One post open.
Six subreddits deep.

Reddit finished retiring r/all in early 2026. What used to be a chronological, community-driven firehose is now fully folded into the personalized Home feed and r/popular, both ranked by machine learning instead of raw post time. The front page you scroll today is more tailored to keep you scrolling than it was a year ago.

Karma runs on the same wiring as a slot machine. Every upvote is a small, unpredictable hit of dopamine, sometimes a post gets one, sometimes it gets thousands, and that unpredictability is exactly the kind of variable reward that keeps people checking back.

Fella doesn't try to out-algorithm the front page. It blocks Reddit by default, gives you one 5-minute emergency unlock per session for a specific post or message, then locks it again automatically.

The ranking model reads more than upvotes. Reddit's Home feed reportedly factors in dwell time, comment velocity, subreddit reputation, and how your account has behaved before, so the longer you stay, the better it gets at knowing what will keep you there next.

Reddit sessions run deep, not frequent. Only a small share of Reddit's users open the app every single day, but the sessions that do happen tend to run long. This isn't a habit of quick checks, it's a habit of one open tab turning into forty-five minutes.

The content itself keeps pointing further in. A post links to a comment, a comment references another subreddit, that subreddit has its own front page. There's rarely a natural place the session was "supposed" to end.

Most of the time isn't spent on the feed at all. Usage studies suggest a majority of time on Reddit goes toward individual post pages, reading the comment section, not scrolling past headlines. That's the opposite of a quick check.

One thread leads to the next community. A comment mentions another subreddit, a crosspost drops you into a topic you weren't looking for, a "top comment" thread branches into three more replies worth reading. Each step feels small, but they add up to a session with no obvious edge.

Fella treats the whole app as one door. It doesn't matter which subreddit, which thread, or how many links deep you'd go. Reddit is either blocked or it's in your one 5-minute emergency unlock per session window, nothing in between.

The reward is unpredictable by design. A comment might get ignored or it might get hundreds of upvotes, and you don't know which until you check. That uncertainty is what makes checking back feel worth it, the same mechanism behind slot machines and other variable-reward systems.

Checking on karma is its own separate habit from browsing the feed. Even someone who isn't scrolling for new content will open the app just to see how a comment did, which means karma alone can pull you back in even on days you had no intention of "using Reddit."

1. Add Reddit to your blocked apps. Pick it once during setup alongside any other apps that pull you in.

2. Let it stay locked by default. There's no daily toggle or Ignore Limit button to fall back on when "just checking karma" feels harmless.

3. Use the emergency unlock for real needs. One 5-minute window a day is enough for a specific post, a message, or a real question you need answered.

4. Reddit locks again automatically. You don't have to remember to close the door behind you, no matter how many subreddits deep you were.

People who open Reddit for one thing and end up five subreddits away. If a quick check reliably turns into a long, aimless session, that's the exact pattern Fella is built to interrupt.

People who check back just for karma. If refreshing a comment thread has become its own habit, separate from actually wanting new content, a hard default removes the reflex entirely.

People who still need it occasionally. For a specific answer, a message, or a community you're genuinely part of, the one 5-minute emergency unlock per session covers real use without leaving the app open all day.