Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#171

Post by tracer4201 » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:12 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #166

derefr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit, like Usenet, or IRC, is just a collection of individual communities that happen to share an identity system. Expecting the (not-logged-in) Reddit front page to be “intellectual discourse” would be like expecting a random selection of Usenet posts or IRC chat-lines to be “intellectual discourse.” Try just visiting specific Reddit communities, rather than looking askew at the entire menagerie as if there was va…

Reading through all these responses, I have to wonder if there is a business opportunity for a company that provides "best content" recommendations, targeted to your interests, on these platforms. "But wait, why don't the platforms just do that themselves?!!" I'd argue the economic incentives for the platforms to recommend "brain-candy" lobotomizing content is too high to go against this trend, but a third party with…

Doesn’t YouTube and social media provide best content recommendations targeted to individuals interests? As far as I can tell, it’s great in theory but leads to echo chambers, people getting lynched, or living completely disconnected from reality.

Great idea in theory, and the people peddling these technologies are even convinced they’re changing the world for the better.

I’m not trying to antagonize you. Good intents lead to hell or something like that.

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#172

Post by anonlurking » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:14 AM UTC

zapzupnz wrote: post #107

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure we have culture anymore that isn’t entertainment.

Cuisine, fashion, religion, basic attitudes, lines of acceptable thought, how to behave as an individual, how to behave in a group, how to behave as a leader, how to behave as a subordinate, acceptable vices, social progress… plenty more I can think of, the majority of them not entertainment. In the US alone, this can very wildly between cities, counties, states, etc. What it means to be American in Idaho is somethin…

>Cuisine, fashion, religion, basic attitudes, lines of acceptable thought, how to behave as an individual, how to behave in a group, how to behave as a leader, how to behave as a subordinate, acceptable vices, social progress

Not sure if you're doing this intentionally, but these are all the things Americans definitely don't share in common or agree on, even within the same cities and states. In fact, we have never disagreed more on the subjects you listed. Largely because individuals have become increasingly atomized due to the internet age and a multitude of socioeconomic trends.

In fact, I'd posit that it's not very likely that the average american shares much with his neighbor culturally, outside of entertainment, even if they superficially seem to have a lot in common. It's more common to seek out a specific group(or faction) that you can relate to, than to form a local offline community with people physically near you.

>What it means to be American in Idaho is something quite different than what it means to be American in Hawaii

And yet there are all sorts of people in both Idaho and Hawaii. Many of whom agree on little and share almost nothing in common. I'd bet that even in a small town in Idaho very few citizens would agree with more than two of the things you listed.

In general, I'd have to agree with the person you're responding to: shared, common American culture is mostly the lowest common denominator entertainment we get through TV and Internet. For example, recognizing references from "The Office"

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#173

Post by yourbandsucks » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:14 AM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #76

theNJR wrote: post #28

Tencent has a meaningful ownership of American youth. 12% Snap 7.5% Spotify 40% Epic Games 100% Riot Games 100% Supercell 5% Reddit Hollywood has also been moving in this direction, with a lot of Chinese investment in the studios, and blockbusters adding special scenes with Chinese actors and locations. What does it mean for America when it's no longer the owner or creator of culture? It's historically one of our lar…

China "owns" them in the investment sense, but is hardly responsible for creating it or the culture that birthed the ideas. That's the real key here. If many home grown Chinese apps or concepts take off (ala TikTok), you may be right. But at the moment, like everything in China it seems they are just keen to buy/cheat/steal. The only issue I can see from ownership is if they start to censor the platform.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but China is the only country outside the US with an independent tech ecosystem. To the point where they're buying pieces of Reddit, even, I heard somewhere.

Tencent, qq, weibo, Baidu, Alibaba, taobao, and I'm sick of typing but the list goes on.

It started with protectionism but pride goes before the fall as they say.

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#174

Post by tamrix » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:16 AM UTC

fermienrico wrote: post #8

I've seen Reddit degrade painfully over last 8-10 years. It was full of intelligent comments, insight and unique perspective from people all over the world. Browsing the front page and reading the comments makes me sad that instead of intellectual discourse, we have a 3 billion dollar meme making machine. I wish to keep HN away from the masses as much as I'd like a broader perspective in the light of how things go wi…

I'm going to be that guy. The Internet was better in the late 90s early 2000s.

