I suspect this anecdata is supported by Reddit's metrics, otherwise they wouldn't be pushing so hard for it (barring some other long term goal)
Not that I like the changes. I much prefer the old version.
But the desktop UI is getting worse; navigation is ridiculous and the pages are so junked up that it is actively repellant.
It is too bad. I used to actually enjoy browsing and (gasp) commenting sometimes. Now I tend to hit a single page via search and leave. Can't remember the last time I actually logged in.
- They change you back to the new design every few days.
- They constantly tell you to use the app (thankfully you can disable this at least).
- The old reddit design has a sidebar with helpful content, but this is not automatically present in the redesign. If you're a mod you have to manually copy that content over to the redesign and keep both updated separately. A lot of mods don't seem to know this so some communities just don't have their community information in the redesign.
- The new redesign on mobile web is so bad that those that don't know about how to get the old design will probably use the app to get something that works.
I'm glad old.reddit still exists, but I think if they just scrapped the entire new site it would be a better product. Probably worse for 'engagement' though because without infinite scroll, gifs loading everywhere, and other addictive hacks, people would just read what they wanted to and leave. The horror.
(Also r/hnblogs traffic has most people using the old design, but there's an obvious selection bias in that community.)
This is so annoying that I have to use this chrome extension to force it back to old.reddit.com:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-redirec...
Disclaimer that I'm also the author.
The funniest part is plenty of 3rd party apps had been doing an amazing job already. All reedit had to do was acquire one of them on the cheap or steal design cues from the ones that were most popular.
Instead they created this monstrosity which till date lags behind many 3rd party apps in features and fluidity.
> old.reddit
RES is the only way to use reddit, and they can pry it from my cold dead hands.
They already tried this with Alien Blue