[image shows the following text "Log in to use old Reddit

To keep Reddit safe, accounts are required to access old Reddit. Log in, or continue without an account on reddit.com."]

  • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    4·
    15 days ago

    Don’t log into an account.

    Browse the Internet like normal.

    If x.com or reddit.com won’t let you view without privacy, they’re dead and useless.

    Have some spine; lead, and stop following and being led by evil people and companies.

  • Soulphite@reddthat.comEnglish
    3·
    16 days ago

    Cant even read posts on the browser without being interrupted about a minute in saying to use their stupid fucking app. Reddit is trash.

    • the_xboxkiller@lemmy.zipEnglish
      01·
      16 days ago

      If you use old.reddit.com, at least on chrome mobile, it doesn’t do this. That’s how I’ve gotten around that pop up. It’s more than mildly infuriating tbh.

          • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            2·
            16 days ago

            Welcome to A/B rollouts.

            The idea is that instead of making a sweeping change for every single user, you roll a feature/system/UI update, etc out to a small number of users, to see how effective it is. It gives you time to see how those users react to it, how they interact with it, how it impacts their broader site usage, etc… And then once they have had time to gather some feedback and work out the bugs, they push it out to the rest of the users.

            Most big tech companies use A/B rollouts nowadays. YouTube, Meta, Reddit, TikTok, etc all give users access to different updates at different times. Because it allows them to gauge how their users are actually interacting with the updates before they accidentally tank their entire system with a bad update.

            For new features, it can also give the company time to properly scale their backend systems to accommodate a new feature. For instance, when Tiktok rolled out images in comments, they likely had to do some work on the backend to ensure their systems could handle the added load of suddenly downloading a bunch of images any time a user opened a comment section. By phasing the rollout in multiple steps, they didn’t have to upgrade all of their systems up front before making the feature available to some/most users.

            Using this post as an example, imagine if there was a bug that didn’t allow users to log in after they got this prompt. Or didn’t allow logged in users to access the site, because it kept redirecting them back to this page. Or it allowed users to continue browsing without a login, as long as they were in Dark Mode. Or any number of other potential weird issues that could arise. The A-users are essentially pushed into beta testing the new feature, before the B-users get the update. In this case, you’re simply a B-user who hasn’t been scheduled to get the update yet.

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    16 days ago

    They don’t even try to lie effectively. Why in Hell’s name would you need to log in to “keep reddit safe” just to lurk?

    • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
      1·
      15 days ago

      Easier to track users and produce verifiable "x potential viewers " to present to advertisers.

      They’ve wanted to kill old.reddit for a while. It doesn’t support advertisers or tracking the way they want. Also RES is still a thing on it. They’re too chickenshit to do so though, since the actual content generators and knowledgebase still use it. This is another attempt to slip the noose tighter

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      16 days ago

      My only guess is because they want to force AI scrapers to pay for access. And most scrapers probably work best on old.reddit because they keep changing new Reddit’s layout. As a programmer, if you’re going to code something to access a site, (and you don’t want to constantly have to rework it every time they make a small UI update) you’re going to use the version that never changes. So by forcing them to log in, it makes tracking the individual users (and thus, identifying potential unauthorized scraper accounts) easier.

      • AlteredEgo@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        15 days ago

        But can’t you use very simple agentic AI to constantly update the code for web scrapers on new reddit? From what I understand that is the kind of coding LLM can do well and you can just unit test for errors and feed it back to the LLM until it works. Even requiring accounts, creation can be automated using LLMs too.

        This sounds like it a loosing proposition and will only piss off hardcore users. Not that this would stop them. But I don’t think protection from web scrapers is a good explanation. Probably it’s just enshittification, forcing users to use their new interface to optimize business metrics. Someone is going to get a bonus because they improved the short sighted metrics.

    • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      16 days ago

      It’s up to you on whether you believe it or not. But the reasons they’re giving are that they’ve got protections going on when you access new Reddit that they aren’t able to implement on Old Reddit. Again, this is coming from the announcement from the Reddit admins. It sounds plausible to me and I really don’t care to argue this. I’m just passing along what they actually said.

  • kevinsky@feddit.nlEnglish
    2·
    15 days ago

    Stop using platforms that are actively locking you out. The reason they keep doing this is because people keep complying.

      • trem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        15 days ago

        To be fair, the likely reason in this case is AI companies mass-downloading Reddit posts for their training runs. You can’t really cache the internet, so from what I understand, every training run they scrape this stuff anew.

        For many smaller sites, it’s effectively a denial-of-service attack, which is why lots of them have put up this thing:
        Anubis bot protection screen

        For Reddit, it might just be additional traffic that they have to pay for and which doesn’t give them any profit. Although, if Reddit is still as unstable as it was years ago, I also wouldn’t be surprised, if they got DoSed by that a few times as well.

        • Log in | Sign up@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          15 days ago

          I think it was a sarcastic attack on the claim that forcing you to log in for read-only access to the website is in any way keeping anything safer than it was.

  • ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    15 days ago

    I can’t believe how bad it is now. There is no real news. It used to be interesting but it’s so watered down that it’s basically pointless. Couple that with the quality of major news outlets, and we’re basically experiencing a media blackout.

    • chunes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      15 days ago

      I’d add the ubiquity of paywalls these days contributes a lot as well. We used to have it so good.

      • ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        11 days ago

        404 media will allow reading with an account. I’m not sure of another way they can pay bills. I hear you, just don’t have an answer. I hate giving out my email for everything too.

    • DarkwingDuck@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      16 days ago

      That’s difficult when searching for discussion relating to technical issues. Even without adding “site:reddit.com” it comes up with higher quality information in comments from like 7 years ago.

  • [deleted]@piefed.worldEnglish
    1·
    16 days ago

    Logging in makes reddit safe?

    Trying to figure out how read only access while not logged in makes anything unsafe my brain hurt.

  • Rolivers@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    1·
    15 days ago

    Reddit is such a disgusting shit heap these days. There are still some subreddits worth lurking in but the majority is flooded with AI posts.

    It used to be so nice.

    • Dvixen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      15 days ago

      Probably staggered, or something dumb like by subreddit.

      Got it once day before yesterday, then next visit no prompt. Same browser, computer, different subreddit. Same subreddit yesterday and no prompt.