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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

#171

Post by EnFinlay »

peruvian wrote: post #133
EnFinlay wrote: post #2

Fun, I deleted my 9 year old account last night. It's wasn't out of some high-minded thing about how they're turning more into Facebook or privacy or anything. That site just hits my dopamine so effectively I had to quit and block it in my /etc/hosts. I am spending more time on HN though...

It's better to just not be on the computer consuming online content instead of switching websites. I don't go on reddit and am here only occasionally (would be 100% gone if I could delete my account). Instead of replacing reddit/HN time with X.com, I just do other stuff entirely. Is there something you'd rather be doing with your HN time?

I am on HN more, but it hasn't replaced Reddit. HN doesn't move fast enough for hours of dopamine hits like Reddit is. HN is for when I'm at work and I need to give my brain a rest from a tough problem. My time at home no longer has any social media when it used to have WAY too much Reddit.

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

#172

Post by milquetoastaf »

jandrese wrote: post #68
callinyouin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this, too. If you have the right connections and can pull down a bunch of VC money year after year for your business it seems you could go your entire career without having to generate profit!

It seems crazy to me that Reddit can't figure out a way to become profitable. Facebook is hilariously profitable on a fairly similar business model for example. It's not like Reddit is without ads, nor are they lacking in data they could sell (albeit not as high of quality as Facebook or Google). They even sell "Reddit gold" for real money. Maybe they have exceptionally high operating costs? Or are they just really b…

Reddit's data isn't that valuable (as you cannot key it back to a real human), a huge swath of their users adblock, and it has tons and tons of pornographic content which - and i do not necessarily agree with - will lower ad values. The current path to monetization Reddit is trying is making their data more valuable via more detailed user profiles and chats, essentially creating a pseudonymous social network and hoping itll take off like FB.

However, I think the real money would be for them to be more like Craigslist. Subreddits could pay to upgrade to become more feature-rich "Classified"-like pages whose posts could then be further boosted (re: upsell for ad team) across other subreddits.

Users react with hostility to forced social media / redesigns geared to ad revenues. They like new features that are actually useful and enhance the experience.

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

#173

Post by wmeredith »

YeahSureWhyNot wrote: post #15

last round was 200 million in July of 2017. if we assume they had around 30 million left of it in bank today that puts them in 10 million negative every month. how does an online community/discussion website that makes money from ads and with not a lot of staff and no other expenses lose 10 million per month? when are they going to become profitable and how? Is it just a tax write off thingy? I never understood these…

> when are they going to become profitable and how?

It's been 15 years. I think it's just a ponzi scheme at this point.

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

#174

Post by jhedwards »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #108

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 i…

> What incentive do I have to sign up?

Arguably the best Reddit experience is only available when you are signed in. Reddit's greatest value come from niche communities. Personally I enjoy things like r/savagegarden, r/mycology and r/askhistorians, so when I log in I see pictures of mushrooms and carnivorous plants, and get to read interesting articles about history and science. If you don't log in and subscribe to things you're interested in then you will see memes, jokes, pictures of people's pets etc, it's a totally different experience.

Disclaimer: work for Reddit.

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

#175

Post by Deimorz »

Someone1234 wrote: post #31
YeahSureWhyNot wrote: post #15

last round was 200 million in July of 2017. if we assume they had around 30 million left of it in bank today that puts them in 10 million negative every month. how does an online community/discussion website that makes money from ads and with not a lot of staff and no other expenses lose 10 million per month? when are they going to become profitable and how? Is it just a tax write off thingy? I never understood these…

Reddit has 230 staff (as of July 2017). edit (removed wrong maths): $1.9m per month in staffing costs @ 230 employees/100K each. Although a reply below says the staff may have almost doubled and $100K may be a low guestimate for the area (inc. benefits, etc). My question would be: Why does Reddit have 230+ staff? What do most of them do?

Reddit has over 450 employees now (very last line of this article: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/01/09/reddit-hires-ex-twit...)

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

#176

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

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…

The gating is even worse on Android. They ask you to "continue" with the Chrome icon even when you're not using Chrome.

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

#177

Post by jandrese »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #118
jandrese wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems crazy to me that Reddit can't figure out a way to become profitable. Facebook is hilariously profitable on a fairly similar business model for example. It's not like Reddit is without ads, nor are they lacking in data they could sell (albeit not as high of quality as Facebook or Google). They even sell "Reddit gold" for real money. Maybe they have exceptionally high operating costs? Or are they just really b…

Consider a few cases. - you want to advertise B2B software to small/medium business owners. - you want to advertise expensive fashion items to 20-35 y.o. women in NY/CT. Will you pick FB or reddit? And then yes, lack of brand safety for non-targeted ads.

Can you not pick specific subreddits to advertise in (or have your ad appear next to on the home page)?

Seems like your userbase self-segments pretty quickly on Reddit, although it's no doubt a fulltime job for several engineers to keep up with the classifications on subreddits.

I guess the biggest problem is that so many users don't log in and just browse the default, which is pretty generic. Reddit could track the not-logged-in users and what they click on like Google, but that's a fair bit more work.

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

#178

Post by jules-jules »

anonytrary wrote: post #120

The HackerNews community is more appreciative of these problems than Reddit's. But Reddit will suffer from the same problems that Facebook and Twitter suffer from, if not already. Reddit users are easily manipulated by engineered content and engineering content on Reddit is not hard if you know what you're doing. Evidently, there are power-users on Reddit (e.g. /u/GallowBoob) who know exactly how Reddit ticks and can…

Sorry if I misunderstand, but are you suggesting that these forces are not active on HN?

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

#179

Post by EdiX »

gfwhuuku wrote: post #25
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 think that new banner is so much better than the old one, though. https://i.imgur.com/PF3Zc8R.jpg

The sad part is that it's not better in the app. I tried it.

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

#180

Post by barberousse »

rndmize wrote: post #84
collyw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can be immediately connected with the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic people on virtually any subject I care about. Politics on Reddit seems to fall into either The_Donald or "Orange man bad" with very little objectivity in the middle in my experience.

There's a decent amount in the middle, but it's not as well known and will never hit the front page - 3 second memes are easier to process and upvote. https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/ CMV and ELI5 also have decent political discussion at times I think; askHistorians often seems to provide insight into current political issues; there's probably more I don't know.

Not surprising that if you want to understand political issues, you need to askHistorians given all political issues are historical in composition
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