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Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

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21–30 of 79 posts

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#21
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) and now it's worth about half of the New York Times. It's one of those cases where I can't help but think, you know, maybe our metrics are way off.

Why is the NYT this wholy grail, that no company ever can aspire to be worth more than? For me personally Reddit is much more important than the NYT will ever be. If the NYT disappears tomorrow I couldn't care less. There's other publications that will fill its place. Reddit has allowed me to meet great people, have in-depth conversations on topics that no one in my near vicinity cares about and expand my knowledge i…

If "impact of it disappearing" is your metric, I don't think it would take long for new Reddits to pop up if it disappeared tomorrow.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the NYT this wholy grail, that no company ever can aspire to be worth more than? For me personally Reddit is much more important than the NYT will ever be. If the NYT disappears tomorrow I couldn't care less. There's other publications that will fill its place. Reddit has allowed me to meet great people, have in-depth conversations on topics that no one in my near vicinity cares about and expand my knowledge i…

> For me personally Reddit is much more important than the NYT will ever be. Honey Boo Boo is much more important to me than NatGeo and NPR.

Why? I'd love to know what value Honey Boo Boo provides you that's unique and can't be filled by others.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#23
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think has happened to Quora?

-- Lost a lot of trust in the userbase when they did the ridiculous "Matt has viewed the following questions" stunt. -- Kicked one of the 2 co-founders, Cheever off, rumour has it he didn't want to go as aggressively after growth as D'Angelo & other powers wanted. -- Widely sneered at in SV as being the company to look at if you want to know what "taking it too far with forcing growth" means. Their "sign-on to view t…

But you don't know that these were to satisfy investors, against the wishes of the company leadership.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the NYT this wholy grail, that no company ever can aspire to be worth more than? For me personally Reddit is much more important than the NYT will ever be. If the NYT disappears tomorrow I couldn't care less. There's other publications that will fill its place. Reddit has allowed me to meet great people, have in-depth conversations on topics that no one in my near vicinity cares about and expand my knowledge i…

If "impact of it disappearing" is your metric, I don't think it would take long for new Reddits to pop up if it disappeared tomorrow.

Reddit has a unique and incredibly community. If you take the time and actually explore all of the amazing small subreddits that have developed their own cultures & rulesets and the content they've created, I doubt you would make this statement. There are great people in the specialist subreddits. Reddit is only worth as much as its community and that is _incredibly_ hard to reproduct and immensely valuable. Just look at HN. Dozens of people have come up with way better web apps to clone its functionality or have proposed redesigns. Nothing sticks and no one cares. The community is what makes sites like reddit & HN.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#25
post #5
post #3

In recent years I've really grown to despise Reddit, so I'm going to get a kick out of the angst that Redditors will feel when they gradually realize that their interests and Reddit's interests diverge.

I can understand that the community may not be as appealing due to its growing popularity, but what has Reddit done company-wise that conflicts with users' wishes? The interface is still as minimal and the advertising virtually non-existent

They took over the most popular subreddits as AskReddit or IAmA. They also ban subreddits/users and remove posts that can make a bad name for reddit in the media. Both from these brand subreddits and from the whole site.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#26
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off in that the NYT should be worth more because it makes money, or off in that Reddit should be worth more because of it's ungodly amounts of traffic and devotion?

Reddit is replaceable. Shut down today, a dozen clones would rise up tomorrow. NYT on the other hand... The latter should be worth far more than it is.

>Reddit is replaceable. Shut down today, a dozen clones would rise up tomorrow.

You don't understand the value of reddit. As I've written in other posts in this thread. It's the community and that's impossible to replace (as evidenced by the hundreds of other forums that have shit communities) Reddit is far and above many, many online communities in terms of breadth & depth.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#27
post #3

In recent years I've really grown to despise Reddit, so I'm going to get a kick out of the angst that Redditors will feel when they gradually realize that their interests and Reddit's interests diverge.

To like reddit you have to unsubscribe from all the default subreddits and swera to never read discussions in them. Then find yourself a nice set of smaller subreddits that you like. Either there are alternatives with stricter rules to the default subs or there are more specific subs.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#28
post #25
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand that the community may not be as appealing due to its growing popularity, but what has Reddit done company-wise that conflicts with users' wishes? The interface is still as minimal and the advertising virtually non-existent

They took over the most popular subreddits as AskReddit or IAmA. They also ban subreddits/users and remove posts that can make a bad name for reddit in the media. Both from these brand subreddits and from the whole site.

Considering they have a strict AUP they've been remarkably tolerant in what they ban. A few blatantly illegal sub reddits; some sub reddits with borderline illegal content; and some harassment only sub reddits.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "impact of it disappearing" is your metric, I don't think it would take long for new Reddits to pop up if it disappeared tomorrow.

Reddit has a unique and incredibly community. If you take the time and actually explore all of the amazing small subreddits that have developed their own cultures & rulesets and the content they've created, I doubt you would make this statement. There are great people in the specialist subreddits. Reddit is only worth as much as its community and that is _incredibly_ hard to reproduct and immensely valuable. Just loo…

I'm a part of other great non-Reddit communities, some pre-dating Reddit, some that came later. Some of them have moved across forum software changes, URL changes, and ownership changes.

What is it that makes you think Reddit communities are a different animal? Were Reddit to disappear, I'm sure those communities would find new homes. From where I'm sitting, the problem with basing Reddit's valuation on those communities is that Reddit doesn't own those communities.

You can't always tell a community what to do (like how one can't build an HN replacement and expect the community to simply follow you there). If the steps Reddit takes to try to make a big return on investment anger those communities, the communities are free to leave. My view is that the network effects of Reddit are not nearly as strong as those of a Facebook or Instagram, and even those appear to be having some difficulty getting as much value out of their communities as they want.

Re: Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation

#30
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think has happened to Quora?

-- Lost a lot of trust in the userbase when they did the ridiculous "Matt has viewed the following questions" stunt. -- Kicked one of the 2 co-founders, Cheever off, rumour has it he didn't want to go as aggressively after growth as D'Angelo & other powers wanted. -- Widely sneered at in SV as being the company to look at if you want to know what "taking it too far with forcing growth" means. Their "sign-on to view t…

    | "sign-on to view this content"
This is the sole reason I'll never open an account there. Fortunately, if I really want to see some of their answers, I can just delete the overlay div in the developer console.

edit: It looks like they've fixed it so you can no longer just delete the overlay. Parts of the text are replaced by images of blurred text now. Oh well.

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