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Digg was also killed by a user-hostile redesign. Reddit was wise enough to keep its redesign indefinitely optional, at least.


When Reddit first introduced their terrible mobile site years ago, they thankfully left around the old i.reddit.com (also known as .compact) around, which I exclusively used and so didn't really care much about the horrendously user-hostile current mobile site, with its popup windows begging you to use the app. They removed it entirely a month or so ago. I now no longer use Reddit.


At least old.reddit.com still works and it's usable, more or less, on mobile.


Yeah that’s what I use


The API prices are a de facto redesign for many users because they'll have to use the less than adequate official product now.


Their mobile app is the new user-hostile redesign. I had no idea before today that they had experimented with cutting off mobile web access in favour of the app[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36287411


It was impressive how quickly Digg killed itself with the terrible redesign. Back then, Reddit was mostly considered a knockoff. It actually was to a large degree, but everyone moved to it very quickly.


There was a snarky comment in the IAMA when spez said "old.reddit.com isn't going away", and the person responded with a link to spez saying the exact same thing with the exact same words about the API 6 years ago.

Google's "don't be evil" had to go away too. Capitalism can't make room for considerations such as proliferation of evil.


Google actually never officially got rid of their “don’t be evil” phrase, even if I agree with you that they are far worse at adhering to it than they used to be, and I suspect too many of their current executives have no attachment to it beyond not wanting the pointless employee morale or PR hit of actually removing it.

The reason people think it got removed is two events:

One, when Google Inc reorganized to create its Alphabet Inc corporate parent in 2015, the “Don’t be evil” motto stayed with the Google LLC subsidiary that still today handles most of what we associate with the name Google. For Alphabet, they added “Do the right thing” instead of moving “Don’t be evil” to the new top of the corporate hierarchy.

Two, in 2018 they moved Don’t be evil away from the preface of Google’s code of conduct. But they moved it to the last sentence, which is at least far more prominent than burying it in the middle, let alone removing it entirely.

I used to work for Google years ago, before all of the events I’m discussing and with no personal connection myself to those events. (Obviously I’m speaking only for myself here and not for them.) I think nowadays their level of morality as an organization is slightly better than or comparable to most other prominent tech megacorps, whereas they used to be atypically much better than that. The same deterioration has occurred in how good or bad of an employer they are - they used to be great, but now they’re slightly better than or similar to most other prominent tech megacorps. Still not worse than their peers in either morality or employee experience. But as much as “don’t be evil” is still officially there. It’s definitely far less of a corporate focus than it used to be, which I find quite sad.


> Capitalism can't make room for considerations such as proliferation of evil.

People only believe in corporate slogans when they can use them to make cynical points about abandoning them, but nevertheless, these things exist:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation


That was legitimately interesting, thanks.


for reddit based on the current mobile behaviour on android which doesn't allow you to use mobile version and forces you to use the app it means its no longer optional




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