Reddit raises $410M in new funding • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#431

Post by SilverRed » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:59 AM UTC

wintermutestwin wrote: post #143

thinkingemote wrote: post #51

Reddit is a marketeers dream. Every corporation, product, game, movie studio and consumer device has a big team dedicated to using Reddit for free. Submissions memes and comments are posted by the teams, often out in the open. Reddit gets no income from this advertising. If Reddit were to start looking at charging for these, the platform might change drastically. I'm not sure how, however.

The more Reddit gets infected by ads, the less value the content will provide. Advertising is diametrically opposed to information sharing.

Reddit is already packed to the brim with product shilling and yet it keeps getting bigger. I doubt the majority of users will be turned off from this. The reddit user base has changed as well. Most users of reddit probably never used the old design at this point.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#432

Post by cuu508 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:03 AM UTC

pitterpatter wrote: post #388

spookthesunset wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naw. The new Reddit design is much nicer than the old. There, I said it. It is much easier to use. It took them a while to iron out the bugs but it is way better. Now their new mobile app video player… ho boy…..

> Naw. The new Reddit design is much nicer than the old. There, I said it. It is much easier to use. It took them a while to iron out the bugs but it is way better. I'm curious what you like better in the new design? I personally find the floating bar at the top annoying. Not to mention the fact you have to click another button to actually see all the comments. Not to mention my biggest annoyance, clicking on the emp…

> Not to mention my biggest annoyance, clicking on the empty space on the sides when viewing a post will navigate to the subreddit?? Why?

A/B testing shows it generates more engagement

/s

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#433

Post by SilverRed » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:03 AM UTC

sushid wrote: post #45

spike021 wrote: post #37

Yet routinely their service still has incredibly poor performance and there are bugs in their iOS app that have been around for months. Crazy.

It was also down for a few hours this week. Can't think of many 11 figure companies that go down as often as Reddit does.

The reddit outage yesterday was the worst one I have seen in years. Reddit used to go down multiple times a day 3+ years ago but it seems pretty solid now.

They also used to shut the site down for hours at a time to run updates.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#434

Post by IncRnd » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #217

wintermutestwin wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great way to prod those specialized communities to bail to the next diggredditetc. People are going to those specialized communities to get real information from real users, not lies and misinformation (ads and marketing).

>People are going to those specialized communities to get real information from real users, not lies and misinformation (ads and marketing). Those specialized communities will cease to exist without something funding them. Either users get ready to get out their wallets or get used to ads and marketing (which are not wholly lies and misinformation). And more importantly remember it's Reddit's choice how users pay, no…

> Those specialized communities will cease to exist without something funding them.

And this very article embarassingly shows that after 16 years it is still investors who are funding those specialized communities.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#435

Post by chatfat » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:23 AM UTC

techrat wrote: post #260

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked if there was "something intrinsic to Reddit traffic that makes it difficult to monetize?" and the answer is: Yes, they're far less invasive than the other platforms you mentioned. Just at a very high level: - no offsite tracking (so no retargeting - the follow you around the internet ads) - no separate ad network (you can't buy ads on Reddit that show up on 3rd party sites) - limits on how granular targetin…

Reddit has had off site tracking for quite some time. Remember those little snooheads where you could 'reblog' about something? or vote on a site while on it? Seeing the reddit bugs/icons/badges was about when the site started engaging in data collection. You bet your ass they do everything they can to determine a general profile of each user now based on visited subs and patterns.

They cannot manage a little chat widget on their website, you think they'll be able to trackbusers? You're right that they are trying but they are definitely not capable.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#436

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:24 AM UTC

xfitm3 wrote: post #206

pageandrew wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been permanently banned from almost all of the top COVID related subs for daring to discuss disallowed topics, like the Wuhan lab, as well as expressing anti-lockdown sentiments. My appeals have been instantly denied as well. I understand the idea that subreddits are user-run communities and should be able to self-moderate, but there are a couple problems with this: 1. Reddit claims to be the "front page of the…

Reddit was a bastion of free speech but it's suffered a steep decline in quality and content. It's a toxic place with heavy handed dark UI patterns: they've lost their minds over there.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#437

Post by Ekaros » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

id5j1ynz wrote: post #375

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were making money, they wouldn't have to keep taking VC money, and further diluting their ownership.

Having 10% stake in a 10b company is often better than having a 15% stake in a 5b one.

Now, question is does further investment on site like Reddit make them more valuable or just keep it running?

This leads me to wonder if the stock market goes down and VC dries up how long will Reddit be around?

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#438

Post by CryptoPunk » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:29 AM UTC

Tokenized karma in Reddit communities is going to change everything. It started with r/EthTrader and DONUT (which you can currently use to rent the banner space in the subreddit to display your ad), and extended to r/CryptoCurrency and /r/FortNiteBR, with MOON and BRICK, respectively.

The latter two are part of Reddit's official tokenized community points project, which is going to expand to more communities, and which will be adopting Ethereum L2 solution, Arbitrum, for scalability:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/opi5rg/scaling_re...

In all three communities, you can purchase special monthly membership with the community tokens, and use them to vote on polls that can also be used for governance decisions.

As the community points are on the blockchain, and map to user contributions in each community, they give Reddit communities the ability to migrate to other platforms, or leverage their karma reputation for other purposes (e.g. voting on other platforms). This decoupling of reputation from the platform will go a long way to making social media more open and geared toward the end user.

It'll also distribute economic power, by giving ordinary people, all over the world, a new means to earn income:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/l9dye7/i_so...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kqrikd/sold...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/n371id/how_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/ly79uw/as_a...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/l9bdtn/guys...

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#439

Post by ohgodplsno » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:29 AM UTC

michannne wrote: post #252

NationalPark wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if their problem is that the majority of their traffic is unregistered users looking at NSFW subreddits. So they may not actually have that many users they could monetize in the first place.

Simple fix: allow users to save video only if logged in (could prime with a CTA). Right now you cant save any video from reddit, not just nsfw, not even from the app. This would incentivize people to create an account since its easier and less shady than content grabbing sites. If they want they can even limit to the app which would at least have an impact on boosting app users

Great, make not-logged-in reddit even more terrible than it already is. That's going to go super well.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#440

Post by itsdsmurrell » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:30 AM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #402

toomim wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing happens on technology subs. I was banned on /r/bitcoin for posting on /r/btc.

It isn't immediately obvious, but r/btc is full of trolls and shills for a bitcoin hard fork and other scam coins. I just checked it out and 2 of the 3 top posts were conspiracy videos about John McAfee.

This couldn't be further from the truth. You sound like a BTC maximalist.