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Reddit files to go public

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Re: Reddit files to go public

#801

Post by PhoenixReborn »

eljimmy wrote: post #713
PhoenixReborn wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I worked at Reddit prior to when ads were a major revenue source and left in 2018 Prior to ads and the current dark patterns you see on the site, Reddit primarily tried to monetize through Reddit Gold. It didn't work, and users never purchased it in any meaningful volume to keep the site afloat. So while you wouldn't give them money for the decisions they've made recently, they weren't making enough money…

Interesting - I never knew that was the purpose of Reddit gold. I feel like a donation drive with direct acknowledgement that it would keep the site private and free of external financial interests would have provoked me to donate. I thought Reddit gold was just some meaningless emoji thing.

The meaningless emoji stuff was added later to boost sales (think of it similar to skins in video games). You used to not get any of that, and the clear thing you did get was no ads (IIRC, this is still the case and if you have Reddit gold you get no ads on the site).

Re: Reddit files to go public

#802

Post by PhoenixReborn »

GhettoComputers wrote: post #752
PhoenixReborn wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I worked at Reddit prior to when ads were a major revenue source and left in 2018 Prior to ads and the current dark patterns you see on the site, Reddit primarily tried to monetize through Reddit Gold. It didn't work, and users never purchased it in any meaningful volume to keep the site afloat. So while you wouldn't give them money for the decisions they've made recently, they weren't making enough money…

I remember 4chan did it by donate or die. They needed server money and they got it because it wasn’t working as long as they didn’t have a server. That was a much smaller scale though. Can you talk about your work there? It’s cool if you don’t want to, how was it? You left obviously so I can guess.

I honestly don't have any hard feelings or ill will towards Reddit - I liked my coworkers and my time there was fun overall. I worked on mostly backend/data stuff during my time there, but over time it became painfully clear that there was no way Reddit would make it as a business without resorting to the kinds of shady tactics that you see today.

I sincerely believe that the leadership tried to avoid the ads revenue stream and all the ills that come with it for as long as possible, and searched for a lot of ways out (see things like Reddit Notes in the past). But I don't think I'll work in the social media domain again, because the experience really soured me on the sustainability model as a whole. People are generally unwilling to donate/pay for the content, and it's impossible to operate a site where there's no subscription revenue coming in.

Re: Reddit files to go public

#803

Post by Oddskar »

bogota wrote: post #774
Oddskar wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes its truly awful for you to be held accountable for your place of work and its impact on the world. Completely unacceptable.

I hate making a ton of money and giving everyone in my family a better life. Really sucks. The things you are holding people accountable for are very questionable in almost all cases. In most cases it just comes off as jealousy that someone is doing better than you. I’m all for being held accountable. But i put very little weight in public opinion being something that we should even think about at this point.

> In most cases it just comes off as jealousy that someone is doing better than you.

That is certainly a very convenient way of dismissing something you find uncomfortable.

Re: Reddit files to go public

#804

Post by GhettoComputers »

PhoenixReborn wrote: post #802
GhettoComputers wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember 4chan did it by donate or die. They needed server money and they got it because it wasn’t working as long as they didn’t have a server. That was a much smaller scale though. Can you talk about your work there? It’s cool if you don’t want to, how was it? You left obviously so I can guess.

I honestly don't have any hard feelings or ill will towards Reddit - I liked my coworkers and my time there was fun overall. I worked on mostly backend/data stuff during my time there, but over time it became painfully clear that there was no way Reddit would make it as a business without resorting to the kinds of shady tactics that you see today. I sincerely believe that the leadership tried to avoid the ads revenue…

What do you think of substack? I like it as decentralized news. Medium dropped off the face of a cliff but substack has freedom of speech, email lists that is controlled by the writer, and they made it a subscription based long form article model.

I don’t disagree with you though, if it’s given to you free it’s expected to be free forever. They’ll try to get money somehow but nobody will like it. I definitely liked it at first too, but it’s become so much different.

Re: Reddit files to go public

#805

Post by PhoenixReborn »

GhettoComputers wrote: post #804
PhoenixReborn wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't have any hard feelings or ill will towards Reddit - I liked my coworkers and my time there was fun overall. I worked on mostly backend/data stuff during my time there, but over time it became painfully clear that there was no way Reddit would make it as a business without resorting to the kinds of shady tactics that you see today. I sincerely believe that the leadership tried to avoid the ads revenue…

What do you think of substack? I like it as decentralized news. Medium dropped off the face of a cliff but substack has freedom of speech, email lists that is controlled by the writer, and they made it a subscription based long form article model. I don’t disagree with you though, if it’s given to you free it’s expected to be free forever. They’ll try to get money somehow but nobody will like it. I definitely liked i…

Substack is good, and certainly much better than Medium! But I think it serves a different purpose, since it lets content creators monetize their audience rather than managing P2P user interaction like most social media.

