I ~~can't~~ won't use the new ( decade+ old? )reddit.
From the Reddit Post announcing this, :
"In case you are wondering . . .
Q: Is Reddit shutting down Old Reddit?
A: Not right now! We can’t promise it will be around forever, but u/spez himself has said we’ll keep supporting it while folks are still using it. That said, it doesn’t have the same modern security tech stack reddit.com has so we need to tighten security on old reddit to keep it viable."[0]
Unfortunately, that does partially make sense about old.reddit security and is a slick way to push log ins.
But the thing about old.reddit, was you did not need JavaScript to use and browse, which is more secure. Looks more like reddit brass wants to find ways to squeeze old.reddit for more ad pushing and to suck up more user data.
> it doesn’t have the same modern security tech stack reddit.com has so we need to tighten security on old reddit to keep it viable.
This is how you justify it to anyone who doesn’t know web dev.
For those who do, it’s an idiotic statement. The only difference between new Reddit and old Reddit is the visual styling and how content is presented. Both have all the same security.
They don’t mean websec, they mean textsec. The old site doesn’t have the level of text scraper defenses that the new site does, without which Reddit can’t monetize the written output of their userbase for AI training. Putting old behind a login wall solves that.
Having previously recommended on HN that blogs put up a simple basicauth that takes any password to stop AI theft dead in its tracks, I definitely agree with their reasoning; if nothing else, it’ll result in an honest accounting of users left using it.
Potentially related is yt-dlp getting a 403 lately when downloading from Reddit. The extractor uses old.reddit.com. Hopefully they'll find a way to use the regular Reddit gateway instead.
But I can't stand new Reddit so maybe I'll take this as an opportunity to give it up entirely.
Yeah, that would align; this probably also cuts off most of the “download Reddit videos” websites. More textsec, though I guess that’s more like contentsec? CONSEC there we go.
in my own words: if something is publicly visible, it will get scrapped. you could rate limit your website to 1 request per minute with a custom Turing test upon each request, and it would still, still get fully scrapped. the Internet is getting scrapped by hundreds of players, and at least some of them will bother to investigate and bypass the countermeasures even for a tiny obscure blog.
Ah. I’m not talking about a perfect and total block like Reddit wants. I just want the vast bulk of scrapers (whether AI or not) to hit a 403 auth-required wall and give up, which is what they’ll mostly do. Good enough for me :)
If I did want a near-perfect block I’d post to a telnet BBS and have forums accessible only by QWKmail. Which would of course drive some jerk to synthesize a republish just to troll me. Isn’t humanity wonderful?
That's unfortunate. Rather than using rate limiting or access control over a singular user which would have significant different usage to say scrappers ... I'm not making an account ... I guess I won't be visiting old.reddit threads ... the new makeover reddit moved to, never played well with my browser but died almost entirely some time ago one when I added one of the many PII scrapping trackers to my deny list -- maybe they'll give up on their usage of including a PII tracker ...
> Rather than using rate limiting or access control over a singular user
Rate limiting by user is much easier said than done for anonymous (not logged in) users. How do you define a user? The same person (or bot) can hop from IP to IP using a number of methodologies on a scale of sohpistication. They can take or leave any cookie you send their way. They can avoid browser fingerprinting and spoof their user agent.
And they literally are using access control. The first step in access control (also known as authorization) is authentication. You can't perform access control on anonymous users, you need to know who you're speaking with.
> I'm not making an account ... I guess I won't be visiting old.reddit threads
That's your choice, of course, but you have to understand you are the least valuable user on Reddit's platform (other than abusers) right? A user who steadfastly refuses to ever log in or give a single concession - what makes you think they care if you never open reddit again? You are indistinguishable from a bot.
Reddit IMHO, is well known for how crafty they are for ensuring once someone is banned, it's quite difficult to get around it. Thus I'm fairly confident they can pick the difference between requests from one IP landing on a particular thread by way of search engine or some other area and going on to explore comments from a couple of the users and other subsequent threads over a few minutes ... to that of a process to scrape a great number of threads at a great rate.
