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Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

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Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#181
post #112
post #63

Reddit is an intentionally designed dopamine machine with some areas of usefulness. There are pockets of great, high signal communities on Reddit that have not been unbundled. Discovery, however, is a mess. Some examples of some great subs: - HomeImprorvement is great for repair advice - Keto was helpful in my weight loss journey - Posture for, well, fixing my posture I've also bought and sold various digital and phy…

Yes, discoverability of "good" subreddits is not there. But on the other hand I think Reddit get too much criticism. I find most subreddits besides the big catch-all ones like /r/pics good. Basically all the TV shows have fun post-episode discussions and going through Game of Thrones, Black Sails or The Expanse wouldn't have been the same without Reddit for me. It becomes the group of buddies I can vent or be in awe…

r/formuladank for the more...edgy f1 content!

Good subs exist like you said. But even with f1, the same opinions start get upvoted, and that ends up just being noise for me. There's a definitely a sweet spot in terms of size and moderation.

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>looking for product recommendations This is the trick I use too; but I found the result still isn't great enough for a few reasons. 1. People seem have a tendency to recommend products/brands that are niche or "in minority". Like some obscure ones that scratch particular itch for that user (and often expensive and hard to find). This is totally fine on its own, but you want to have the big picture (i.e. learn about…

I've found that reddit tends to get pretty cargo culty around particular products/brands, like Sony mirrorless and the Olympus mju II for cameras, Denon DJ equipment, or Starting Strength for weightlifting. So many recommendations basically follow the form "I'm new to this hobby and bought one of these a week ago, I swear it's the best thing ever"

Is this post meant for SEO?

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#183
post #63

Reddit is an intentionally designed dopamine machine with some areas of usefulness. There are pockets of great, high signal communities on Reddit that have not been unbundled. Discovery, however, is a mess. Some examples of some great subs: - HomeImprorvement is great for repair advice - Keto was helpful in my weight loss journey - Posture for, well, fixing my posture I've also bought and sold various digital and phy…

I only read my favorite subreddits; never the mean 'stream' (/r/Popular etc) as it's horrible (imho). I have little feeling for that dopamine thing people have with these streams (inc instagram, facebook, etc) ; they only annoy me so I never check them. Not sure what chemical they cause for me but selfies, very bad (elevator) muzak and people either whining or lying about their lives is not working for me in any way, even (or especially?) if I know these people.

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#184

Stop raising money. Each time you do that you increase the pressure on the site to make more money to earn the valuation. If the company is valued at $6B today then it probably needs to get to at least $18B valuation in two years. How? By trying to extract even more money from the users.

Reddit is going to turn into the next Facebook.

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents in their 60s have discovered that Reddit is a great source of research to get real humans talking about a variety of topics (basically what Quora aimed to be but never was). I strongly feel they're just getting started.

Lately I have been adding "reddit" to all the questions I ask google because I know some "real" person on reddit will have a relatable answer. I too feel this is untapped potential.

Parts (very small parts) are what Stack Overflow should be. The moderation and closing of questions (marking as duplicate or similar) on SO is so officious and malicious that it’s easy to just avoid it.

The right subs for ones level are really really helpful.

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#186
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising on Reddit is wonderful, but you need to know Reddit pretty well to use it well.

Need to know what audience to market to or how to relate to Redditors or both?

Both. JetBrains runs ad campaigns on Reddit's programming subreddits and they seem to be well run.

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#187
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. We need to build companies that are sustainable and stable, it's almost as if its a lost concept - What's wrong with a profitable company with no growth? Most companies shoot themselves in the foot and die while growing. Hey, I guess its like a forest - a tree falls down and small seedlings take up the space. Ah, the endless cycle of human struggle.

I just watched a video on Apple’s “cash problem”, with one of the video creators core point that “people expect the stock price to go up, and that can’t happen unless Apple does something with that cash and makes more with it!”. Got me thinking: isn’t one of the core premises of investing that you’re purchasing ownership of cash flow? Is the ideal company one that it’s never profitable because it so perfectly allocat…

AAPL pays a dividend and has a substantial buyback program. Their cash problem, if you want to call it that, is that they bring in so much revenue with nice margins that it is impossible to allocate it all. So they return some value back to shareholders through divvies and buybacks, spend what is reasonable on R&D, and keep cash on hand for flexibility. They don't seem that big on M&A, but that is probably a good thing (looking at Cisco for example)

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#188
post #63

Reddit is an intentionally designed dopamine machine with some areas of usefulness. There are pockets of great, high signal communities on Reddit that have not been unbundled. Discovery, however, is a mess. Some examples of some great subs: - HomeImprorvement is great for repair advice - Keto was helpful in my weight loss journey - Posture for, well, fixing my posture I've also bought and sold various digital and phy…

Could you not argue that HN is the same thing, just at a smaller scale? HN is essentially just a front page. Reddit just doesn't tailor itself to one particular type of discussion like HN does. But rather the dominant topics of discussion such as /r/funny frequently dominate the front page due to popularity. Reddit is really what you make of it and if you only subscribe to topics that interest you, it becomes a vastl…

In terms of features and intent HN is similar to Reddit. But HN is miles and miles ahead in the quality of discussion, moderation, and diversity of thought and opinions.

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#189
post #178

They are purposefully making Reddit absolutely terrible on mobile web browsers. They constantly try to force you to download the app, don't let you read full threads without it, etc. It seems it just constantly gets worse and worse.

I just use old.reddit.com instead

Re: Reddit valued at $6B on a $250M round

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is largely untapped on Reddit though. Forgetting about the main subreddits and meme communities and whatnot, you have captive audiences for small niches. Say you sell bespoke bike parts or audiophile-quality headphones, there are subreddits for that. Or say /r/pcmasterrace is an opportunity for Asus, Corsair, etc. I assume many companies are already active on Reddit, but there’s an opportunity for Reddit…

Well you also landed on the problem with this scheme: a lot of reddit communities are brand poison. Does Corsair want "master race" as part of its branding experience, even if it's meant as humor? Yeah, not so much. This is the same pit Tumblr fell into.

Pinterest seems to have nailed this. I keep cursing myself for not investing in PINS every time they blow out earnings. The platform seems devoid of toxicity found on other socials and advertisers seem to love it.
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