I'm not sure where the P2P interactions will go - it's possible that they stay centralized on the major platforms of today, or we see a return to smaller forums as we had back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Re: Reddit files to go public

#806

Post by PhoenixReborn »

pibechorro wrote: post #678
PhoenixReborn wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: I used to work at Reddit but left in 2018) While I think you're absolutely right, I think Digg made a number of other missteps with the Digg v4 launch that Reddit did not make. In particular, they shut down the old Digg site to reuse the servers for the new one, a mistake that Reddit was particularly careful not to make. Digg was also already on the way down before their failed launch, and before the exo…

Reddit is on the way down. They may be gaining users, but the platform is a lot less interesting. The quality of content is way down, the spam and clickbait way up, and censorship by dictatorial moderators is out of control. Its a big echo chamber now. You are seeing a huge demand for more free speech platforms. Youtube is outofcontrol, Google is editing search, twitter is peering over the abyss now that Jack is gone…

I don’t particularly buy this idea since Mastodon has already existed for several years - and in that time, all the major social media players have only increased their market share.

As far as free speech platforms go you have things like Gab, Voat, etc which prioritize free speech in name. While that may be commendable as a value, the core audience they attract in the beginning is inevitably too extreme for the platform to go mainstream.

By the time Reddit replaced Digg, Digg was already losing users routinely. I don’t think any of the current social media players are in that position just yet.

Re: Reddit files to go public

#807

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

nunez wrote: post #334

Good! I‘ll go long on them. Reddit is the ONLY place on the Internet where you can simultaneously watch garbage recycled content from TikTok and visit extremely-niche and highly knowledgeable communities in the same session. Heck, I get my HN updates from Reddit now. Facebook/Instagram/TikTok are nothing like this in that the info you get is wholly dependent on your social graph. Twitter has very high quality content…

> Reddit is the ONLY place on the Internet where you can simultaneously watch garbage recycled content from TikTok and visit extremely-niche and highly knowledgeable communities in the same session.

But for how long I wonder. Those niche communities continue to use Reddit because they can circumvent the dark-patterns and ads usually with a custom client.

And those clients depend upon reddit API. We've seen in the past that once the community-focused Internet platforms get large, Especially when they go public then the API restrictions are soon to follow as advertiser's interest becomes primary and the majority users don't care as they're not in for those niche communities.

Re: Reddit files to go public

#808

Post by unionpivo »

jl6 wrote: post #539
unionpivo wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just disable all the subreddits but the few that you follow. And also disable the trending option in your preferences Its the (show trending subreddits on the home feed (a list of popular and notable subreddits to check out)) in your preferences. And then your home page is normal, sure that should be the default, but it's not hard to do

You can’t disable the banning of a community.

> You can’t disable the banning of a community.

Anything popular will have this problem.

Even the most notorious "chans" banned some things/topics.

If you are dealing with controversial topics you best bet is to own your own platform, and don't grow to big.

That's just how this world works, and its not even limited to online. Look at silk road. There are tones of dark web places like it, but once things get too popular, people will go to extraordinary lengths to shut it down.

The only controversial site that somehow still tags along is the pirate bay. And it's more shadow of its former self.

Re: Reddit files to go public

#809

Post by thelettere »

McWobbleston wrote: post #652
BbzzbB wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about r/philosophy, but if it's grown too large to be usable, as many do, look for subsets of philosophy (by genre, philosopher, etc). I'm sure there are more niche subs with decent communities.

Sadly the niche subs end up following the same path, and as someone who has done that Reddit is starting to feel like it's lost its charm. I think it boils down to upvote/downvote system steering discussions to a particular kind of consumer that doesn't align with what I'm there for and it gets worse over time. It's so rare for me to find insightful comments there anymore, it's really turned into intellectual junk fo…

I've found it virtually impossible to find a sub organized around an intellectual topic or person that isn't virtually unreadable for anyone who knows anything about the topic.

The more specific and concrete (and smaller, above a certain minimum) the sub is, the better the content. Indeed the same - absent the size qualification - could be said of hacker news discussions.

I suspect it may have something to do with the tendency for those with little knowledge of a complex, abstract and highly nuanced subject to upvote or downvote based on some combination of popular bias and sentiment contrasted with the decreased likelihood of those with knowledge to do the same (because they know more, they are less confident in their opinion). Combined with the fact that invariably growth means more users in the former group joining than the latter.

More concrete subjects where comments can be based on specialized experience (rather than just knowledge) help individuals without that experience to exclude themselves from voting and those with to step in. That hn is based around such a concrete topic is what saves it (combined of course with the paid and highly skilled and dedicated moderation).

Re: Reddit files to go public

#810

Post by roservice »

McWobbleston wrote: post #652
BbzzbB wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about r/philosophy, but if it's grown too large to be usable, as many do, look for subsets of philosophy (by genre, philosopher, etc). I'm sure there are more niche subs with decent communities.

Sadly the niche subs end up following the same path, and as someone who has done that Reddit is starting to feel like it's lost its charm. I think it boils down to upvote/downvote system steering discussions to a particular kind of consumer that doesn't align with what I'm there for and it gets worse over time. It's so rare for me to find insightful comments there anymore, it's really turned into intellectual junk fo…

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