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

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

#71
post #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.

Sounds like a lot of work just to waste time more efficiently..

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

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year ago I would have bought that. Log out, look at the front page and repeat this with a straight face: >It has the potential to affect and influence generations.

That's because the front page is crap though. When they fix subreddit discovery (and Alexis mentioned in a comment reply that they're working on it), so that you actually find communities about what you're interested in, rather than presenting the opening page of the website as a cesspit of juvenile idiots, then it'll be great (again). But, they have to not screw that up first. It's not a simple problem - you have to…

>...you have to communicate how the website works, give indications of the kinds of subreddits you can find, and get them to create an account and actually choose some before users get bored and click away.

I have to do this every time I recommend the site to someone in person. Partly to avoid the wrong impression that I enjoy the crap typically found on the front page.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this sort of joke. It reinforces the behavior for people who don't see it as a joke. And there's a lot of them. "Oh, it's OK and funny to call people faggots" I wish regular Redditors would stamp this shit out. No, I'm not being unnecessarily precious or PC. I used to laugh at distasteful misogynistic jokes (and worse) but somebody pointed out to me that joking about it normalizes it. And to the depraved part…

Too true. And in the same way we forget "simple" tasks like googling a tech support question are actually advanced behaviors, we become blind to the fact that the vast majority of the world isn't ironically playing with our expectations all the time. And furthermore, irony and the "it's a joke" mentality can be used to justify the continuation of behaviors that don't meet people's own standards. It's easier to repeat…

I have been reading hacker news for over 2 years. I started reading reddit last week when I learned about subreddits. The vast majority of my friends (all between 25-32) don't read reddit but are aware that it exists. There is an insane amount of growth that could happen there. I don't know much about their income, but saying "reddit is dead" or other comments because you don't think the quality is as good as it used to be is a stretch when saying the valuation shouldn't be $400m.

Seems to me like reddit could become the dominate messaging system and could be the best possible choice to replace craig's list if they decided to add classifieds.

It has huge growth potential and should not be underestimated so easily.

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

#74
post #28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The only thing I can think of is that they're either in league with or actually scared of the SRS subreddit.

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

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too true. And in the same way we forget "simple" tasks like googling a tech support question are actually advanced behaviors, we become blind to the fact that the vast majority of the world isn't ironically playing with our expectations all the time. And furthermore, irony and the "it's a joke" mentality can be used to justify the continuation of behaviors that don't meet people's own standards. It's easier to repeat…

I have been reading hacker news for over 2 years. I started reading reddit last week when I learned about subreddits. The vast majority of my friends (all between 25-32) don't read reddit but are aware that it exists. There is an insane amount of growth that could happen there. I don't know much about their income, but saying "reddit is dead" or other comments because you don't think the quality is as good as it used…

You may need more than a few days on reddit before saying things like "reddit could [../] replace craigslist"

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

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year ago I would have bought that. Log out, look at the front page and repeat this with a straight face: >It has the potential to affect and influence generations.

That's because the front page is crap though. When they fix subreddit discovery (and Alexis mentioned in a comment reply that they're working on it), so that you actually find communities about what you're interested in, rather than presenting the opening page of the website as a cesspit of juvenile idiots, then it'll be great (again). But, they have to not screw that up first. It's not a simple problem - you have to…

The front page is reddit. It's the vast majority of their page views. The only reason it's popular is because of subs like /r/AdviceAnimals, /r/pics, /r/funny, /r/WTF. All low-quality, repetitive content.

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

#77
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the front page is crap though. When they fix subreddit discovery (and Alexis mentioned in a comment reply that they're working on it), so that you actually find communities about what you're interested in, rather than presenting the opening page of the website as a cesspit of juvenile idiots, then it'll be great (again). But, they have to not screw that up first. It's not a simple problem - you have to…

The front page is reddit. It's the vast majority of their page views. The only reason it's popular is because of subs like /r/AdviceAnimals, /r/pics, /r/funny, /r/WTF. All low-quality, repetitive content.

Well, sure, for their current audience. But they're not getting capital to maintain their current audience, they're getting it to further expand into other demographics. Those demographics are likely to be less impressed by the content which currently dominates the front page.

Plus, going that way isn't necessarily a solid business model for the future anyway. Remember the Cheezburger network? Failblog? 9Gag and 4Chan have both had huge drops in traffic since their heyday. Reddit is the shining example of an internet culture site which has continued to flourish over time, and even then, I think they will hit critical mass with their current target demographic soon.

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

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this sort of joke. It reinforces the behavior for people who don't see it as a joke. And there's a lot of them. "Oh, it's OK and funny to call people faggots" I wish regular Redditors would stamp this shit out. No, I'm not being unnecessarily precious or PC. I used to laugh at distasteful misogynistic jokes (and worse) but somebody pointed out to me that joking about it normalizes it. And to the depraved part…

There are a number of things we try to stamp out and it is damn hard. I mod a subreddit with over 100K users. It's difficult to control trolls and others... At the same time I have petitioned to Yishan directly several times to block /r/picsofdeadkids to no avail. I use RES to heavily filter out the content I don't want to see. And while that works wonderfully, I am often turning off the filter as well just to see wh…

Maybe this money will add the ability to ignore people, or better, ignore entire groups of people pre-emptively. There are some subreddits I don't want anything to do with, nor the scum that dribble out of them.

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

#79
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are important flaws to this approach. Every interest has different levels of content. Pictures range from works of art that took hours to conceptualize, to images of a cat butt with a text overlay. As a subreddit becomes more popular, the greatest common denominator's interests take precedence. And while you can attempt a solution by splitting the sub community, say, no text overlays, that doesn't work as well…

I tend to use the more specific subreddits. For example gamedev and python instead of programming. But I'm there mostly for the community, not for the generic news articles. That is python tools/libraries, gamedev tutorials/experiences.
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