HN Explorer

Reddit now requires an account to read the comments

32 points by ObsoleteNerd ↗ HN
Only noticed today, but I only visit every couple days when a link shows up here or via friends so not sure when it kicked in exactly.

Logged out users can now only read the top level comments, and clicking the links to expand the comment chains prompts you to create an account or log in.

Another one of their recent changes that seems pointlessly user-hostile for the sake of metrics.

18 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 52.2 ms ] thread
r721
Replace "www.reddit.com" with "old.reddit.com" in URLs for old reddit version.
ObsoleteNerd
Seems to still work for now, but they’ve also removed the ability to sort comments in the old version, and stripped other features. While they say they won’t “remove” old.reddit.com they’re doing their damnedest to make it annoying/useless.

Using the normal reddit website now as a guest though is all but completely useless. When you click the comment section you don’t see any comments, just the story and then a list of “recommended” other links and a banner to sign in over a small link to continue to read the comments. On expanding that, you only see the top level comment and clicking to expand it tells you to sign in and you can’t continue.

I guess they’re going the Instagram route and moving towards app-only.

milquetoastaf
If you use Reddit Enhancement Suite on old.reddit.com you can still sort comments and do all sorts of power users things - including running scripts / plugins! Yes, reddit actually used to encourage that sort of development. I still run an old old old plugin to delete my comments after a week
companyhen
I can still sort comments on old reddit. Do you use Reddit Enhancement Suite?
ObsoleteNerd
Nope, I used to when I was an active reddit user but I stopped using RES when I nuked my reddit accounts.
someonexisting
"I guess they’re going the Instagram route and moving towards app-only."

Don't even get me started on their new live-streaming service.

PestoDiRucola
One more step towards reddit becoming unusable. This whole thing started with the redesign (yes, I know old.reddit.com is still accessible).
adkadskhj
Yup. The moment Reddit disables `old.reddit.com` is the last day i use it.
frompdx
I almost feel that reddit is making an effort to make old.reddit.com unusable rather than eliminating it. Some examples:

- clicking a link to another reddit post from old.reddit.com takes you to reddit.com unless the poster made an effort to link old.reddit.com instead. This was one of the most immediate and irritating issues I encountered with the introduction of the new UI. I know there are browser extensions to address this.

- The image gallery UX on old.reddit.com is really terrible. Returning from viewing a single image requires clicking on a not so obvious link that is difficult to use on mobile. Why not just display all images at the same time in a column?

- Clicking a second time on an image from an image gallery opens the image in a new window.

- The "play" button that must be pressed to view some images is equally difficult to use on a mobile device and isn't really obvious to an end user.

I'm sure there are more examples but these are the recent things that seem to have appeared after rolling out the new UI. I'm sure there is no real malice behind it other than not wanting to spend any resources competing against the objective of pushing mobile users to use the mobile app instead. The new UI is extremely aggressive about pushing users to the mobile app. Being lazy about the UX on old.reddit.com is almost as effective, if not more.

runjake
I'm not hip to the Internet anymore, but is there another site, such as Reddit, that's gaining any traction?

I still use Reddit to browse a wide range of topics, from woodworking, electrician work, and astrophysics, to organizationporn and buildapc.

usernameanother
This marks the end for reddit. Now, more than ever in an era of "unbundling" we may see different sites for the different niches (movies, books, politics, etc.)
dyingkneepad
So, where should we go if we want random forums for every single possible subject?
duxup
That's kinda terrible as many communities will up vote anything and often in the comments you find clarifications or outright corrections ...