Earlier quoted context omitted.
Offer Selig the position.
Selig acquihire to head of iOS/mobile dev could have been a good move.
Selig would still be at the whims of product/marketing/the board so I'm not sure that'd be good at all.
Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
241–250 of 271 posts
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I don't understand is why they simply don't do what spotify does. Free acounts have to use the official spotify apps but paid accounts can use third party apps and apis as part of their subscription benefits. I would gladly pay for reddit gold monthly if I got to keep using my ad-free 3rd party client of my choice.
They want everyone to use the official app so they can advertise to paid users in the future. It's the cable TV model: get people to start paying for subscriptions by offering to remove ads, then slowly trickle the ads back in. A paid tier lets you easily identify which of your users have disposable income, and then you can sell the ability to advertise to them at a huge premium. Spotify's advertisements are quite di…
The Athletic (sports news publication) pretty much did this exact thing. Originally marketed that you'll pay for a subscription so you don't get ads, and now for the last year or so they've added multiple ads in every article even though they're already behind a paywall.
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
What the 2 day blackout does is it nudges people to explore alternatives. With this, Reddit management has lowered the barriers to exit. When the next boycott comes, migration for many subreddits will be easier.
What alternate website can I tack onto a search to get an actual human's answer to a question that is otherwise only served by blogspam?
StackOverflow?
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing they care about is bottom line, and this, "Huffman says the blackout hasn’t had “significant revenue impact”," is key. To lose 95.8% of your site (judged by the 8467 out of 8838 subreddits gone dark) and not have a revenue impact at all raises some questions, primarily if there are any revenue streams based on usage, or only on monthly subscriptions and non-view-based ad contracts?
It's about 70% of the top 1500 subreddits https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/
Does not look like there is a huge dip in new posts/comments. Except for that short time when reddit went down yesterday.
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This would be all fine and well if their official app weren't garbage It's not garbage. I've used it for years. It's fine. Try not being dramatic online / feeding into the narrative that so and so app is garbage or not / parroting other things people say / being picky.
I agree, it's not garbage. It's designed and optimized to provide a primarily image/video experience, and focus the app more on the endless scrolling / low information density, skinner-box experience that has infected nearly all social media. The de-emphasis placed on comments and discussion is clear from the design. The app is indicative of the direction where Reddit would like to take the site. Needless to say, the…
This is my thoughts exactly. The app design and usability are fine enough, even pleasant in reference to using other modern social media apps. But what makes me sad is that I don't use any of those other social media apps for a reason. Specifically, I enjoy discussion and being part of a community, not just blindly consuming content and mindlessly scrolling. It seems like the era for that has passed though, at least in a centralized way.
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
From Reddit's perspective overall this is a terrible idea, but from Huffman's perspective it's purely rational. If he has to walk this back it's probably not compatible with his continued tenure after all, the question of why this was done so hastily and rudely would inevitably undermine his leadership. If he just barrels ahead though, and prays that the addictions of mods and users are greater than their pride/desir…
> he can't realistically get rid of the mods and replace them, then expect that to not blow up in his face I'm not so sure about that. I would be very surprised if there was a high % of redditors that know / care about the mods or mod system. This could be the cynic in me but I bet he could eject all the mods tomorrow, replace them with more faceless accounts, and the vast majority of reddit's userbase would not see…
Users will definitely notice when their favorite subreddits suddenly go to crap under the tenure of the new puppet-mods.
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean that's a common knowledge, no? if the cost of raw materials goes up, manufacturers hike up the prices of the final goods and consumers pay for it.
Most people are perfectly happy paying for cost of materials + reasonable profit. It was expected. Reddit announced a month ago that were going to charge for API access -- no issues then. The Apollo developer himself already pays for API access for other services (like Imgur). However when they announced both the pricing and the timeline, it's pretty clear that they are unreasonable. Apollo finding it unsustainable i…
sounds like reddit want to kill all third party apps which is a bit unfortunate but this business practice is not very uncommon (Apple/Google with their 30% fees).
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing they care about is bottom line, and this, "Huffman says the blackout hasn’t had “significant revenue impact”," is key. To lose 95.8% of your site (judged by the 8467 out of 8838 subreddits gone dark) and not have a revenue impact at all raises some questions, primarily if there are any revenue streams based on usage, or only on monthly subscriptions and non-view-based ad contracts?
> To lose 95.8% of your site (judged by the 8467 out of 8838 subreddits gone dark) That's out of the 8838 that made a pledge to go dark. Those ~400 are just the ones that went "restricted" (read-only) instead of private, or flaked on the pledge. There are over a million subreddits, the blackout doesn't even reach one percent of them.
There are plenty still open, but many of those million are dead anyway. I've made half dozen and abandoned them all.
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people are perfectly happy paying for cost of materials + reasonable profit. It was expected. Reddit announced a month ago that were going to charge for API access -- no issues then. The Apollo developer himself already pays for API access for other services (like Imgur). However when they announced both the pricing and the timeline, it's pretty clear that they are unreasonable. Apollo finding it unsustainable i…
sounds like reddit want to kill all third party apps which is a bit unfortunate but this business practice is not very uncommon (Apple/Google with their 30% fees).
I'm not sure how Apple/Google 30% relates? Those companies do a lot to support businesses on their platform. If you don't want to change anything, you get free hosting. For payments, they provide the entire infrastructure to support developers. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement even if the fees are quite high.
If Reddit does want to kill all third party apps complaining about how they haven't done a single thing to actually support 3rd party developers is kind of moot. But the point of the protest is how underhanded that is; they would be manipulating users and developers by lying about the whole thing. And if they actually didn't want to kill all third party apps then they still lied and are also incompetent.
Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If the blackout is only for two days then they're right Yeah... I don't know the tradeoffs at play but 2 days is... extremely insignificant / probably a bad decision by all of the moderators? It sends a message sure but, it's a bunch of "whiny reddit mods" versus C-level executives in a "help us make API more affordable versus help us not lose a ton of money offering generous free API hosting/usage" negotiation. Ho…
What the 2 day blackout does is it nudges people to explore alternatives. With this, Reddit management has lowered the barriers to exit. When the next boycott comes, migration for many subreddits will be easier.
It also demonstrates to Reddit management that the moderators are capable of a coordinated action.