71–80 of 565 posts
I'm loath to say it but Huffman has had a decade to solve this and hasn't. Might be time for new leadership with new ideas.
It’s impressive how their CEO keeps shooting himself in the foot on this one, he could compromise a bit by at least expanding the deadline on the pricing changes, but instead he decides to provoke and double down. The leaked internal memo, which is obvious that would leak (after all it is a 2,000 person company) is a clear provocation: > We do anticipate many of them will come back by Wednesday, as many have said as…
If the CEO backs down then he’s weak. He needs to publish a hard hitting memo that chastises third party app developers for not creating more sustainable businesses. If Reddit cannot meet it’s revenue goals it will shut down, period.
I dislike that I have to make an effort to entertain myself during downtimes, but this is an excellent exercise for a future where reddit execs might just have made the site unusable for me.
I also have to fight the urge of not opening it, but I don't think I plan on coming back at this point. This made me realize that I was addicted to doomscrolling and constant brainless checking on my favorite subreddits. I genuinely found myself more productive than ever since I uninstalled Apollo when blackout started.
I've left other social media sites without much problem before.
My main problem is when I google stuff, I still try to add "reddit" but now I'm not sure what the alternative is to increasing the signal to noise ratio for results.
Can anyone explain how much pressure and where it comes from for the “raise revenue at all costs” pre-IPO. Is it common for other companies to shoot themselves in the foot by layoffs and policy changes that alienate users? Just feels like no one was smart enough to say “we can try and raise revenue by doing this, but we could lose everything” - maybe companies just constantly forget how defiant and fickle the interne…
It's purely a numbers game. If the amount of revenue you'll achieve from less users gives you a more positive multi year outlook financially then losing the users is "worth it", especially if those users fall into cohorts that are less financially valuable. Unfortunately that includes people who take part in blackouts as they correlate highly with people who e.g. run adblockers, use third party apps, etc.
Honest question since I don't really know how reddit works: Why can't reddit just forcefully re-open the subs that have been taken private? Mods are using powers given to them by the platform and I don't get why they are not being stripped of (some of) those powers.
In the end Reddit and Mods are co-dependent on each other. Mods use the platform provided by Reddit, but Reddit uses the voluntary work of mods to have a usable platform. Reddit could exchange all voluntary workers with paid mods, but I doubt something capital-intensive like that is what they planned for their pre-IPO strategy.
Could the 3rd-party apps allow users to config API keys? That would distribute the cost.
The cost is something like $500 per user per year. People just aren't going to pay that much.
It’s impressive how their CEO keeps shooting himself in the foot on this one, he could compromise a bit by at least expanding the deadline on the pricing changes, but instead he decides to provoke and double down. The leaked internal memo, which is obvious that would leak (after all it is a 2,000 person company) is a clear provocation: > We do anticipate many of them will come back by Wednesday, as many have said as…
But blatantly giving your unhappy users the finger is a great way to keep them angry and thus motivated. Steve Huffman has set millions of dollars of value on fire and damaged Reddit's brand for no apparent reason (except maybe a bizarre personal vendetta against certain third-party app developers). Strange times.
1. I don't get the protests.. at this point Reddit should just die for the attempt, just leave ship. 2. At the same time not getting the execs. Are they not seeing the damage done right now? Why not give in, appease protesters, and go more to a boiling frog approach? (IPO money grab desire must be very real?) 3. Because of 2, it is 1 anyway. I mean two things will happen...either Reddit dies quickly, or more likely i…
I read the comments and many are in this vein: "Agreed, moderators with a power complex are the worst thing about this site. Don't even care about this API crap." Never realized mods were so disliked. I thought the blackout sent a message+got coverage, but don't like subreddits extending it without consulting their users. I use reddit about 5-10 minutes/day so I don't care either way.
It's possible that the comments are legit, but it's interesting how many of the comments in the Moderator Coordination subreddit are from people who hate mods have have newish accounts. Considering Reddit has edited comments critical of the CEO in the past AND that reddit is known to use fake accounts to simulate engagement, I'm a bit skeptical (the fake account thing was how reddit got it's start, but they're still…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's purely a numbers game. If the amount of revenue you'll achieve from less users gives you a more positive multi year outlook financially then losing the users is "worth it", especially if those users fall into cohorts that are less financially valuable. Unfortunately that includes people who take part in blackouts as they correlate highly with people who e.g. run adblockers, use third party apps, etc.
Has this strategy ever worked in the history of social media businesses?