Yes I've experienced some very cunning web operators that make mirroring their site really really hard ... it then usually takes some hard determination to work out what is needed to accomplish a successful mirror attempt.
Authorisation just means reddit account details will be added to various sites that, often for free, provide account / password that work atm for those who only want to look at one little old thing without having to make their own account ... so the next thing would be then profiling ... which then takes the whole point of why bother unless the account making process is just a means to deploy scripts that are tracking or some other process ;)
> but you have to understand you are the least valuable user on Reddit's platform ...
Yes along with the other few hundred news sites that all think they are so important they demand yearly subscription from me for access to their site to view at most a couple of articles a year.
As for how important to reddit I personally am - lol. It is though the absence of a number of read only users that will change things ... if at all for the moment. Lurkers though often share interesting threads which could result in other people taking an interest and subsequently engaging. Many people have navigated to old.reddit as it works, unlike the current www.reddit format, doubly so for myself as I cut trackers and various APIS that were not doing the right thing, and reddit's script to display comments displays ... none, nothing, nada, though I do see the OP question / comment.
This has the same vibe as "if netflix cracks down on password sharing they'll lose revenue!" Which, obviously, didn't happen. Cutting out abuse at the expense of harming low-value users is always a good bet.
Oh I think the powers that be at reddit have worked out even converting a small percentage of the lurkers into members will be quite beneficial. Once a member there's a higher likelihood the new member will engage and consume more - thus more ad revenue or eventually choose to move over to ad free subscription.
As for creating a wall though, reddit is very large and has a huge mass of users, but eventually some of the users will move to other areas more tolerant and less interested in capitalising their comments, users which are more interested in sharing their pearls of wisdom or hard gained knowledge with all of the web.
As to a similar situation to Netflix's actions - There's a difference though IMO between a limited amount of choices to consume new tv series and movies vs yet another forum like area ... If one wants to watch a new series or movie, one has to make a choice how that's done ... if an area on the web becomes less than desirable to visit that doesn't have anything unique, there's honestly no absolute need to include it and continue to consume elsewhere, like a tv series that's going down hill fast, for many there's a point they stop and watch something else. So there's no real choice apart from consequential things like evaluating how important a thread from such a place might be that turns up in a search engine if one is looking for answers or whether to engage where a thread from the walled area has been linked, with anything more than superficial banter in such threads outside of the walled site.
They can tell abusive scrapers from regular users, they choose not to distinguish. I might give in and create an account eventually but damn. Had deleted my reddit about a decade ago.
How do you meaningfully use Reddit without an account? Do you really navigate to specific subreddits and read them one by one, rather than assembling a home feed of subs you have joined?
You never want to participate in discussion, or vote on comments and posts?
I don't really understand how you all were regularly browsing and using the site without an account.
> How do you meaningfully use Reddit without an account? Do you really navigate to specific subreddits and read them one by one, rather than assembling a home feed of subs you have joined?
Old is useful for posting to other places, like right here on HN, because the UI is not complete and utter garbage.
Old is also useful for quickly going to a particular sub-reddit if you just want to peruse around to quickly see what the current topics are (/r/worldnews, /r/country-i-live-in, /r/city-i-live-in).
By Reddit's own admission, that's literally 98% of users.
Most of the incoming traffic never engage with the post in any way. This is true of most social sites. That's where the term 'lurker' comes from.
By “abusive” they probably mean “doesn’t let us track them”. I’m surprised they’ve kept old.reddit.com going this long, it’s actually an un-enshittified version of the product, which is basically unheard of.
In related news, Imgur seems to be a/b testing a website that just pushes you to the mobile app and doesn't allow you do anything in browser beyond viewing the one picture you clicked the link for.
I stopped using Reddit daily when they killed Apollo. Now it looks like I’ll stop using it entirely. Good riddance, thanks for killing my doomscrolling addiction for me.
If they wanted to actually prevent abusive users they would make the API more affordable. Its just sites like reddit, twitter/x, etc. storing valuable social data that can't be found elsewhere. It's the exclusivity and the difficulty to obtain the data that is being protected.
