this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Their approach here seems inherently broken. People aren't going to use the app they don't want to use.
The harder they push their official app, the more sketched out by it I am.
It's seriously disturbing from a mental health perspective. They're doing exactly the same things Facebook did that made it most damaging
The app always gives you something, it will add filler (in the form of front-page content) to your feed, changing the reward schedule and (very literally) training you to doom scroll longer with fewer posts you actually care about. It also gives the opportunity to shove something controversial in your face, which drives outrage based engagement
It also always gives you messages - if you didn't get actual replies, it gives you sub suggestions or puts random posts in your notifications to try to get you back in the app
They also been doing A/B testing to try to maximize in-app time
It's a literal recipe for addiction
They want you to experience reddit the way THEY want you to, not how YOU decide to. Put it like it is: predatory.
Enabling paging in Apollo to stop myself from doomscrolling was a huge thing for me. Reaching the end of a page was a reminder and I could actively decide if I want to go further down the procrastination route or not. Guess what option is not available neither on web or the official app...