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Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

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Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#411

Post by georgespencer »

debaserab2 wrote: post #372
georgespencer wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this sort of slightly gloating incredulity at just how "obvious" the things a company ought to be working on are to be surprising. You have almost none of the information required to make informed judgements about whether or not Reddit's product team is incompetent (maybe they're doing way better than they should be under the circumstances?), or whether they're focusing on the right things. There are definitel…

Reddit is a top 20 globally ranked site that does not come anywhere close to performing at the level of other sites that share a similar popularity. In my mind, they fail their users in three distinct and pretty basic ways: 1. Site reliability is still a regular issue (my perception is this is due to both infrastructure problem and show stopping application bugs). 2. Bad UX practices that get implemented that are doc…

> I am not judging the individuals that work at reddit

I'm sure you don't mean to, but as an FYI, when you say:

> It amazes me the kind of sheer incompetency their product team has demonstrated

It does sound like you're judging the individuals.

I totally agree with everything you said in this post, I just think the way to couch it is not by seeming to attack the competency of people who have business pressures / goals. Just my two cents.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#413

Post by craftinator »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #364
ethbro wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser is a client that works for the user (well, Google, Apple, and Microsoft muddy the waters). The mobile app is a program that works for the developer. The end result of browsers becoming more adtech-hostile and user-friendly is that more companies turn to mobile apps.

I can understand a developer/company wanting to do the app route to regain control (and not having to deal with the annoying inconsistencies/hacks in different browsers/versions), but is ad / tracker blocking really the major driver of going the app route?

Yes. If data can be captured to apply targeted ads, each ad can be worth 2-5x as much to the company. Browser compatibility issues occur sometimes, but mobile device compatibility are always an issue for my apps. It's actually more work keeping an app working smoothly than a website, and the cost must be offset by the ad revenues

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#414

Post by dmode »

jhall1468 wrote: post #37
collyw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can be immediately connected with the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic people on virtually any subject I care about. Politics on Reddit seems to fall into either The_Donald or "Orange man bad" with very little objectivity in the middle in my experience.

/r/politics is fairly left-leaning by US standards, while The_Donald and /r/conservative are hardly about politics anymore. Furthermore, I'd say on a global scale /r/politics is pretty much dead middle, while subreddits like /r/latestagecapitalism represent the far left. Frankly, Democrats are being pulled to the left by the progressives and Republicans went hard right years ago with the tea party, so the reason ther…

T_D is about basement dwellers and Russian bots displaying their idiotic meme skills

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#415

Post by ethbro »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #364
ethbro wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser is a client that works for the user (well, Google, Apple, and Microsoft muddy the waters). The mobile app is a program that works for the developer. The end result of browsers becoming more adtech-hostile and user-friendly is that more companies turn to mobile apps.

I can understand a developer/company wanting to do the app route to regain control (and not having to deal with the annoying inconsistencies/hacks in different browsers/versions), but is ad / tracker blocking really the major driver of going the app route?

I'd say the worry is not just ad / tracker blocking, but loss of control.

Apple decides to start notifying on cookies or make fingerprinting harder? Poof. There goes a chunk of your ad value per user.

And who knows what any given browser vendor will do tomorrow?

Some would say "So it's like the 90s, where everyone was continually adapting as web specs were negotiated." The difference is that now there are billion+ dollar businesses directly tied to that ad revenue.

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#417

Post by therealdrag0 »

urda wrote: post #355
anonytrary wrote: post #120

The HackerNews community is more appreciative of these problems than Reddit's. But Reddit will suffer from the same problems that Facebook and Twitter suffer from, if not already. Reddit users are easily manipulated by engineered content and engineering content on Reddit is not hard if you know what you're doing. Evidently, there are power-users on Reddit (e.g. /u/GallowBoob) who know exactly how Reddit ticks and can…

Blocking /u/GallowBoob did nothing but improve my reddit experience.

I've seen this comment more recently. I just thought he was a notorious reposter. What specifically is bad about him? (I often don't mind reposts when it's a first time for me..)

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#418

Post by tinco »

Reddit isn't worth $3B, and management trying to justify the validation and provide returns to the investors will kill it. Just a quick peek on `/r/beta` will show you the weird things Reddit is doing to maximize value and how it is alienating users.

Unobtrusive ads don't make investors enough money, Facebook has already shown that. To derive maximum revenue per user, you need to drive your users to the edge of not enjoying the site anymore. With these investments Reddit will be walking that line, and who knows if Reddit is too big to digg?

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#419

Post by irrational »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #232
arcticfox wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've totally broken "quarantined" subreddits as well. I used to occasionally visit /r/watchpeopledie as a reminder of my own mortality and some of the horrors of the world, but apparently NSFW wasn't enough for people visiting "watchpeopledie" to realize they might see something bad. So they "quarantined" it, which actually means totally breaking it, in my browser at least. RIP. Discussion by others here [0] "I'm…

Yeah the horde of edgelords in WPD totally isn't one of the reasons the sub got quarantined. Gore will always be considered shock content, but the comments in WPD are almost always downright repulsive.

Dare I ask what an edgelord is?

Re: Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation

#420

Post by qgsrw3fd »

Deimorz wrote: post #223
replicatorblog wrote: post #14

It might soon be time for The Oatmeal to add a new panel to his famous "Digg vs. Reddit" cartoon: https://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter_2012/reddit_digg I love Reddit and have no problem with this move in principle, though I do wish there was at least one social platform that would try to follow the Craigslist ethos and stay "proudly independent." I'm not a big believer in crypto, but Reddit seems like one of th…

> I do wish there was at least one social platform that would try to follow the Craigslist ethos and stay "proudly independent." I worked at reddit for 4 years, but quit in 2016, largely because they were clearly beginning to switch from a small, fairly independent company (despite being owned by Advance/Conde) to one that was going to become completely dependent on venture capital and I knew what that would end up d…

Do you have any screenshots of what the website looks like? I'm curious. I'm not asking you to make them just for me, I want to know if they already exist. If they don't and you don't want to make them, that's fine.
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