That reasoning is complete nonsense. If someone scrapes the data, that’s not a big deal, and Reddit has no more claim to the data than anyone else. The data is public and created by users, not by the platform itself. If the traffic is too much for them, they could use rate limiting or simply offer an archive of the data as a torrent once a month. That way, a company training an LLM could access a complete dataset without generating a lot of traffic.
if you don't give every iota of your physical makeup to our benevolent leaders, this is labelled as abusive behaviour. for example, talking over communication channels that aren't completely monitorable is clearly terrorist activity. using your brain is directly harmful to corporations, therefore unauthorized intelligence is harmful.
I'm starting to see a pattern here and it starts with reverse demonization, like a begging succubus. you wouldn't want to get hurt now would you. that's not in your best interests. now while you're in a fearful state, please give your responsibility to me. it'll be easier this way, I promise I have your best interests at heart.
People saying they'll never use Reddit again is just noise.
I'm sure you've seen the "protests" and sub closures because of {$change}. Two weeks later the same mods and users realise they can't get their power trip or dopamine hit from anything else and are back on Reddit - with the mods proudly back working as unpaid janitors for a company with a billion dollars valuation.
Discussion for certain hobbies and interests, among those seriously interested in them, has long since moved to WhatsApp groups. Sure, WhatsApp is not a libre platform either and has its own dopamine-hit issues, but you’re underestimating how much Reddit has alienated its user base (namely that portion of it who care about close-knit community and skillsharing) since the 2018 redesign.
Bye Reddit! It was nice while it lasted, I guess. Small funeral for all the genuinely useful communities and knowledge on there.
I had already deleted my account, and using the site has gotten far more hostile especially without willingness to use the app.
On mobile you now have to use incognito in order to not get cut off and told to download the app.
I guess I can’t complain too much. Old Reddit lost money for, what, a decade? Longer?. Public company Reddit runs a pretty good business.
I ~~can't~~ won't use the new ( decade+ old? )reddit.
From the Reddit Post announcing this, :
"In case you are wondering . . .
Q: Is Reddit shutting down Old Reddit? A: Not right now! We can’t promise it will be around forever, but u/spez himself has said we’ll keep supporting it while folks are still using it. That said, it doesn’t have the same modern security tech stack reddit.com has so we need to tighten security on old reddit to keep it viable."[0]
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1ujtebf/logging_in...
Unfortunately, that does partially make sense about old.reddit security and is a slick way to push log ins.
But the thing about old.reddit, was you did not need JavaScript to use and browse, which is more secure. Looks more like reddit brass wants to find ways to squeeze old.reddit for more ad pushing and to suck up more user data.
> it doesn’t have the same modern security tech stack reddit.com has so we need to tighten security on old reddit to keep it viable.
This is how you justify it to anyone who doesn’t know web dev.
For those who do, it’s an idiotic statement. The only difference between new Reddit and old Reddit is the visual styling and how content is presented. Both have all the same security.
They don’t mean websec, they mean textsec. The old site doesn’t have the level of text scraper defenses that the new site does, without which Reddit can’t monetize the written output of their userbase for AI training. Putting old behind a login wall solves that.
Having previously recommended on HN that blogs put up a simple basicauth that takes any password to stop AI theft dead in its tracks, I definitely agree with their reasoning; if nothing else, it’ll result in an honest accounting of users left using it.
Potentially related is yt-dlp getting a 403 lately when downloading from Reddit. The extractor uses old.reddit.com. Hopefully they'll find a way to use the regular Reddit gateway instead.
But I can't stand new Reddit so maybe I'll take this as an opportunity to give it up entirely.
Yeah, that would align; this probably also cuts off most of the “download Reddit videos” websites. More textsec, though I guess that’s more like contentsec? CONSEC there we go.
>a simple basicauth that takes any password to stop AI theft dead in its tracks
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GWu2fY9Pu-c
I’m having trouble opening this link; could you please reply in your own words instead?
in my own words: if something is publicly visible, it will get scrapped. you could rate limit your website to 1 request per minute with a custom Turing test upon each request, and it would still, still get fully scrapped. the Internet is getting scrapped by hundreds of players, and at least some of them will bother to investigate and bypass the countermeasures even for a tiny obscure blog.
