Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by syrdon » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

jhedwards wrote: post #174

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 t…

Reddit.com/r/askhistorians+mycology+savagegarden gets that same experience though.

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

#462

Post by SlowRobotAhead » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

meko wrote: post #383

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And rapists are just humans that would up with the body in the wrong place? Sorry man, I don't buy the "words can hurt" argument for people who for noble reasons or not break the law. People who overstay Visas or sneak across boarders, are breaking the law. They are illegally existing someplace they shouldn't be according to the laws of that land. I fully support your rights to argue for open borders. I'll vote again…

You don't think language has an impact on perception? You think the Nazi effort to dehumanize jews with rhetoric didn't work? What a simple world you must live in.

It'll only took you one post to get to Nazis.

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

#463

Post by bsder » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #435

bsder wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If you believe that, I don't even know where to begin. People in the US Bible Belt get death threats if they declare their atheism. Online isn't offline. And most people still exist more in the offline world.

Both of your viewpoints are right - it entirely depends on what one is considering community. In meatspace there are plenty of social communities where you will be looked down upon for being religious (if you really don't believe this, you either need to travel more or you need to keep questioning social dogmas even after you've found some place you fit in). The many more places where you'll be looked down on for bei…

> Both of your viewpoints are right - it depends on one's actual surrounding community. It's much easier to choose your online community, which creates the impression of the whole space lining up with your beliefs.

No, I'm not letting you get away with "equivalency". That kind of mental gymnastics is what allows these kinds of "talking points" to exist.

Christian churches are not taxed. Atheist non-profits are. Christian religions get "marriage" enshrined in law and get to define what "marriage" is. Atheists get their partners decisions questioned in the hospital. I can go on and on about the privileges that religion enjoys in the US.

Taking away undeserved privileges is not persecution. If you want to see persecution, go to the middle east--THAT'S what Christian persecution looks like.

The US qualifies are one of the most religious of the countries that don't qualify as theocracies. Claiming that Christians are being persecuted in the US is hogwash.

If you want to talk to me about persecution, come back after every church in the US is actually paying taxes--I won't hold my breath.

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

#464

Post by opportune » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

ssnistfajen wrote: post #294

superfrank wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect they will be bigger than Facebook (maybe not in valuation, but usage) in the next 7 years and these problems will only be exacerbated. I only agree with that in the sense that I think Facebook (the facebnook.com site) usage will decline quicker that Reddit usage. As someone who's been on Reddit for almost 9 years, I feel like the redesign is kind of equivalent to the timeline change that Facebook had. Whi…

I'd love to be surprised with a decent competitor but all of the Reddit spin-offs I've seen are all trying to be not-Reddit, and that often includes keeping the community niche/exclusive.

I think the killer app would be to keep the community somewhat exclusive but also have a great breadth of niche, expert content. There was a time when Reddit hit this sweet spot (although there were also very large subs that attracted the worst users).

One of the main issues with reddit is that a lot of niche interest subreddits are 90-99% non-practitioners or extreme amateurs, even when weighted in terms of contribution. For example there is no subreddit where you can actually learn very insightful things about programming or computer science or machine learning, same for biology/physics/astronomy/etc.

I would be ok with a not-reddit competitor that actually succeeded in being a better reddit. But the #1 thing they should avoid at all costs is taking VC money. You can't have a great community of experts that is also trying to maximize it's viewership, that's how you get Quora or Reddit

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

#465

Post by e1ven » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

qgsrw3fd wrote: post #420

Deimorz wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do wish there was at least one social platform that would try to follow the Craigslist ethos and stay "proudly independent." I worked at reddit for 4 years, but quit in 2016, largely because they were clearly beginning to switch from a small, fairly independent company (despite being owned by Advance/Conde) to one that was going to become completely dependent on venture capital and I knew what that would end up d…

Do you have any screenshots of what the website looks like? I'm curious. I'm not asking you to make them just for me, I want to know if they already exist. If they don't and you don't want to make them, that's fine.

There were some at https://imgur.com/c7UWQa9

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

#466

Post by opportune » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #445

LeoPanthera wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is still a haven for the far-right. It really leaves a bad taste in my mouth that they are tolerated there.

It is also still a haven for the far-left. Does that leave a bad taste in your mouth too?

yeah the people who want to redistribute money are equally as scary as the ones who are actively racist

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

#467

Post by sctb » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #462

meko wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think language has an impact on perception? You think the Nazi effort to dehumanize jews with rhetoric didn't work? What a simple world you must live in.

It'll only took you one post to get to Nazis.

Please stop.

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

#468

Post by taurath » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #265

nisuni wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/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 im…

My experience is that there's rarely a time that is appropriate for it to come up in polite conversation. People talk about it all the time within their social communities as the social communities are more likely to be in line with their beliefs, but not really in "public" IE work, etc. The guy running around talking about "god is dead" at work is just as much of a jerk and treated as such as someone who loudly proclaims their christian beliefs as the basis for everything they do.

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

#469

Post by solarkraft » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #346

dhimes wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't they bought by Conde Nast a few years ago? Is that when it started to slide? EDIT: My how time flies. It was bought by CN in 2006!

Reddit is ~1 year younger than Facebook, and ~1 year older than Twitter.

That is amazing. While Facebook has reached world domination and died again (spawning an empire and catapulting its owner to be one of the world's richest people), Reddit still seems to be slugging around in the "we have something, maybe we can monetize it idk" phase.

While admire that CN is not squeezing them to death, it appears like Reddit is vastly under-managed.

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

#470

Post by rootusrootus » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #90

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…

There are so many more issues with Reddit, I'm surprised they haven't been digg'd or myspace'd yet.

Well, you could be the one to do it.

Taking down an incumbent is hard, though. Might need deep pockets for a while.