Mix - Rediscover the Internet 12+

The update was not thought through properly imo. For example if you were reading an article no matter how far down into you got you could swipe left or right into the next article or the previous one. For some reasons you now scroll between articles north and south which means you have to swipe through the whole article back to the top to move to the next article or page. Just kind of a pointless waste of time. An unnecessary change seemed to be made just to change something rather than improve the app.

StumbleUpon was a great app that was simple and to the point. You pick categories, you press a button, you read an article that was it. Mix has somehow found a way to complicate this process. From the non descriptive category list to the multiple clicks needed to read an article it is a poor replacement for what was a great platform in StumbleUpon. From what I can see there is no way to view a list of all available categories which is frustrating because all they provide is what is suggested to you based on what your initial category selection was at the time of sign up. This means no discovering new topics or branching out into different interest from time to time. This app focuses to much on the social media aspect and in my opinion caters only to people who are avid social media users. For some like myself, the ease of use and privacy of StumbleUpon as well as its content driven nature were its biggest draws. All I want to do is find interesting things to read when using the app and Mix has taken that simple process away. Very disappointed to see StumbleUpon go and will be deleting Mix immediately. Shame on whoever thought this change would be a good idea, as this is a perfect example of when change is not for the better.

It seems like this app is all about social media- like everything else these days. I’m not reading articles with the intention of sharing them with anyone, my intention is to LEARN. I’m not trying to “get connected” with others when I’m trying to learn more about my interests. If I wanted to share an article, I’d simply text them the link. And so many of the categories are just pop culture/trends/unneeded things I’m trying to AVOID when trying to expand my knowledge with REAL things.

But what I miss MOST is StumbleUpon’s algorithm of voting up or down for each article, so they tailor what articles to send you even more (or less of). It was what I LOVED SO MUCH about StumbleUpon. The more you used it, the better articles you got catered towards you specifically. And now, if you want to save something, you have to put it in a “collection”... why do we need to go through all this trouble? I miss the simplicity of just hitting the save button. I don’t want to have to name my favorite articles, it takes way too much time and effort, and discouraged me from wanting to save anything. It makes me want to write to the founders of StumbleUpon to say “please come back! We miss you!” Because judging by the reviews, I’m not the only one who feels this way.