Social network Reddit recently began blocking mobile visitors to its website while pushing them to download the official Reddit app, and it’s fair to say that users aren’t happy with the move.
If you visit reddit.com on your iPhone today, you may see a new pop-up window that cannot be ignored, asking you to “make the app continue to use Reddit.”
A Reddit spokesperson said Ars Technica that it was “a test for a small subset of frequently disconnected mobile users that prompts them to download the app after visiting the site.” They continued: “These users are already familiar with Reddit and we found that the experience is much better for them in the app. The app provides a more personalized experience and users can more easily find communities that match their interests.”
Users have since taken to subreddits like r/bugs and r/help to express their displeasure at being blocked from the website on mobile. “Are my days of anonymous browsing over?” » asked one user.
FuturismVictor Tangermann of , wrote about the aggressive advertising last week, suggesting that the change was the latest indication of the “enshittification” of the platform – a neologism coined by author Cory Doctorow that describes tech companies deliberately degrading their services in order to maximize profits.
Despite steady user growth and 121 million daily active users, Reddit has struggled to find a path to monetization since its IPO two years ago. The site’s main revenue is advertising, which explains the desire to connect users to its mobile app, where it can consistently track their activity.
In 2024, the company also signed a controversial contract with OpenAI that allowed the creator of ChatGPT to train its AI models on user-submitted posts. (He is currently engaged in legal battles with Perplexity and Anthropic over alleged illegal use of his data.)
More than half of the American population visits Reddit every week, according to Financial Timesbut most of this finding comes from Google searches, which suggest that the so-called “front page of the internet” walks a tightrope between monetizing interactions and stifling engagement growth.
I’m not really a Reddit user. However, every now and then I check a few subreddits, like r/Monero, on my mobile device. But it seems that’s over now, since Reddit has decided to stop letting me use its website: “Get the app to continue using Reddit,” it now says. Certainly not… pic.twitter.com/UuTd6FIwpu
-CR1337 (@CR1337) May 6, 2026
This isn’t the first time Reddit has alienated some of its users. In 2023, it stopped allowing users to opt out of ad personalization. The same year, before its IPO, the company began charging developers for access to its API, leading to the shutdown of several popular Reddit clients, including Apollo.