As of a few minutes ago old.reddit.com now seems to requre logging in to access it.

Shame as it was still the best place to browse for info about some niche interests.

Edit: Seems like they might be testing the change as it is hit or miss at the moment.

Edit: Adding this to My flilters in uBlock Origin seems to fix the issue for the time being:

||reddit.com^$header=referer:

  • slickgoat@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    20 minutes ago

    Is Reddit still a thing? I wasn’t aware?

    I thought that it had evolved into a bot parliament.

  • eggpl4nt@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    2 hours ago

    This news finally convinced me to make a Lemmy account so I can participate a little more instead of lurk. That, and generally how awful Reddit has been becoming for like, several years at this point, since the IPO.

    I’ve swapped out RedReader on my phone’s home screen with Boost; though I think it’ll take some time to break the Reddit addiction.

    I am looking forward to seeing Lemmy’s growth!

    • FunStuffIsFun@eviltoast.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 hours ago

      Yep. I like it better than old.reddit and I only end up on reddit from search engines anymore. Its too damn bad. There was a good 6 or 7 years (for me) when reddit was pretty damn awesome; now it is a dumpster fire. The suits ruined our fun.

    • auzy1@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 hours ago

      I’m not sure we want a lot of the trolls or bots here… Fortunately, I feel like they’d go to instances which lemmy world is de-federated from fortunately though.

      It’s fairly obvious in a lot of the local subreddits that there are a huge amount of lobbyists (same as facebook). Like the gun/pro-vaping people posting at 2AM really stand out in them

  • SparroHawc@piefed.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    5 hours ago

    They’re definitely doing A/B testing; I just tried it in a private window and I can still access it, but posts like this are becoming more frequent.

  • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 hours ago

    Interestingly enough, old.reddit users are in the single digit percentages:

    Even if they weren’t hostile towards old.reddit (the ads are far less invasive and effective), they could make a strong argument for not wanting to support a dwindling, tiny userbase.

    • forbiddencherry@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 hours ago

      I love that “Mobile Web” is still larger than “Android” and also larger than “iOS” (usually). Nag screen didn’t work!

      • mursejoy@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 hours ago

        I basically can only browse in a private window because of the incessant nag screen.

        Once that gets patched out it’ll be only Lemmy for me. I just hope a larger community of people move over.

    • MangoCats@feddit.it
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      6 hours ago

      I’ve moderated a subreddit for about 15 years now, it’s built up to ~40K members and ~100K visitors per week, ~1M views per month, and over 95-99% of that traffic is mobile (varies by the day). New Reddit (desktop) runs 0.5-3%, and old.reddit doesn’t even register in the bar graphs. Still, my shortcuts all go to old.reddit.com - and not just for moderation, but it’s also how I browse reddit.com.

      If they cut off my old.reddit.com interface, I’ll likely abandon my moderator’s post - no telling what happens to that community after that happens.

        • The_v@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          4 hours ago

          Before the IPO, close to 100% of old.reddit likely contributed. For submitting, the old.reddit interface had better options for the experienced user. It was faster and easier to submit complex longer comments and posts.

          The interface isn’t that great for reading comments/post. The third party phone apps did it better.

          Besides you had to have a tiny bit of experience with the platform to know how to find that setting. Not something most casual readers who hit the site via a search engine would know to do.

          Since the IPO it’s likely mostly few old-timers checking the niche subs. Probably very little engagement. Honestly, it’s likely still around because of some critical tool for moderators or bots that would be extremely expensive to upgrade. Definitely not because they care about the user.

          • Pika@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 hours ago

            the 90 9 1 rule is the rule of activity. its basically saying that 90% of users are lurkers, 9% contribute some, and 1% are major contributors.

          • The_v@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            3 hours ago

            When iPhone launched it was targeted at the general public.

            Blackberry had successfully dominated the businesses. In apps, texting, e-mailing etc they were light-years ahead of everyone else at the time. Ther had a bit of a learning curve to figure out but it got the job done. Many of the things that the iPhone became famous for were blackberry inventions. They were also highly customizable with tons of options where you could tweak all sorts of stuff aka pretty complicated.

            So Apple went after the consumer market where they had a major fan base built up from the iPod. The thing about the iPod that set it apart from other MP3 was it was extremely simple to use. Like your 50 year old MBA boss could use it simple (if someone loaded the MP3’s for him) and no customization.

            So the phone they made was about the same size as an iPod, and extremely simply to use. No customization because that created complexity. It was all tightly controlled.

            Pretty soon it became the dominant phone in the market because as the current president shows, too many americans are fucking stupid. It remains the dominant phone because too many americans are fucking stupid.

            It’s a much more complex phone today but don’t worry, most americans don’t know how to use all the features anyway because they are too fucking stupid.

          • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            4 hours ago

            The US was the first place smartphones took off and in the first couple years iPhone was the smartphone, so the initial set of adopters got iPhones because android wasn’t really a consideration. Then the network effect, people got what their friends or family had. Also, since a lot of people get their phones payed for through their cellular carrier contract, they not super price sensitive since the cost was buried in a monthly bill.

            So lots of people are used to IOS, and don’t see a reason to switch. Especially now with the one major differentiator, walled garden vs open platform, is disappearing with Google locking down their platform.

            • mursejoy@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              3 hours ago

              Once Android bootloaders got locked down I jumped ship. I loved custom ROMs. I also used to side load a lot of apks/emulate games. Now my Steam Deck is my dedicated emulation hand held, before that a modded 3DS. My only reasons to stay on Android disappeared.

              Also iMessage is just so much better than allo/gmessages/hangouts/etc. I waited for over a decade for Google to create and stick with an ecosystem.

              I loaded all my music on Google play music, then it was google music all access subscriptions, then it was YouTube music.

              Tried to get the family into hangouts video, then it changed to duo+allo, then they killed allo so half the family abandoned duo…

              It’s an endless cycle with Google. The kill more apps than most companies will ever create. Nobody has any buy in with their ecosystem because it’s dogshit.