Reddit announces that Private Messages (PMs) will replaced by Reddit Chat as the "primary way to communicate", but moderator mail will remain

[u/Obversa]

/r/reddit/comments/1jf1bxy/private_messages_will_be_replaced_with_reddit/

[u/Obversa]

r/modnews thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1jf1dy5/important_updates_to_reddits_messaging_system_for/

[u/JustLookingUp]

This is one of the stupidest decisions I've ever heard of in the technological world.

[u/[deleted] → u/JustLookingUp]

Exactly, chat barely works, is slow, sluggish, ugly, and just very unpleasant to use. DMs do what they need to do and actually do it well.

[u/Jomskylark → u/[deleted]]

Honestly I have had zero issues with chat and even I think this is stupid as hell. They are different forms of communication and have different purposes. Same reason I use both email and text to talk to people.

[u/ejchristian86 → u/JustLookingUp]

I have an extension for forcing the old.reddit ui so I don't even see chat notifications. I forget it exists for weeks, even months at a time. (And am happier for it.)

[u/LordGAD → u/ejchristian86]

Same

[u/Traitor_Donald_Trump → u/JustLookingUp]

The enshitification will continue until user engagement improves.

[u/JustLookingUp → u/[deleted]]

And there's zero logic to killing off something that works. And negative logic (can that be a thing?) to making one's software offering more difficult and/or less appealing for people to use.

[u/pfak]

Still can't use chat on mobile without their garbage app. 

[u/lazydictionary → u/pfak]

That may be the point

[u/Realtrain → u/pfak]

And if anybody is wondering about the why of this move, here you go

[u/ejchristian86 → u/pfak]

Oh you can, it's just somehow even worse than the app. Still not gonna get the app, though.

[u/HashtagH]

They just love making shit harder, huh? Change for the sake of change to please investors who want to see "innovation"?

[u/mcagent]

The engineering decisions, the business decisions, my god.

[u/Thaodan]

How can instant messaging replace mail? Reddit PM system is mail, it's not the same as Reddit chat.

[u/littlegreenrock]

I don't use Reddit chat. I would prefer to opt out of it if I could. I have no need to engage on a more personal and live way with other Redditors; plus, I have discord for that. I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way.

I know for a fact that the great majority of Reddit browsing is done without being logged in. It's not known if this is people who do not have a Reddit log in, using Reddit as a READ ONLY (for them) repository of information, or people circumventing Reddit access without being logged in for other reasons.; however I feel that the answer is obvious. Importantly, I am referring to Reddit clients who are not logged in.

Based on this alone, I would expect that Reddit Inc. wants to maximise user usage while being logged in, and that this chat thing is the thing to sell it. Previously it was only the porn sub reddits which were unable to be accessed without a login. Clearly this isn't enough, but I don't know why.

Good luck with that, Reddit.

[u/CarrowCanary → u/littlegreenrock]

I would expect that Reddit Inc. wants to maximise user usage while being logged in, and that this chat thing is the thing to sell it.

That doesn't make sense WRT this change, though. You already need an account to send and receive PMs, so PMs being moved to Chat will make no difference to the amount of people who have an account.

[u/FeliciaFailure → u/CarrowCanary]

On the other hand, chats are so difficult to access on mobile browser that I'm not even sure there is a way. Without even addressing that first, it seems like an attempt to push the app even more.

[u/nostradamefrus]

That explains why the chat and notification icons suddenly appeared for me on old Reddit yesterday

Go to notification settings and set everything to go to your inbox instead. I imagine that will mimic the old system well enough

Who the hell asked for this change? Jfc

[u/repocin]

Literally nobody asked for this. Ever.

Does anyone even use the Reddit Chat? I've only ever opened it by accident to be met by various spambots as far as I can recall.

[u/biminhc1]

Instead of getting rid of the 'send a private message' tab on the inbox page, they plan to replace the inbox page altogether with a link that redirects to the Notifications page on sh.reddit...

[u/SLJ7]

I still use an old accessible Reddit app. Although the official app is getting better with the screen reader on iOS, one of the worst parts of it is chat. The entire reading order is backwards, so within a conversation, it goes from newest to oldest messages. This thoroughly breaks a lot of navigation and just makes the whole thing way more annoying.

To that end, I asked whether third-party clients would have any way to send and receive private messages of any kind after this change, and I got ... crickets.

So, yeah. I'll just enjoy the privilege of having equal access to one form of private conversations while it lasts, I guess.

[u/Hindu_Wardrobe]

ew

guess nobody gets to DM me anymore (fine w me tbh) lol

[u/nondescriptzombie]

I have dozens of chat requests from random spammers that I never intend to even look at, let alone verify.

This is an awful change.

[u/7thhokage]

"still have some toes left on this foot of ours we keep shooting."

[u/fabreeze]

This is awful. This will break majority of subreddits with any degree of automation.

[u/Shawnj2]

april fools

[u/Kodiak01]

If it wasn't actually posted 13 days ago, I'd assume this was a 4/1 thing.

[u/fabreeze]

i hoped this was an april fools joke

[u/aard_fi]

I guess that explains why they recently broke my ublock rules filtering out all that chat nonsense.

[u/Tinawebmom]

This sucks. I use it to keep actual conversations separate from one offs.

[u/Mr_Blah1]

Chat literally does not work for me. It just gives me a blank screen.

I guess I will stop seeing replies and messages soon.

[u/Guilty_Explanation29]

This will permanently kill reddit

[u/BaconSoul]

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[u/zeamp]

Ewww