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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

#261

Post by diogenescynic »

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…

Their current CEO seems to be a bad actor. Despite people reporting shills or Russian trollbots, the admins basically don't do anything in the name of "free speech" but to me, propaganda and counter-intelligence ops shouldn't really qualify... I wish they'd just clean up all the racist and weirdo (incel) subreddits and focus on nurturing the interesting communities (ebikes, woodworking, vinyl, guitarpedals). There's a lot of good stuff on reddit and it'd be a shame for them to get dragged down by the worst communities.

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

#262

Post by Avery3R »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #145
GordonS wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 things about Reddit's "use our app instead!" buttons: 1. They cycle through a couple of different messages, and the buttons get switched around 2. The wording is such that you read it twice and still aren't sure which button will just take you to the damn website I don't mind them promoting their app, but these dark patterns truely rile me

I do mind them promoting their app, it’s a horrible app and they’ve continually ruined their website. The only way I can stand to use reddit anymore is through Narwhal, at least until they kill their 3rd party apps API.

old.reddit.com or reddit.com/.compact

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

#263

Post by slg »

Zecar wrote: post #195
vvillena wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/the_donald should have been closed a long time ago, due to their users and their mods breaking the rules (hate speech encouragement, mainly) that the rest of subreddits have to respect. Reddit has a dark incentive to keep it open, because it's a very popular community that helps Reddit make money, via ads and Reddit Gold.

Go read r/politics comments for 5 minutes and then go read r/the_donald comments for 5 minutes, then come back and tell me which subreddit has the most hate speech. Also let's not forget that r/politics mods sold the subreddit to Shareblue for $2 million.

Challenge accepted.

The current top comment on the current top post on /r/politics [1]:

>David Frum said it best this morning on NPR, his call for unity isn't actually a call for unity, he's demanding that everyone to support him and his policies.

The current top comment on the current top post on /r/The_Donald [2]:

>Schumer looked disgusting. Glasses at the end of his nose. Very disrespectful.

The politics comment might be biased but it is a least a political opinion worth discussing. The comment on The Donald is at best a childish insult and while I personally wouldn't call it "hate speech" I wouldn't be shocked if it was some form of antisemitic dog whistle. I think you are showing your own biases if you think those two subs have a similar level of discourse.

[1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/anf6vn/trump_will...

[2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/anf6ov/i_see_sc...

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

#264

Post by minimaxir »

marknadal wrote: post #46
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…

Max, would you be willing to evaluate Reddit alternatives? One is https://notabug.io/ after the Aaron Swarz quote, has seen hypergrowth since it started a few months ago using our P2P tech.

You emailed me about this so I'll reply here:

I call shenanigans on the hypergrowth, where the metrics you sent me imply ~1 million pageviews per month yet there is barely any engagement or new/original content on the site itself. (and the few comments there appear to be very Voat-esque)

Semi-related, I dislike straight-up Reddit/Hacker News clones, including the UI. If Reddit/HN has enough issue to warrant a competitor by cloning the UI, that just repeats the same problem.

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

#265

Post by chipotle_coyote »

nisuni wrote: post #193
ppod wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought that the day they crossed the line was when they arbitrarily changed which subreddits were default, removing some (such as /r/atheism) with no real reason. At the very early days of reddit, discussing atheism positively was still kind of unusual in the news. Then, over time, it became a very popular position and advocacy case especially among developers, and new users found the stridency and repet…

/r/atheism was absolutely obnoxious, to the point that the obnoxiousness of some of the users is still a meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-this-moment-i-am-euphoric > a community that is still one of the most hated As far as I can see in the USA and in most of Europe it’s way more socially acceptable to declare to be atheists, rather than observing Christians.

> As far as I can see in the USA and in most of Europe it’s way more socially acceptable to declare to be atheists, rather than observing Christians.

I can't speak for Europe, but as of 2015, at least, about three-quarters of Americans identified as Christian. There are still large swaths of this country where being relatively outspoken about your atheism is, if not out-and-out dangerous, likely to have a negative impact on your social circles and even your career.

Remember that the HN crowd -- e.g., tech workers who by and large have pretty cosmopolitan outlooks -- is not really representative of "median America."

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

#266

Post by 6cd6beb »

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…

>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.

That's by design. Reddit is just another data mining company. Of course they'd rather have you on the app than the browser. Apps can gather info about you even when you're not using them.

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

#267

Post by eikenberry »

growlist wrote: post #200
tambourine_man wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to get such connections with half a billion active users.

I'm actually quite amazed at this. I thought Reddit had gone the way of Digg some time ago. Isn't it mostly manufactured content these days? I certainly remember it had that feel about it at certain times in the past when they were trying to paper over a mass exodus.

It really depends on the subreddits you are subscribed to.

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

#268

Post by rootusrootus »

benbristow wrote: post #249
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do mind them promoting their app, it’s a horrible app and they’ve continually ruined their website. The only way I can stand to use reddit anymore is through Narwhal, at least until they kill their 3rd party apps API.

If their API is killed I think Reddit's done for. I wouldn't use it if I were forced to use the official app myself, sure many others wouldn't either. Folk would probably move over to something like voat.co

I expect people would mostly just use the mobile web site. And there would be a lot of noise. But I can't ever see myself going to somewhere like voat.

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

#269

Post by mesaframe »

rconti wrote: post #153
komali2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am spending more time on HN though... Same boat. Twitter as well. Snipped reddit, went to twitter. Snipped twitter, came to here. Seems I just can't get enough of "talking with people on the internet." GF says I should try to find a book club. She's probably right.

Twitter is the absolute worst of all of them, though. Of all of the platforms, it creates the greatest incentives for antisocial behavior, prioritizing shouting, content-less attention-whoring-for-clicks over everything else. If you want to be an "influencer" on twitter (which most folks seem to want to be), you just shout the most outrageous things you can to try to cast a wider net.

You get what you look for.

In my experience twitter has been an educational journey.

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

#270

Post by sneakernets »

benbristow wrote: post #249
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do mind them promoting their app, it’s a horrible app and they’ve continually ruined their website. The only way I can stand to use reddit anymore is through Narwhal, at least until they kill their 3rd party apps API.

If their API is killed I think Reddit's done for. I wouldn't use it if I were forced to use the official app myself, sure many others wouldn't either. Folk would probably move over to something like voat.co

You usually would move over to something better, not worse.
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