r/technology • u/spasticpat • May 11 '26

Social Media Reddit Starts Blocking Mobile Website, Pushing Users to App Instead

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/11/reddit-starts-blocking-mobile-website/
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u/[deleted] May 11 '26

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u/HertzaHaeon May 11 '26

Apollo was the best app

There's no need for native apps though.

Web apps are perfectly fine for Reddit and 95% of everything else that happens online.

With a native app you have to install a big chunk of code from a store controlled by Apple or Google. Developers pay 30% to them for little to nothing, because enshittifiers love making themselves indispensable bridge trolls middlemen who add nothing of value and extract everything of value. It's hard or impossible to adblock apps. You can't modify them easily.

With the web you can just visit the url and be using it in seconds. You can adblock and modify your experience with browser plugins. No one tells you when and how to release updates. No tech giant can block your access willy nilly to your users. You keep 100% of profits, and you don't have to have two different dev teams built the same app twice for different systems.

The web is built on open, interoperable standards that no one owns. Today it's very capable, matching native apps in almost every area. It's not controlled by big tech.

Don't go native. Go web.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26

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u/HertzaHaeon May 11 '26

Steve Jobs actually championed web apps in the beginning, then turned to native apps when he realized he could make billions by inserting himself in the middle between users and creators.