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Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

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Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#251
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Craigslist and its downfall, the migration isnt going to be to one large community, but many smaller ones.

While you're getting downvoted for the Craigslist aspect, I suspect the rest of your comment is probably right here. There isn't going to be another big Reddit or Digg like community. The audience just seems too fractured for one to take off like it could have done years ago. So stuff like Voat, the shut down Imzy, Hubski and Snapzu represent parts of what Reddit was, and the different aspects of the site that differ…

> There isn't going to be another big Reddit or Digg like community.

What makes you so sure of this? I would argue that this is wildly inaccurate as there will almost certainly be another platform (probably many as you look outward into the future). Imzy was poorly designed, branded and executed (internet safe space?). While their effort and aspirations were righteous, they didn't deliver something people wanted. Honestly I watched that platform since the day it launched and knew it wouldn't last. Digg is old news. I've seen others like topick.com that tanked as they weren't innovative enough. Gab.ai is gaining some traction but it's product isn't innovative and it's too political so it won't scale.

The barrier of entry isn't that high for a new social platform, it's only a matter of time before something newer, less corporate, less "reddit" comes along and gets people's attention. The same could be said for facebook, twitter, and others. No one has a monopoly on ideas.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#252
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Craigslist and its downfall, the migration isnt going to be to one large community, but many smaller ones.

As of 2015 Craigslist was valued at an estimated $5 billion and had annual revenues in excess of $381 million. Not sure what it is today 2 years later but my guess is more now. Plus CL has been around for 20 years now. It is a cash cow and serves over 20 million page views a month. I don't really consider that a downfall.

a lot of startups emerged from Craigslist niche offerings Airbnb being probably the most successful.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#253
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Material design ruined Google News on the desktop.

Yes, a thousand times, yes. To me, this is the worst and most offensive redesign of something so pivotal to research, investigative reporting, everything beyond the surface. Being able to dig and dig and find out who is reporting what pieces of the story. I don't CARE if there are 12 articles about the same thing if there are truly 12 different legitimate reports about the event of interest. I want to see all 12 sour…

I stopped using it for what I used it before. But I haven't found a replacement yet.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#254
post #30

I would love to see reddit being more like a wikipedia than a facebook. If they cut the sales team out and ask for donations like WP does, they would do just fine. I was on reddit before I was registered on FB and quite frankly I love reddit.com way more than FB for many reasons. It's a shame that they go down the hypergrowth-unicorn model.

I think twitter might fall into the same category as well. They form a sort of crucial social infrastructure. If they can't be supported by ads while maintaining their integrity, it may be important to keep them around through some other means.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#255
post #247
post #95

I am of the opinion that trying to turn a profit on something like Reddit is a catch 22. The concept of Reddit, which is user generated content curated by users, doesn't have a lot of need for a middleman, more of just a few moderators and admins to keep everything running smoothly. The power of the website is solely in its users and their content generation. Unfortunately these slow changes have been eroding what wa…

Yea, man. Subreddits like coontown, jailbait, fatpeoplehate & a bunch of nazi subreddits really provided valuable debate and dialogue. Voat now has all that 'dialogue' and I don't think anything of value was lost. But complaining about CTR shows your colors when both sides spend similar amounts.

the_donald is filtered out of /r/popular.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet not a peep about spez surreptitiously editing user comments.

Not a peep from who? The community universally uses "spez:" instead of "edit:" to this day.

Fair enough. There was a lot of Drama from TD, and I'm pretty sure a signifigant slice of TD was TRDT's data mining/scientist campaign using bots to amplify semi-organic user input. That said, there was a lot of fuckery from the admins and mods in that and other reddit sagas, and the spez drama never materialized anything more than a half-assed apology for essentially violating some core principles that should be behind a privately run limited public forum.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#257
post #247
post #95

I am of the opinion that trying to turn a profit on something like Reddit is a catch 22. The concept of Reddit, which is user generated content curated by users, doesn't have a lot of need for a middleman, more of just a few moderators and admins to keep everything running smoothly. The power of the website is solely in its users and their content generation. Unfortunately these slow changes have been eroding what wa…

Yea, man. Subreddits like coontown, jailbait, fatpeoplehate & a bunch of nazi subreddits really provided valuable debate and dialogue. Voat now has all that 'dialogue' and I don't think anything of value was lost. But complaining about CTR shows your colors when both sides spend similar amounts.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#258
post #140
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN in general will tolerate dissent, if you can provide good argumentation. Sure there's groupthink in HN as in any other forum, but HN is more open to different ideas than any other forum that I have known since the days of Usenet in late 1980s.

Yes, I came to realise that when it comes (among other subjects) to 'tech' criticism, it easier to have an open discussion with various points of view on HN than on my generic national subreddit. That takes the biscuit! I just wish someone could come up with a new Usenet ( instead of a dozen of open-source copies of damn Twitter ). Something that doesn't depend on a company or a couple of individuals. In similar vein…

What is wrong with the "old" Usenet? It's still there, there is only a need for a decent web gateway and some tutorials on how to run nntp servers.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall Digg did a complete redesign for version 4, even the backend systems and database. And the users abandoned it shortly after launch.

What killed Digg though, wasn't any change in look at feel, as much as a fundamental change in content policy. It went from 'users submit stuff and upvote it' to 'content publishers can automate a firehose of their stories into the system for a price' people didn't like that.

I'm seeing a similar parallel to Reddit's new profiles though. Not exactly the same but it's a move to appease the content publishers that has been angering their core userbase.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#260

Within the context of redesigns I think there exists some value in looking at Facebook's failed card-based redesign back in 2013: https://dcurt.is/facebooks-predicament Essentially this big, beautiful design driven redesign ultimately never shipped because users spent less time on it. Certain design 'improvements' like increased padding between stories reduces density and as a result tends to reduce readership, for e…

> Essentially this big, beautiful design driven redesign ultimately never shipped because users spent less time on it.

I think that this is a positive, morally and ethically. It's too bad.

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