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Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

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Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#101

Post by fxfan »

wowzap wrote: post #17
brettgriffin wrote: post #5

I've given up most social media but have become obsessed with Reddit. No matter how much I use it, I'm constantly amazed that I can be immediately connected with the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic people on virtually any subject I care about. I'm not a fan of the redesign or their push to look at other social media platforms, but I understand the direction they have to go to build revenue.

Seriously? I just assume most people on there are in high school, it seems like a place where the lowest common denominator ideas get upvoted and everything else gets nailed.

that's 99.99% of the popular subs. But go to the non-pop ones or the ones with heavy moderation. And it's a gem of a place really.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#102

Post by ageitgey »

komali2 wrote: post #39
minimaxir wrote: post #16

I've been a fan of Reddit for a very long time (as the amount of data science work I've done with their data can attest to), but lately it seems like the incentives between Reddit as a business and Reddit as a community leader are not aligned, and that is a problem. The increasing amount of dark patterns Reddit has been employing lately is concerning. (recent example: Reddit now gates content in mobile Safari to push…

Re: "Download the app!" gates, banners, etc. Medium does this too. Why? What's the business reason? What does a native app provide the business that a mobile website doesn't?

The prevailing "business person" thought is that app users are more loyal (high value) while web users are temporary users that Google will eventually steal away from you when they decide they want to be in your market and want to stop putting you at the top of search result pages. See Yelp's decline as Google started putting their own local results above Yelp and the resulting lawsuits.

As a result, most Silicon Valley product managers are trained to think that websites are nothing more than the top of a funnel to eventually convert low-value search engine users into high-value app users. Once you realize this, almost every stupid thing websites do suddenly makes sense. They will do almost anything possible to grow app installs even if it makes the website nearly useless.

Sure, it's terrible if you care about the web and user experience. But most PMs only stick around a company for 1-2 years and they'd rather be able to show a hockey stick graph of "high value" app user growth to get promoted or get a new job then worry about what makes for a good user experience.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#103

Post by CryoLogic »

This works with most user script plugins like GreaseMonkey, ViolentMonkey or TamperMonkey:

  // ==UserScript==
  // @name BackToOldReddit
  // @namespace Reddit
  // @match *://www.reddit.com/*
  // @grant none
  // @run-at document-start
  // ==/UserScript==
  const currentURL = window.document.location.toString();
  
  if(currentURL.includes('//www')) {
    const newURL = currentURL.replace('//www','//old');
    window.document.location.replace(newURL);
  }

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#104

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

fxfan wrote: post #96
darkpuma wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't need to be religious to find /r/atheism obnoxious. Anybody remember that "faces of atheism" meme years back? Possibly the most obnoxious, pretentious and self-congradulatory thing I've ever seen become popular on reddit. At first it was funny, but reddit is pretty good at pushing jokes long after they've become stale.

It was a place meant as a consolation/safe-space for people being hated on for not believing in stuff without proof. It became a place to hate on everyone who didn't believe in atheism.

Isn't that how every online community devolves? It starts as a place for a group to feel accepted, and then evolves to demonizing the other?

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#105

Post by bduerst »

ForHackernews wrote: post #59
replicatorblog wrote: post #14

It might soon be time for The Oatmeal to add a new panel to his famous "Digg vs. Reddit" cartoon: https://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter_2012/reddit_digg I love Reddit and have no problem with this move in principle, though I do wish there was at least one social platform that would try to follow the Craigslist ethos and stay "proudly independent." I'm not a big believer in crypto, but Reddit seems like one of th…

About 5 years ago, Reddit hired a crypto guy, Ryan X Charles, to make something called "reddit notes"[0] that they could never explain[1]. He wasted his time re-implementing bitcoin in Javascript[2], and was eventually fired.[3] I guess you could say they were already early pioneers of the "cryptocurrency scam flameout" pattern. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/redditnotes [1] https://www.engadget.com/2014/12/19/reddit-n…

But why not mine bitcoins client-side with millions of mobile users? (/s)

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#106

Post by krelian »

wowzap wrote: post #17
brettgriffin wrote: post #5

I've given up most social media but have become obsessed with Reddit. No matter how much I use it, I'm constantly amazed that I can be immediately connected with the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic people on virtually any subject I care about. I'm not a fan of the redesign or their push to look at other social media platforms, but I understand the direction they have to go to build revenue.

Seriously? I just assume most people on there are in high school, it seems like a place where the lowest common denominator ideas get upvoted and everything else gets nailed.

As someone who has been on reddit for a long long time (10+ years). It's clear as daylight that the site is mostly comprised of teenagers and that is the dominating voice. As other mentioned there are still (plenty of)diamonds in the rough if you know where to look but the site lost its voice and the leadership their values. Since spez has returned the strategy has been to gradually move the goal posts to keep uproar at a minimum.

This was inevitable though. At some point the corporate overlords will want to cash out. Time for something new.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#107

Post by zozbot123 »

kodablah wrote: post #36

I have an idea for Reddit if they want to make money: I know your site is open source, but it is not an easy setup. The mixture between forum, customizable subreddits, and almost chat-like threading is tailor made for intra-company communication. We all feel the pain of ephemeral chat and closed-recipient email to do business. Employees need a way to show off, communicate, post neat things, customize their department…

You know that NNTP is a thing, right? It's not like the "chat-like threading" was Reddit's invention.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#108

Post by rubyn00bie »

I actually hate Reddit these days. I've never really been into their various communities/subredits- and on occasion they're really useful spots of information or entertainment.

But...

Their current "force you into app" (which appears to leave you logged in, able to make account changes, even if you change your password) approach is fucking horrible. Their mobile navigation is broken by design and.... for what? What incentive do I have to sign up? Why should when its in such a hostile way. The incentive clearly is for them the organization to get new funding and not for me as a user since functionality has been reduced for NO reason. It's like Quora... that worked great for funding but has really done a lot to develop a mature business, eh?

... I'm gonna go pour out some coffee in memory of Digg.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#109

Post by lallysingh »

simias wrote: post #64
minimaxir wrote: post #16

I've been a fan of Reddit for a very long time (as the amount of data science work I've done with their data can attest to), but lately it seems like the incentives between Reddit as a business and Reddit as a community leader are not aligned, and that is a problem. The increasing amount of dark patterns Reddit has been employing lately is concerning. (recent example: Reddit now gates content in mobile Safari to push…

I've seen this dialog (the misleading "[OPEN] [CONTINUE]" one) on mobile Firefox as well. Besides that you have the pulsating "open in the app" at the top of every page. Fortunately I have u-block origin so I could just add a few filters to get rid of that nonsense. It doesn't solve the terrible performance however (because apparently you need a top-of-the-line smartphone to load and display a few kB of plaintext com…

The app is even slower. It's amazing how bad their stuff is. I avoid Reddit on mobile altogether because of the terrible performance.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#110

Post by bootaccount »

minimaxir wrote: post #16

I've been a fan of Reddit for a very long time (as the amount of data science work I've done with their data can attest to), but lately it seems like the incentives between Reddit as a business and Reddit as a community leader are not aligned, and that is a problem. The increasing amount of dark patterns Reddit has been employing lately is concerning. (recent example: Reddit now gates content in mobile Safari to push…

reddit also injects unique tracking into every outbound URL click, allowing them to monitor individual user behavior and engagement (similar to Google Search results)
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