Ah. I’m not talking about a perfect and total block like Reddit wants. I just want the vast bulk of scrapers (whether AI or not) to hit a 403 auth-required wall and give up, which is what they’ll mostly do. Good enough for me :)
If I did want a near-perfect block I’d post to a telnet BBS and have forums accessible only by QWKmail. Which would of course drive some jerk to synthesize a republish just to troll me. Isn’t humanity wonderful?
That's unfortunate. Rather than using rate limiting or access control over a singular user which would have significant different usage to say scrappers ... I'm not making an account ... I guess I won't be visiting old.reddit threads ... the new makeover reddit moved to, never played well with my browser but died almost entirely some time ago one when I added one of the many PII scrapping trackers to my deny list -- maybe they'll give up on their usage of including a PII tracker ...
> Rather than using rate limiting or access control over a singular user
Rate limiting by user is much easier said than done for anonymous (not logged in) users. How do you define a user? The same person (or bot) can hop from IP to IP using a number of methodologies on a scale of sohpistication. They can take or leave any cookie you send their way. They can avoid browser fingerprinting and spoof their user agent.
And they literally are using access control. The first step in access control (also known as authorization) is authentication. You can't perform access control on anonymous users, you need to know who you're speaking with.
> I'm not making an account ... I guess I won't be visiting old.reddit threads
That's your choice, of course, but you have to understand you are the least valuable user on Reddit's platform (other than abusers) right? A user who steadfastly refuses to ever log in or give a single concession - what makes you think they care if you never open reddit again? You are indistinguishable from a bot.
Reddit IMHO, is well known for how crafty they are for ensuring once someone is banned, it's quite difficult to get around it. Thus I'm fairly confident they can pick the difference between requests from one IP landing on a particular thread by way of search engine or some other area and going on to explore comments from a couple of the users and other subsequent threads over a few minutes ... to that of a process to scrape a great number of threads at a great rate.
Yes I've experienced some very cunning web operators that make mirroring their site really really hard ... it then usually takes some hard determination to work out what is needed to accomplish a successful mirror attempt.
Authorisation just means reddit account details will be added to various sites that, often for free, provide account / password that work atm for those who only want to look at one little old thing without having to make their own account ... so the next thing would be then profiling ... which then takes the whole point of why bother unless the account making process is just a means to deploy scripts that are tracking or some other process ;)
> but you have to understand you are the least valuable user on Reddit's platform ...
Yes along with the other few hundred news sites that all think they are so important they demand yearly subscription from me for access to their site to view at most a couple of articles a year.
As for how important to reddit I personally am - lol. It is though the absence of a number of read only users that will change things ... if at all for the moment. Lurkers though often share interesting threads which could result in other people taking an interest and subsequently engaging. Many people have navigated to old.reddit as it works, unlike the current www.reddit format, doubly so for myself as I cut trackers and various APIS that were not doing the right thing, and reddit's script to display comments displays ... none, nothing, nada, though I do see the OP question / comment.
This has the same vibe as "if netflix cracks down on password sharing they'll lose revenue!" Which, obviously, didn't happen. Cutting out abuse at the expense of harming low-value users is always a good bet.
Oh I think the powers that be at reddit have worked out even converting a small percentage of the lurkers into members will be quite beneficial. Once a member there's a higher likelihood the new member will engage and consume more - thus more ad revenue or eventually choose to move over to ad free subscription.
As for creating a wall though, reddit is very large and has a huge mass of users, but eventually some of the users will move to other areas more tolerant and less interested in capitalising their comments, users which are more interested in sharing their pearls of wisdom or hard gained knowledge with all of the web.
As to a similar situation to Netflix's actions - There's a difference though IMO between a limited amount of choices to consume new tv series and movies vs yet another forum like area ... If one wants to watch a new series or movie, one has to make a choice how that's done ... if an area on the web becomes less than desirable to visit that doesn't have anything unique, there's honestly no absolute need to include it and continue to consume elsewhere, like a tv series that's going down hill fast, for many there's a point they stop and watch something else. So there's no real choice apart from consequential things like evaluating how important a thread from such a place might be that turns up in a search engine if one is looking for answers or whether to engage where a thread from the walled area has been linked, with anything more than superficial banter in such threads outside of the walled site.