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#175

Post by baby » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:16 AM UTC

fermienrico wrote: post #8

I've seen Reddit degrade painfully over last 8-10 years. It was full of intelligent comments, insight and unique perspective from people all over the world. Browsing the front page and reading the comments makes me sad that instead of intellectual discourse, we have a 3 billion dollar meme making machine. I wish to keep HN away from the masses as much as I'd like a broader perspective in the light of how things go wi…

Yup. I'm a 10-year reddit user. I looked at the default FP recently and it's all about memes. Stupid animaladvice stuff. Only images. If they re-design this into 9gag I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

It used to be about r/askscience, r/atheism, a lot more textual stuff. I know the best experience is in subscribing to the right subreddits, but it's quite a shame the default front page that newbies land on has become 9gag.

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#176

Post by tuxracer » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:17 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #84

theNJR wrote: post #28

Tencent has a meaningful ownership of American youth. 12% Snap 7.5% Spotify 40% Epic Games 100% Riot Games 100% Supercell 5% Reddit Hollywood has also been moving in this direction, with a lot of Chinese investment in the studios, and blockbusters adding special scenes with Chinese actors and locations. What does it mean for America when it's no longer the owner or creator of culture? It's historically one of our lar…

> What does it mean for America when it's no longer the owner or creator of culture? That premise is no more valid today with China than it was at the height of Japan-takes-over-the-world mania. Japan via Sony accumulated a large ownership position in US music. Sony acquired Columbia Pictures in 1989 for $3.4 billion, a huge deal at the time. Nintendo and Sega took over US video gaming from Atari. What did it mean? N…

Japan is a democracy with basic rights like freedom of speech. China is currently an extremely censorship heavy totalitarian state. It doesn't seem unreasonable to be concerned about such a repressive state gaining increasing influence over our media via these types of investments.

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#177

Post by askmike » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:22 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #166

derefr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit, like Usenet, or IRC, is just a collection of individual communities that happen to share an identity system. Expecting the (not-logged-in) Reddit front page to be “intellectual discourse” would be like expecting a random selection of Usenet posts or IRC chat-lines to be “intellectual discourse.” Try just visiting specific Reddit communities, rather than looking askew at the entire menagerie as if there was va…

Reading through all these responses, I have to wonder if there is a business opportunity for a company that provides "best content" recommendations, targeted to your interests, on these platforms. "But wait, why don't the platforms just do that themselves?!!" I'd argue the economic incentives for the platforms to recommend "brain-candy" lobotomizing content is too high to go against this trend, but a third party with…

Most people don't share OP opinion, after a long day of work they want to look at cat pictures. Clickbait farms earn more than traditional newspapers, for the simple fact that more people read them.

As for "best content recommendations": The problem is that everyone has a different opinion on what is good content. So the money is in figuring out what you think is good content. Advertising and Social media companies are great at this: they gather as much data on you as they can to figure out what they think you like, and they show you that.

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#178

Post by colordrops » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:23 AM UTC

yourbandsucks wrote: post #153

colordrops wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very different this time. Japan was under the American umbrella of influence when it was supposedly going to take over. China is a rival and a resource-rich nuclear super power with orders of magnitude more leverage and a very different set of cultural norms and behaviors. I don't think it will go the way it did with Japan.

That's a bit of a supremacist take, no offense. Maybe rather than complaining about it, we should actually build things? Maybe we should pay a schoolteacher more than 1/4 what an advertising optimizer makes?

No offense taken, but curious how you see it as supremacist.

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#179

Post by askmike » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:25 AM UTC

tracer4201 wrote: post #171

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading through all these responses, I have to wonder if there is a business opportunity for a company that provides "best content" recommendations, targeted to your interests, on these platforms. "But wait, why don't the platforms just do that themselves?!!" I'd argue the economic incentives for the platforms to recommend "brain-candy" lobotomizing content is too high to go against this trend, but a third party with…

Doesn’t YouTube and social media provide best content recommendations targeted to individuals interests? As far as I can tell, it’s great in theory but leads to echo chambers, people getting lynched, or living completely disconnected from reality. Great idea in theory, and the people peddling these technologies are even convinced they’re changing the world for the better. I’m not trying to antagonize you. Good intent…

You are very right: the problem is that our brains are wired so that we prefer content that confirms our beliefs, we stay longer on the platform and are happier (which means advertisers make more money). Platforms have figured this out and are abusing it.

The concept is called filter bubbles and there is an old (2011) TED talk about it: https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b...

Re: Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value

#180

Post by LeoPanthera » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

fru2013 wrote: post #33

The amount of censorship on Reddit by moderators for arbitrary reasons, completely defeats the purpose of having community-controlled content. https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditMinusMods/