Time will tell, but third-party apps users (and old.reddit's[1] ones) also tend to be the most prolific users, and it's the posters and admin that run the show.
[1]: they've already removed i.reddit earlier this year, I don't expect old.reddit to make it to 2024.
My wording is backward actually, what I meant is that third-pary apps users are a much more active user base than the average joe, not that the most prolific are necessarily on third-party apps.
From a sub with reasonable traffic non-tech sub that I moderate...
Normally I have ~75 new subscribers per day and less than 5 unsubscribes per day.
Just prior to the strike, the subscribers dropped to ~35.
At the start of the strike, unsubscribes went up to ~10 while new subscribers went up to ~100.
During the strike, the number of new subscribers went up to ~175. Other subs with a similar topics (and the big one) had gone private during that time.
I'm back to ~75 new subscribers per day.
As to old vs other... page views per day for the past 30 days (very spiky) and the previous 30 days
Past 30 days | Previous 30 days
Client Low High | Low High
old.reddit: ~35 ~100 | ~25 ~75
new.reddit: ~200 ~900 | ~200 ~400
Mobile web: ~100 ~300 | ~100 ~150
Android client: ~1000 ~2000 | ~1000 ~1500
iOS client: ~2000 ~6000 | ~2000 ~3000
Total: ~2500 ~9500 | ~3000 ~5000
The past 30 days have been very spiky. Not just a little, but very. The previous timeframe was very regular.
Old.reddit... yea, it doesn't have the numbers at all, though I'll note that most people using the sub appear to be people browsing on their phone as even new.reddit isn't that much higher than old.reddit stats.
I'm gonna say though, that for a sub that is for "regular people" - the most prolific users aren't 3rd party apps or old.reddit. At least not with with the people who browse this sub.
Now, for a tech oriented very low traffic sub... (and looking at its stats, it went way up during the strike since the high traffic ones closed from less than 500 page views to about 1500). Normally it gets a subscriber a day with 5 new subscribers being a significant growth... there were 55 new subscribers during the strike.
Past 7 days | Previous 30 days
Client Low High | Low High
old.reddit: ~25 ~75 | ~10 ~60
new.reddit: ~400 ~600 | ~75 ~475
Mobile web: ~150 ~250 | ~30 ~150
Android client: ~125 ~350 | ~25 ~100
iOS client: ~400 ~700 | ~25 ~250
Total: ~1000 ~1500 | ~175 ~1000
New.reddit seems to be the preferred client there, though its such a small sample that its difficult to say much.
The API appears/is believed to to show up under mobile web as the bucket - along with people still using the mobile web client. The page served to a browser pretending to be an iPhone is doing calls against the newish gql.reddit.com APIs.
> the API appears/is believed to to show up under mobile web as the bucket - along with people still using the mobile web client. The page served to a browser pretending to be an iPhone is doing calls against the newish gql.reddit.com APIs.
My understanding is that 3P apps used to be their own explicitly tracked category with a android/iOS split but then get mixed into the regular android/iOS categories with the first party client.
[1]: they've already removed i.reddit earlier this year, I don't expect old.reddit to make it to 2024.