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I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

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Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#41

Post by throw0101b »

t-writescode wrote: post #36
joshstrange wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like some people don't understand Reddit. You get to choose what you want to follow, you can create a multireddit with a subset of them, you can create a new account and hide all the big subs to let the little ones filter through. The world was always your oyster and yet people act like it took subs going dark to do that, it didn't. If someone says they only see crap on Reddit it's their own fault. It doesn't ta…

This is incredibly unfair. While I’m familiar with many of those tricks, I haven’t even thought about them in probably, literally years. The current Reddit UX does not encourage and maybe doesn’t even support that view. If that’s something you’re doing, I can say with some level of confidence that you’re a Reddit Poweruser. The only time I ever really thought about tricks like that is when I used the Reddit Enhanceme…

> The current Reddit UX does not encourage and maybe doesn’t even support that view.

Try: https://old.reddit.com

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#42

Post by Tao3300 »

PepperdineG wrote: post #24
lobochrome wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a private company. What else was it supposed to be about? Distributing VC money to users?

Yes, in fact the most successful social media companies do just that. Reddit doesn't seem to be aligning its interests with the interest of power users unlike other social media companies. Reddit is really putting itself in a position of getting what it pays for, which it doesn't pay for moderators while at the same time is taking their tools away and also seems to be insulting them too. Treating major contributors a…

I suspect they see "you get the be the moderator in a community!" as a user feature, and not as an internal job.

And people clearly want to do it, and care enough to do it for free. Up to a point, at least.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#43

Post by zug_zug »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29
wackget wrote: post #5

His response to the top comment: > reddit has a lot of cash. Monetization isn't a short-term concern of ours. Yes, we will continue to experiment with different efforts so that when time is right we know what works and what does not. So it was always about money. Guess their "experiments" have concluded that pissing off your entire user base is a strategy which works.

> So it was always about money. I'm more surprised that anyone thought it wasn't about money. Reddit is a business. An unprofitable business. They have to do something to turn a profit eventually.

Well I think this is a bit reductionistic. Every business is a business, but just about every business also won't cross certainly highly-profitable morally-dubious or long-term damaging paths.

A car company could maximize short-term profits by reducing quality. Reddit could sell your location data to the highest bidder. Apple could threaten to delete all your pictures unless you buy a super-pro account.

And generally companies don't do this, because the backlash. The backlash is good. Often the backlash is even good for the long-term health of the company/world.

I think to say that short-term-profit-oriented behavior from companies is inevitable isn't true, the backlash often wins, and long-term strategic thinking is actually the norm.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#45

Post by ydidntithnkftht »

vinhboy wrote: post #35
Moto7451 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He surely did. It’s usually part of comp packages for any member of the C suite. I was the second engineering hire at a lifestyle business turned VC funded startup. After we went public and I could see disclosures including how many shares were paid out to the C Suite. The board and some first time C Suite members got the same level of equity in their comp package that I had received over six years of working there.…

I'm curious what is the normal equity share given to board members? Is their advisory worth six years of engineering?

Varying sources but anything from .25% to 3% or more depending on how they get their seat I think.

Some with no vesting schedules at all.

https://medium.com/@theBoardlist/three-things-no-one-tells-y...

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#46

Post by gurchik »

It's interesting to see this comment[1] from him that users should still be able to see content from a deleted post or comment if they want to. It used to be possible to do this by searching for it in Pushshift, but for as long as I've been aware of Pushshift it seems the admins have hated this. I've seen comments that this is a violation of privacy and can be used for targeted harassment. I understand the complaints Reddit has had recently about Pushshift being used to sell Reddit's content, but it seems that's not the only thing that's changed.

1: https://reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3cxedn/i_am_steve_huffman...

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#48

Post by midoridensha »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #33
meepmorp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could run a company that sustains itself and its employees, maybe makes a modest profit. You could just make something valuable that people like and want to use, and have that mostly be the end goal. You probably won't get incredibly rich, though.

> You could run a company that sustains itself and its employees, maybe makes a modest profit. Reddit is not profitable, though. They're burning through investment cash just to keep the lights on. That can't last forever, so they have to do something.

They're not profitable because they choose to not be profitable, because they have too many employees and are trying to be the next TikTok.

If they operated like archive.org, they could sustain themselves. They don't want to do that, because it doesn't result in big returns for investors.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#49

Post by chubot »

mlyle wrote: post #30
chubot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I've been curious for the last week -- why isn't Reddit profitable anymore? Did something change about ads since 2015 (likely) ? Did their cloud costs go way up ? (possibly, since the redesign seems extremely slow and resource heavy, compared to the old site)

Reddit was weakly profitable but now has done a ton of hiring in hopes of building a huge business and chasing the IPO money train. They have 2000 employees now. They had fewer than 200 in 2015.

That's kind of what I suspected ... it seems like a self-inflicted problem, a consequence of the VC model and "enshittification"

This makes Wikipedia seem prescient. It also has basically all user-contributed content, and user moderation

You can point out a lot of its flaws, for sure, but at the end of the day, the product actually works

Reddit for me is barely functional, I still used old.reddit.com

Of course that was the intention all along -- to drive users to mobile -- which is just sad. Destroying value on purpose

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#50

Post by chongli »

Y_Y wrote: post #18
meepmorp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could run a company that sustains itself and its employees, maybe makes a modest profit. You could just make something valuable that people like and want to use, and have that mostly be the end goal. You probably won't get incredibly rich, though.

That sounds great, but I feel like the VC firms that would allow you to start up in the first place aren't going to go for it.

Yeah. If you want to build a lifestyle business then you can't take VC money. The grassroots approach is not an easy one and can take a very long time to grow! But in the end you retain complete control over the business.
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