewrite the url to a private libreddit instance. Otherwise I'd have downranked it.

[funkychicken]

+1. I’m grateful because I knew it was in my mental health’s best interest to stop endlessly scrolling /r/all, but I needed a push.

[TaylorAlexander]

Yep I was using Baconreader and when that stopped working, I simply stopped using reddit. I was not a heavy user by that point, but now my use has gone to zero aside from the occasional google search result leading me there.

[Terretta]

On iOS, especially iPad, try:

- Narwhal 2: https://narwhal.app/

Of course, you pay the API costs. But this is pro work, countless UX details thoughtfully made.

- Winston: https://winston.cafe/

- Winston on GitHub: https://github.com/lo-cafe/winston

In TestFlight Beta, OK on iPhone but awkward on iPad unless full screen; layout is jumbled mess in stage manager windows.

[nkotov]

I've been using Winston as an alternative but it still doesn't compared to how good Apollo was. My reddit usage overall has decreased simply because of it.

[jalapenos]

Same, Reddit saved me from it by cutting my 3rd-party app cord.

It's just bizarre to me that they didn't try to buy one of these apps to replace their own. That would've been a net win. It seems instead, as throughout their history, that their leadership is constantly trying to destroy it.

If they had external investors they'd be being hit with shareholder lawsuits constantly.

[Obscurity4340]

They already did that it was AlienBlue and thry wrecked it if my understanding is correct

[willis936]

Same here. I'm happily spending more free time on creative and learning ventures.

[realusername]

Same outcome for me but with Relay for Reddit, I could not bring myself to use the official app and now my usage dropped closed to zero which was a good thing, I have more time for productive stuff.

[baby]

I basically stopped using reddit when they came up with the new web UI, and then pushed me to download the app on mobile. They obviously don't care about users.

[theshrike79]

Yep, Apollo going away made me stop using mobile Reddit completely. Don't bother on the desktop either, because I liked the Apollo UI a lot more.

Nowadays I'm mostly on Tildes and here, neither of which has the endless inflow of content that Reddit did, it's actually possible to read "everything" on both and then go do something else.

[Kichererbsen]

I didn't even use Apollo: I was hooked on the official iOS app. And used the blackout to kick the habit. Haven't looked back since. _Some_ of the free time I got back has now gone towards youtube shorts, but since those really requires headphones, I can keep it to a much smaller percentage of my free time. Instead, I bought a subscription to a local news paper, you know, for when you're on the loo and need something to read. I feel I'm better informed now than when I was reading reddit compusively.

[nishantk]

Exactly this.