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Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

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Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#31

Post by jacquesm »

Alex3917 wrote: post #25
komali2 wrote: post #3

Does anybody know why development at reddit is so slow? I know they have an engineering team, but if you track the changes over the last couple years, it's not much given how much time has passed. And that's not for lack of feature requests that Reddit staff have admitted would improve the site.

> Does anybody know why development at reddit is so slow? I read through the front page of each of the top 5,000 subreddits (by subscribers) over the last few weeks, and a lot of the subreddits are adding hundreds or thousands of new subscribers per week. They seem to have gone into hypergrowth recently without anyone really noticing. The other interesting thing of note is that of the 125,000ish posts I read through,…

Assuming those are real accounts and not bots.

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#32

Post by johnfn »

redthrowaway wrote: post #12
pmoriarty wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't even edit the title of a Reddit post. That's been known for years and nothing's been done about it.

That's almost certainly by design. Just as with tweets, it would be massively abused.

Ages ago an admin said "yeah it would make sense for post titles to be edited within the first x minutes of making one", an incredibly low-hanging fruit that has been requested since forever.

It still hasn't been added.

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#33

Post by denim_chicken »

m-j-fox wrote: post #7

I love Reddit, but remind me what's their business model? I've never seen an ad using Relay For Reddit. Free content is great but how do they keep the lights on much less justify $1.7 billion? (Also, HN. Servers are cheap but how do they pay dang to tell me I'm being toxic?)

They track us and then sell our data.

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#34

Post by [deleted] »

beager wrote: post #14
komali2 wrote: post #3

Does anybody know why development at reddit is so slow? I know they have an engineering team, but if you track the changes over the last couple years, it's not much given how much time has passed. And that's not for lack of feature requests that Reddit staff have admitted would improve the site.

With zero inside knowledge, it appears to me that they have a very brittle legacy feature set due to scale concerns, tolerated integrations/extensions, and being held hostage by the community. There is new product feature development happening but it appears disjointed from the legacy, which could indicate leadership conflicts on priority, an inability to marry the old and new, or an inability to devote time to anyth…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#35

Post by [deleted] »

beager wrote: post #14
komali2 wrote: post #3

Does anybody know why development at reddit is so slow? I know they have an engineering team, but if you track the changes over the last couple years, it's not much given how much time has passed. And that's not for lack of feature requests that Reddit staff have admitted would improve the site.

With zero inside knowledge, it appears to me that they have a very brittle legacy feature set due to scale concerns, tolerated integrations/extensions, and being held hostage by the community. There is new product feature development happening but it appears disjointed from the legacy, which could indicate leadership conflicts on priority, an inability to marry the old and new, or an inability to devote time to anyth…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#36

Post by meesterdude »

crispytx wrote: post #23
m-j-fox wrote: post #7

I love Reddit, but remind me what's their business model? I've never seen an ad using Relay For Reddit. Free content is great but how do they keep the lights on much less justify $1.7 billion? (Also, HN. Servers are cheap but how do they pay dang to tell me I'm being toxic?)

They run sponsored posts on the HTML version of reddit, not sure about their mobile app tho. I've actually paid to run some ads on reddit and would recommend them. Their ads are cheap and they'll definitely send traffic your way if that's what you're looking for.

i have not had such great experiences with their advertising platform.

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#37

Post by arcticfox »

jordache wrote: post #26
GSimon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too busy working on April Fools day material: https://redditblog.com/2017/04/13/how-we-built-rplace/

I don't get the need for all these tech companies to prove their "wit" by trying to out do each other on 4/1. Then the tech blogs all rush to cover the various 4/1 "jokes"

Reddit's version was more like an excuse to do something fun. It would just be weird to release that on a normal day. But on 4/1, it was a blast.

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#38

Post by hitekker »

komali2 wrote: post #3

Does anybody know why development at reddit is so slow? I know they have an engineering team, but if you track the changes over the last couple years, it's not much given how much time has passed. And that's not for lack of feature requests that Reddit staff have admitted would improve the site.

Three factors.

1. Reddit's internecine subreddit wars required constant admin intervention and mediation. Reddit only has so many hands on deck, so more of than not, they pulled engineers in to help moderate.[1]

2. Reddit is unprofitable, so they have trouble affording top talent. [2]

3. Finally, Reddit's vision for the future has been hazy for the last decade. If the navigators can't chart a course, all the rowing in the world won't move the ship in the right direction. I suspect the overdone April Fools experiments are a result of engineering not being given technically compelling, or perhaps meaningful features to labor over.

Sources:

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/58zaho/the_...

[2]http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/04/02/reddit-sets-eyes-prof...

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#39

Post by MarkMc »

m-j-fox wrote: post #7

I love Reddit, but remind me what's their business model? I've never seen an ad using Relay For Reddit. Free content is great but how do they keep the lights on much less justify $1.7 billion? (Also, HN. Servers are cheap but how do they pay dang to tell me I'm being toxic?)

Relay For Reddit is not normal - most Reddit users see ads occasionally.

Apparently 6 percent of internet users in the United States use Reddit in their spare time [1]. It is probably the same in Canada, Australia and the UK.

If we assume $0.25 in revenue per month per user and 20 million users, that's revenue of $60 million per year.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/443332/reddit-monthly-vi...

Re: Reddit Is Raising Funds at a Valuation of $1.7B

#40

Post by _uhtu »

hitekker wrote: post #38
komali2 wrote: post #3

Does anybody know why development at reddit is so slow? I know they have an engineering team, but if you track the changes over the last couple years, it's not much given how much time has passed. And that's not for lack of feature requests that Reddit staff have admitted would improve the site.

Three factors. 1. Reddit's internecine subreddit wars required constant admin intervention and mediation. Reddit only has so many hands on deck, so more of than not, they pulled engineers in to help moderate.[1] 2. Reddit is unprofitable, so they have trouble affording top talent. [2] 3. Finally, Reddit's vision for the future has been hazy for the last decade. If the navigators can't chart a course, all the rowing i…

1. This doesn't require developer talent, or any real expense at all, social media marketing interns will do the job at barely any cost.

2. They've had plenty of money from investments though, their dev team is reasonably sized.

3. This one seems pretty accurate.

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