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Reddit Doubles Down

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Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#211

Post by predictabl3 »

afavour wrote: post #121
raincole wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal (cynical) bet is that Huffman actually understands what Reddit is better than us, and Reddit will be just fine after this. To be completely honest, if a two-day blackout is proven to be the most serious "protest" the community can do, I'll buy Reddit stock when it IPO.

I agree. I think that this is a turning point for Reddit but not towards failure: they’re ditching the hardcore nerd audience that made them. But they’ve long since outgrown that audience and will likely (as a company) do just fine without them. As a community there will be a notable loss.

They better get their buck quick before investors realize what that means for the future of content on reddit.

Because much as some folks here seem to believe, there IS actually more to reddit, reddit as it exists today, than just ad impression counts. I'm not some social media genius but the way that this being talked about by some people, who I guess haven't been a part of reddit over 17+ years, I am flabbergasted at how y'all think these things grow and thrive.

What's the market value of 9gag? iFunny?

Digg?

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#212

Post by Y_Y »

jupp0r wrote: post #178
extr wrote: post #38

I don't really understand why it had to be this way. It's so easy to think of other ways this could have been handled. Even just announcing the same change with 6 months of lead time rather than 1 month would have gone over better. Or boil the frog and gradually introduce API restrictions. It's as if the CEO is purposefully being as belligerent as possible to rile people up.

Or just invest in building mobile apps that people love to use more than the alternatives.

Exactly! They bought Alien Blue and made it into the app everyone hates. If they believe in the future of the site it should be a no-brainer to buy RiF and/or Apollo.

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#213

Post by nullc »

lokar wrote: post #154
pclmulqdq wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure - I assume the hyper-valuable users are actually generally using 3rd party apps, so forcing them back on the platform could raise their CPI enough to look good at an IPO rather than terrible.

They have to be much less than 1%, I don’t t see how the math works. Views (and ad clicks) are what matter, not posts and comments. They only need the posts and comments to have something to stick an ad next to.

Open AI already showed that you can train an LLM on the stuff reddit's already got and produce a site with as much traffic as reddit gets... so what are the users needed for?

I say this in jest, but only partially... lots of subreddits have noticed influexes of AI bots recently. Maybe spammers testing the water, or maybe you were just the product that was just helping train its replacement.

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#214

Post by paxys »

ibero wrote: post #198
thr_low_latency wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderators _seriously_ underestimate how hated they are. At this point I'd rather the admins just take back the subs and let the voting system sort it out. Like how it did for the first 10 years of the site's life.

you or any other user could create your own subreddit. it’s not like reddit can’t discuss nba games. there clearly is a gulf between people who actively wish to make it so and those who consume the byproduct of their effort.

The same way moderators could go create their own version of reddit. Or you an I could just start a new basketball league. Or create a new internet if we are unhappy with the existing one.

This line of reasoning goes nowhere.

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#215

Post by nocoiner »

pacetherace wrote: post #201
ammut wrote: post #119

The post by the Apollo dev made it sound like they had gone back and forth for a while before the final pricing was laid out. I wonder why reddit didn't come up with a price that worked for all parties. Isn't some money better than none + ill will from the community?

In the recent AMA, they claimed that the average cost per user would be around $1/month. Apollo dev believes it will be much more than. I feel Reddit could have easily come up with a model where the API usage gets tied to premium account and that decouples apps from API charges. Reddit has now created a new problem for itself which is that a huge user base that previously didn't bother to look at third-party apps has…

Well, maybe, but the API is free only until the end of the month, so… seems like a very temporary problem for Reddit (assuming that the mods generally fold, as I assume they likely will).

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#216

Post by philwelch »

scubbo wrote: post #173
philwelch wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of tech companies have silly names for their employees, I think it might have originated with “Googlers” but some companies (like Reddit) went a little further. (“Snoo” is also the name of the little Reddit alien mascot.)

I recently joined LegalZoom, where the demonym is apparently "Zoomers". Yeah, I won't be using that one :P

Congratulations on getting hired in this economy!

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#217

Post by [deleted] »

paxys wrote: post #214
ibero wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you or any other user could create your own subreddit. it’s not like reddit can’t discuss nba games. there clearly is a gulf between people who actively wish to make it so and those who consume the byproduct of their effort.

The same way moderators could go create their own version of reddit. Or you an I could just start a new basketball league. Or create a new internet if we are unhappy with the existing one. This line of reasoning goes nowhere.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#218

Post by bshipp »

preommr wrote: post #79
givemeethekeys wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone else remember the giant exodus from Digg.com to Reddit? No one I know talks about Digg.com any more. But hey, maybe it is profitable.

Reddit makes like half a billion, it's plenty profitable for what it is. The problem is that management is trying to make it into something that it's not in an effort to make even more money when the site just isn't geared for it. It's like if McDonalds instead of just opening more stores decided that it can make even more money if it turned into a bar and grill because steaks have higher margins.

Reddit management already did this when they began self-hosting all images and videos. It's pretty disingenuous to complain about excessive API call costs when you voluntarily decided to pay for hosting and streaming Petabytes of video and images.

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#219

Post by nullc »

btown wrote: post #191
XorNot wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh...the real problem with shutting down Apollo is that it makes the volunteer moderators lives much harder. Those are the people who provide any value to reddit as a platform. The protest could end today, the 3rd party apps go...and if the volunteer mods go with it, then the site as a whole tumbles onto a decline that eventually kills it.

Some of the things that volunteer mods defend against is bot spam, repost spam, karma mining, abusive comments, and brigading. Unless Reddit has AI solutions for all of these (not a real suggestion - it's an arms race against similarly-AI-using spammers, and if Reddit had the engineering culture of ByteDance then it would have already built the moderator tools people had been requesting since 2015!) then its niche an…

> Some of the things that volunteer mods defend against is traffic, traffic, engagement, traffic, and engagement.

> then its niche and generalist subreddits alike will lose their culture and quality faster than one can blink an eye

reddit chaotically overriding subreddit moderation decisions has had that effect for a while.

Re: Reddit Doubles Down

#220

Post by predictabl3 »

raincole wrote: post #99
whatsuphotdog wrote: post #40

I love that the CEO calls the users voicing their displeasure "noise". When those users voice opinions on other things, it's called content. When those users voice their opinions against reddit, it's noise. Hoffman continues to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what Reddit is. The very people that give your platform its value are revolting against you, and you think it's noise. What's your product? What do yo…

My personal (cynical) bet is that Huffman actually understands what Reddit is better than us, and Reddit will be just fine after this. To be completely honest, if a two-day blackout is proven to be the most serious "protest" the community can do, I'll buy Reddit stock when it IPO.

Steve's out here slandering would-be partners, lying to employees, and shoving increasing mountains of poop under the rug. We're approaching 4D-chess big brain energy here.

Also, let's not keep conveniently leaving out that a growing number of subs are pledging to continue the protest.

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