I’ve seen many comments and posts regarding the API fiasco on Reddit, with the claim that there will be a huge influx of users when that happens. I’m all for it, but I find it hard to believe that the average or even above average user will make the effort to switch.
I think many are simply not doing anything until they have to. Once their app quits working, they’ll make a change at that time. Of course not everyone uses Mobile. Personally I don’t use mobile much for internet access, mainly desktop browser. In that case I could keep using Reddit same as before, but I don’t want to.
So the question is what portion of Reddit users are on mobile, how many will relent to the Reddit app, how many will quit using Reddit altogether, how many will look for an alternative, and finally how many will land on Lemmy or Kbin. Could be a lot, could be not many. We’ll find out pretty soon here.
For those that do come this way they’ll have a transition phase. There’s a lot that’s different here and takes some getting used to. Also the lack of certain features may result in some angst. There’s bugs too. They fixed some stuff with 0.18.0, but searching for and subscribing to communities is giving me fits now.
Using on Android mobile has been a pleasant experience for me. Just added a shortcut to my home screen. But, I tend to not download an app unless I have to. Years ago when I was on Facebook and Twitter, I always did it that way. I never used their apps.
I am old-ish so I am not sure if that is why when I joined, it was very easy for me to find my way around. I say this because I’ve been on the internet since the '90s and have familiarity with hunting down what I need versus it just being there in an app.
Ironically, when I started on Reddit back in 2012, I quickly found bacon reader and have been using it ever since. It is one of the few apps I do use. And I will not be using Reddit any other way so I am here for the long run.
I also used Bacon Reader, and was kind of mystified that it wasn’t mentioned in any of the dozens of articles about this that I read. I haven’t been on it since the blackout and I’m definitely not going back until they realize that their data, as they call it, is actually OUR data. But I won’t if BR will be closing up too.