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Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

china-underground.com

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Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#121

Post by barbecue_sauce »

etskinner wrote: post #84
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66

Are there examples of companies that said “this is enough money” and stopped concentrating on having ever increasing profits every quarter to satisfy VC or stock investors? I think of this a lot lately. It seems companies don’t want to just do what they do well anymore and be satisfied with that. Can someone give me some inspiration? Companies that have such pride in their work that they aren’t constantly looking for…

The way it's been explained to me, a company stock that pays regular dividends is basically the company saying "you investors deserve these profits rather than us trying to reinvest it in the company and grow". An example of the exact opposite would be Amazon, who notoriously almost never makes a profit on paper.

While that's historically true about Amazon, they have switched to "profit mode" in the past few years, and their net income has grown incredibly.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#122

Post by ajross »

jumbopapa wrote: post #9

Reddit has long been plagued with censorship. The CEO edited the post of a user because they criticized him or something. I can't believe how quickly that's been forgotten. The Reddit situation reminds me of the post about failing to build a billion dollar company a few days ago. Reddit is trying to make VCs happy and continue to grow the business, but a platform like Reddit is best as a less reliant on growth, but s…

> Reddit has long been plagued with censorship.

All forums are "plagued" in that way, though. This one too. Everyone who wants to run such a service has a personal idea of what expression is appropriate within the vision of the site and which ones aren't welcome. And everyone has personal sensitivities and makes moderation mistakes, too.

Honestly if reddit has failed, it's been in the opposite direction. They've been too lax with moderation and had to make rapid and disruptive course corrections when people point out the garbage they've been tolerating.

You have a first amendment right to express your opinions to anyone you want, but you don't have a right to do it on someone else's moderated forum.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#124

Post by hopler »

newsbinator wrote: post #12
jumbopapa wrote: post #9

Reddit has long been plagued with censorship. The CEO edited the post of a user because they criticized him or something. I can't believe how quickly that's been forgotten. The Reddit situation reminds me of the post about failing to build a billion dollar company a few days ago. Reddit is trying to make VCs happy and continue to grow the business, but a platform like Reddit is best as a less reliant on growth, but s…

Can you imagine the reaction if a user's post on HN were edited by YC? I guess it'd be the instant death of the network. That this action a) happened on Reddit + b) was mostly/quickly forgotten says a lot about the different demographics. Audiences who largely come for cat pictures and political snark don't have to worry about CEOs breaking the 4th wall. I've been a Redditor for 9+ years and I still am one. But today…

Forgotten? It's constantly talked about, like now

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#125

Post by boron1006 »

learc83 wrote: post #77
boron1006 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the evidence that reddit is taking the 150 million for censorship? There was a post here that said that reddit was being valued at like $3 billion. Relative to that, 150 million is a tiny amount. Also, Tencent isn't equivalent to the Chinese government. Although the Chinese government certainly has more say in what it's companies can or cannot do, it's not right to say they're the same thing.

If the government wants to use them to pressure Reddit, they can and will. In this instance, Tencent and the government are functionally equivalent.

Using that logic, the CIA and almost every company in existence is functionally equivalent.

This is just sloppy thinking. You have to show evidence for your opinions. In this particular instance, do you have any specific evidence?

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#126

Post by hopler »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #116
Pxtl wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, can you blame them for developing a habit of censorship when the laissez-faire approach gave them a huge problem with kiddie-porn trading, extreme racism, destructive conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, misogyny, pro-rape communities, etc? They tried the hands-off approach and it failed spectacularly. The site spent its boom years with basically negligible community-management while it spent its efforts doing d…

If the hands-off approach coincides with the site's "boom years", then an alternative view is that it was, in fact, a huge benefit.

The more work I do, the more trash I generate. That doesn't make the trash the reason for my success, and doesn't earn the trash an honored central place at my table.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#127

Post by analyst74 »

How would tencent owning a minor stake in reddit allow it to censor the site? Or is this outrage mostly because tencent is a Chinese firm?

I mean, censorship only works if you have the government backing you, are people legitimately fear the US government is going to bow down to a Chinese company?

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#128

Post by telchar »

da_chicken wrote: post #117
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66

Are there examples of companies that said “this is enough money” and stopped concentrating on having ever increasing profits every quarter to satisfy VC or stock investors? I think of this a lot lately. It seems companies don’t want to just do what they do well anymore and be satisfied with that. Can someone give me some inspiration? Companies that have such pride in their work that they aren’t constantly looking for…

> Are there examples of companies that said “this is enough money” and stopped concentrating on having ever increasing profits every quarter to satisfy VC or stock investors? Yes, except they're most often private companies and not publicly traded. Many of these inspirational companies are family owned and operated. Eventually, however, someone will get in charge of the company who isn't satisfied with "good enough"…

Off topic: I love the Jiffy Mix except last I checked it has trans fats in it. I wish they would remove that.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#129

Post by throwaway2048 »

analyst74 wrote: post #127

How would tencent owning a minor stake in reddit allow it to censor the site? Or is this outrage mostly because tencent is a Chinese firm? I mean, censorship only works if you have the government backing you, are people legitimately fear the US government is going to bow down to a Chinese company?

Plenty of companies with interests in China have voluntarily acceded to Chinese demands over stuff like the naming of Taiwan.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#130

Post by projektfu »

ardy42 wrote: post #98
colordrops wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX?

I don't think so. While they do have a feel-good narrative about space exploration, they're still focusing heavily on growth (and profits down the road). They definitely haven't said "this is enough, we don't need to grow anymore."

However they haven't apparently pivoted into weaponry.
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