> Reddit is transparent about the fact that the company is not profitable.
There's the fundamental problem. The bills need to be paid.
What Reddit Got Wrong
21–30 of 284 posts
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#22Basically they forgot they built a site built on community and then tried to sell those communities like inanimate objects. No surprise it blew up in there face.
> We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor. From Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-... Nothing blew up in their face. It's almost as if the vast majority of users simply don't care about this kind of drama.
Apollo doesn't show ads, right? In fact getting users away from Apollo and onto the main Reddit app would be net revenue positive.
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#23At this point I hope Reddit kicks out mods from all major subreddits still set to private and places their own people. I'm tired of drama from 3% of the Reddit population (or less) impacting the other 97% negatively.
I just don't think either side has the moral high ground. The mods like the convenience of 3rd party apps. I get it. It's not a real moral issue.
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
What evidence do we have that it blew up in their face? There is clearly a large backlash, but it's not at all clear how much that will impact their key metrics, which is probably all they care about moving into IPO. I agree they made awful decisions, my usage patterns will definitely be changing due to a re-enable /etc/hosts entry. However, what is the impact on a broader scale? This is like Twitter firing a ton of…
We don't have numbers, but if it hadn't blown up in their face then we wouldn't be talking about it. What is reddit's product? The users. What happens IPO valuation when the users leave?
Reddit, like any other social media platform is worthless without users.
We will see in few months what is the situation and if someone manages to advertise an alternative for millions of people.
Then, Reddit IPO is doomed. If there is no new significant alternative where people will go, then IPO will probably continue as planned and API change went well from the Reddit’s perspective.
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#25I never understand why Reddit is credited to the "free community based moderation" idea Facebook does this at much larger scale (2B users active in FB Groups), with way more spam, and some FB groups are much larger than most big subreddits Its not about Facebook or Reddit, its about people being so power hungry they do these things for free. When subreddits post about bringing in more mods, thousands apply, maybe 2 g…
I could make a huge list of what Reddit design gets wrong, or at least outdated or suboptimal. But the land grab for names turned into one of its biggest, fixable weaknesses.
Reddit should boot up another letter, /d/ or something, and give the communities numbers or hex identifiers, (which they already sort of do with the short urls) and make the names irrelevant. Communities can choose to port over and redirect. Over time, the ones that don’t fade to disappearing from all and eventually go private.
Tying name to community url makes discoverability of replacement communities shitty for new users. Politics is easy to understand. Whatever people come up with as a substitute word for a forked community, will be less clear. Of forked communities, maybe only trees and rainbow came up with a better name.
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#26I never understand why Reddit is credited to the "free community based moderation" idea Facebook does this at much larger scale (2B users active in FB Groups), with way more spam, and some FB groups are much larger than most big subreddits Its not about Facebook or Reddit, its about people being so power hungry they do these things for free. When subreddits post about bringing in more mods, thousands apply, maybe 2 g…
Or you're wrong and there's an actual reason that 90% of the subreddits went on strike such that any new mods wouldn't accept these conditions either. Like you really think people are so power hungry they'd sign up to do this for free while being restricted to using only one finger to do all of the work or something absurd like that? No, there are limits.
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#27There are a dozen better reasons to quit reddit. The only reason people are protesting api pricing is because they want to protest. The actual concern here isn't what they are protesting. They want to quit but they can't. They likely even realize they are addicted. They likely even realize the content they view is censored and curated to manipulate them. Just quit reddit already and be happy.
I'm protesting API pricing because it means my favourite app isn't sustainable. Sorry if it's not as profound as you want it to be.
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
This tracks exactly with what I've noticed. r/fragrance for example decided to stay open, but the mods just would quit doing anything. That'll show us! What happened: no spam. A few silly posts. A lot of good posts. A lot of people remarking how much better the sub is without mods. Mods returned, promising to 'consider community feedback' once they realized they lost control of the narrative.
That's only in the short term. Long term, we've seen what happens to unmoderated discussions: spam, (child) porn, violent/illegal images, and more. The worst humanity has to offer. It's like taking your hands off the wheel when driving. A few seconds and you're probably okay. An hour? You're in a ditch!
Oh, I completely agree that some moderation is needed, make no mistake about that. Just agreeing mainly with the point that most modding on Reddit is a power play, not altruism.
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#29"Reddit has an admirable record when it comes to defending an open and free internet."
Had*. Ever since Aaron died, it's become a censorious bubble.
Re: What Reddit Got Wrong
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor. From Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-... Nothing blew up in their face. It's almost as if the vast majority of users simply don't care about this kind of drama.
Apollo doesn't show ads, right? In fact getting users away from Apollo and onto the main Reddit app would be net revenue positive.
Indeed, the fact that Apollo can use the API for free then turn around and charge users for a premium version all while giving nothing back to Reddit is simply insane, you would never see Facebook, Instagram or other services allowing the same thing. And before one says that third party app users drive user driven content, what kind of content do you think Facebook and Instagram have?