They can tell abusive scrapers from regular users, they choose not to distinguish. I might give in and create an account eventually but damn. Had deleted my reddit about a decade ago.
How do you meaningfully use Reddit without an account? Do you really navigate to specific subreddits and read them one by one, rather than assembling a home feed of subs you have joined?
You never want to participate in discussion, or vote on comments and posts?
I don't really understand how you all were regularly browsing and using the site without an account.
> How do you meaningfully use Reddit without an account? Do you really navigate to specific subreddits and read them one by one, rather than assembling a home feed of subs you have joined?
Old is useful for posting to other places, like right here on HN, because the UI is not complete and utter garbage.
Old is also useful for quickly going to a particular sub-reddit if you just want to peruse around to quickly see what the current topics are (/r/worldnews, /r/country-i-live-in, /r/city-i-live-in).
By Reddit's own admission, that's literally 98% of users. Most of the incoming traffic never engage with the post in any way. This is true of most social sites. That's where the term 'lurker' comes from.
By “abusive” they probably mean “doesn’t let us track them”. I’m surprised they’ve kept old.reddit.com going this long, it’s actually an un-enshittified version of the product, which is basically unheard of.
when they kill it, I will prol leave reddit. the new version SUCKS
> They can tell abusive scrapers from regular users, they choose not to distinguish.
Really? How? Be specific.
In related news, Imgur seems to be a/b testing a website that just pushes you to the mobile app and doesn't allow you do anything in browser beyond viewing the one picture you clicked the link for.
I stopped using Reddit daily when they killed Apollo. Now it looks like I’ll stop using it entirely. Good riddance, thanks for killing my doomscrolling addiction for me.
If they wanted to actually prevent abusive users they would make the API more affordable. Its just sites like reddit, twitter/x, etc. storing valuable social data that can't be found elsewhere. It's the exclusivity and the difficulty to obtain the data that is being protected.
Bummer, thats like a funeral for one of the greatest public forums.
There is probably a point where all these platforms just get to big and can't hang.
That reasoning is complete nonsense. If someone scrapes the data, that’s not a big deal, and Reddit has no more claim to the data than anyone else. The data is public and created by users, not by the platform itself. If the traffic is too much for them, they could use rate limiting or simply offer an archive of the data as a torrent once a month. That way, a company training an LLM could access a complete dataset without generating a lot of traffic.
What's the alternative? Seems like any community/discussion site always goes down the same fate.
if you don't give every iota of your physical makeup to our benevolent leaders, this is labelled as abusive behaviour. for example, talking over communication channels that aren't completely monitorable is clearly terrorist activity. using your brain is directly harmful to corporations, therefore unauthorized intelligence is harmful.
I'm starting to see a pattern here and it starts with reverse demonization, like a begging succubus. you wouldn't want to get hurt now would you. that's not in your best interests. now while you're in a fearful state, please give your responsibility to me. it'll be easier this way, I promise I have your best interests at heart.
I added lemmy.world to my news cycle a few years ago just in case. It's growing fast now it seems, as others make the same decision.
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1ujtebf/logging_in... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48738835)
going full bot mode then.
"Hey chat, pull reddit content and make me a dup"
People saying they'll never use Reddit again is just noise.
I'm sure you've seen the "protests" and sub closures because of {$change}. Two weeks later the same mods and users realise they can't get their power trip or dopamine hit from anything else and are back on Reddit - with the mods proudly back working as unpaid janitors for a company with a billion dollars valuation.
Discussion for certain hobbies and interests, among those seriously interested in them, has long since moved to WhatsApp groups. Sure, WhatsApp is not a libre platform either and has its own dopamine-hit issues, but you’re underestimating how much Reddit has alienated its user base (namely that portion of it who care about close-knit community and skillsharing) since the 2018 redesign.
Nah, I stopped using Reddit years ago. Others can too.
I quit reddit cold turkey when they did the API stuff, purged my posts and deleted my accounts, have never been back.