121–123 of 123 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no problem with protesting pay walls, I hate them too. However, correct me if I'm wrong, reprinting wholesale a journal's article is a copyright crime in the USA, is it not? Or I guess it constitutes fair use somehow?
so is speeding on the highway... and yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you elaborate on this test? Do you mean they are leaning towards not letting you browse Reddit without signing in? Or rather moving away from unverified accounts without an email attached?
The former, I'm a member of their beta and while I hadn't seen it since I've been logged in another user had posted in the /r/beta subreddit that when they were lurking and not logged in, the sign up modal came up but the close button had been removed. Users found that it was an A/B test. https://www.reddit.com/live/x3ckzbsj6myw/updates/9d3e8984-e0... https://www.reddit.com/r/beta/comments/7kletc/feedback_whats... ht…
Unfortunately, I see why they are leaning in this direction and some of the other trends and expect it to get worse.
Sam clearly sees the potential for Reddit to become another feed-based advertising platform. In order to make it even a fraction as valuable as FB or Twitter, he needs not only to drastically improve the ad interface, he needs to also get better audience data so as to allow advertisers better targeting, and ideally target specific users using their own audience data.
This is unfortunately at odds with what Reddit's community seems to want, so there seems to be a very obvious long-term trend toward slowly boiling the frog. They get rid of undesirable communities, ramp up ad placements and monetization, get profiles more prominent so users have a reason to give Reddit more audience data for free, and then this move which will likely lean towards them making users create an account (tied to a unique identifier). I'd guess the next step is making them verify with email which in turn lets advertisers and cookie onboarding partners map to cookie IDs for retargeting purposes. This can immediately add significantly to the CPMs they charge advertisers because the end performance of those impressions will likely be quite a bit higher.
As a Reddit user for over a decade, I'm really sad to see this slow, but somewhat inevitable decline. I just hope it doesn't lose all of its magic, or that something equally magical springs up in its place.
Interesting that he named his daughter after himself. I guess having a unisex name had its benefits. More importantly,I agree that reddit's public perception had changed a lot in the last year, it went from seeming like a boys club where others were tolerated to being totally nondinominational. Obviously there are still some subs that are pretty insular but for the most part as they've grown they've gotten nicer.
This is true, but it's also gotten much more shallow and predictable IMO. The memes feel forced or manipulated by large corporations(see /r/hailcorporate), and I don't feel like part of a community anymore, simply an observer. I honestly just don't enjoy it as much. Idk if this is everyone's experience or just my own, though.