The thing that amazes me the most about Reddit is the site feels as if it has not changed in over a decade. I realize there is a new UI and small changes here and there but fundamentally it feels the same. I am amazed the amount of money they have raised given how little has changed. Equally impressive that they have never added any new substantial features. Something that comes to mind is how often people will search only Reddit for product reviews. Would be interesting if Reddit had built something to make this more streamlined, throw in ads along with it.
Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
21–30 of 112 posts
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#22How has reddit community changed since it's API permission changes that removed all third party apps? A lot of people forecasted doom for the network and many subreddits went private to protest. Have the predictions come true? Presumably all those changes were to juice numbers pre IPO. In hindsight, did it work?
It did work in terms of what the Reddit owners wanted, which was engagement - they did get more people onto their app and using their platform. The owners got just what they wanted. In return, quality has fallen off a cliff. Moderation on some of the most popular subs is scarce, so all the popular ones have started to coalesce into a 'blob' of sameness. Discussions are poor as well, and misinformation is rife. For th…
> In return, quality has fallen off a cliff. Moderation on some of the most popular subs is scarce, so all the popular ones have started to coalesce into a 'blob' of sameness. Discussions are poor as well, and misinformation is rife.
All the more poignant in light of the recent announcement that they were going to sell access to their "content" to train someone's AI. Good luck with that.
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#23How has reddit community changed since it's API permission changes that removed all third party apps? A lot of people forecasted doom for the network and many subreddits went private to protest. Have the predictions come true? Presumably all those changes were to juice numbers pre IPO. In hindsight, did it work?
From personal perspective, discussion quality has gone to the rock bottom on various subreddits. And platform is even worse when using from the browser. Other than that, no idea.
Discussion isn't allowed. Dissent from the groupthink will be deleted if not banned outright.
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#24How has reddit community changed since it's API permission changes that removed all third party apps? A lot of people forecasted doom for the network and many subreddits went private to protest. Have the predictions come true? Presumably all those changes were to juice numbers pre IPO. In hindsight, did it work?
Reddit drove away lots of users via that change, although I expect Reddit's MAU still grew overall due to the continued worldwide penetration of the internet. In addition, while in the short-term it almost certainly lost users, it drove the remaining users towards frontends that were more profitable to Reddit (i.e. away from the website and towards the app), so I expect the company still sees that as a win, at least…
As someone who enjoys writing ragebait posts, I can confirm that in recent months it's been easier than ever to get thousands of people raging over some nonsense. The relative lack of moderation has been very useful in this regard.
Perhaps that actually benefits Reddit though? More engagement even if it is mostly dimwits responding in earnest to troll posts.
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's 100% the same. The official app isn't even that bad if you remove the ads. The biggest problem (powermods) still remains ironically after all of this. Bummer really, I thought they would use the opportunity to clean up
The main concern with the official app is the data it hoards. Back in the day it even needed permissions for your Google account on Android, and did not work without it.
Fair enough. I've accepted that everyone knows more about me than myself and moved on haha
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#26The thing that amazes me the most about Reddit is the site feels as if it has not changed in over a decade. I realize there is a new UI and small changes here and there but fundamentally it feels the same. I am amazed the amount of money they have raised given how little has changed. Equally impressive that they have never added any new substantial features. Something that comes to mind is how often people will searc…
The reason why reddit feels like a better places for product reviews is because of how organic it appears. The moment you make something more 'streamlined' for that, the less organic and useful it feels for users, and the easier it's able to be gamed.
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#27They’re playing shenanigans with Google Accounts and auto login. Log in to Google. Log out of Reddit and revisit. It may create an account for you and automatically log you in. Cursed DAUs Put?
How is this possible? A website cannot just magically cross-domain get your Google account details...
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#28They’re playing shenanigans with Google Accounts and auto login. Log in to Google. Log out of Reddit and revisit. It may create an account for you and automatically log you in. Cursed DAUs Put?
How is this possible? A website cannot just magically cross-domain get your Google account details...
By using the really, really, really badly designed listener auth flow... which just allows javascript to grab your google creds.
https://developers.google.com/identity/sign-in/web/listeners
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#29This underestimates just how slimy Reddit is. When looking at all the stats and financials provided remember this is a company that started by creating fake users & happily acknowledges as much. Or the direct edits by founders to underlying database to influence discussions. Or the weird super moderators that have power over thousands of subs that seem to have their own agenda far too often ( https://www.reddit.com/m…
I think fake users / artificial content is a pretty common "things that don't scale" hack.
But yeah editing user content and the extreme mod control should disqualify Section 230 protection IMO.
Re: Reddit: Return of the Junk Stock IPO
#30The thing that amazes me the most about Reddit is the site feels as if it has not changed in over a decade. I realize there is a new UI and small changes here and there but fundamentally it feels the same. I am amazed the amount of money they have raised given how little has changed. Equally impressive that they have never added any new substantial features. Something that comes to mind is how often people will searc…
The reason why reddit feels like a better places for product reviews is because of how organic it appears. The moment you make something more 'streamlined' for that, the less organic and useful it feels for users, and the easier it's able to be gamed.
Certainly but my point being that Reddit has raised a lot of capital and still has no idea how to be truly profitable.