Reddit raises $410M in new funding • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#421

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:39 AM UTC

Shorel wrote: post #234

ruined wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

digg died fifteen years ago. clearly a lot has changed, and the mistakes that killed digg have not been made. and i think reddit is beyond the point at which a digg-style fuckup could kill them. at worst you might see cadres of ideological users depart for something like lemmy, which is already happening to an extent, but there is a lot of space to flee internally, so most users don't feel the pressure. and diffusion…

The new HTML layout and the obnoxious mobile website are worse than what killed Digg, IMO. The difference is that when Digg made their mistakes, Reddit was there for the taking. Nowadays, there's no alternative to Reddit. All the new sites appear to be focused on hateful communities banned from Reddit, and that will never attract the mainstream.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#422

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:42 AM UTC

opinion-is-bad wrote: post #355

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m feeling bad for some unknown director at Reddit when their boss reads this thread.

Well, they are kind of failing at their job in a big way, likely costing the company billions of dollars in the process. I don’t feel that bad for them. 5% of other socials in revenue per user is comically bad.

Taking in $400M at this stage is already a pretty sure sign of failure and that they don't know how to run a business. Probably too many MBAs busy optimizing their career ascendancy to be concerned with pesky details like competently securing revenue streams. It's not that hard to show ads to self-selecting niche audiences.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#423

Post by nperez » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:42 AM UTC

xyzzy21 wrote: post #66

I was done with Reddit 3 years ago. I was on Reddit the first week they existed. No longer of any value!

It's been going downhill. There's not enough talk about its decline of original content. That's what it was known for in its earlier days. Now it's mostly recycled old memes, reposts of Tiktoks, and reposts of tweets.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#424

Post by SilverRed » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:47 AM UTC

toomim wrote: post #345

ramraj07 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chodi is like the Indian version of TheDonald so no wonder. Not that /r/India is neutral either. Stop going to politics subs and you’ll be fine?

The same thing happens on technology subs. I was banned on /r/bitcoin for posting on /r/btc.

Bitcoin and btc are politics subs though.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#425

Post by pcurve » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:47 AM UTC

1024core wrote: post #312

Reddit is on its way down. It's been overrun by power-tripping mods, and there's no way to appeal a perma-ban ! I've been banned from /r/india for just commenting on another sub (/r/chodi, which was recommended by the app itself!); banned from /r/worldnews for disagreeing with the herd. The moment a decent, democratic discussion forum comes along, I'll jump ship to it.

ArtisanVideos used to be my favorite until the mod unfairly banned me.

It took me a while just to figure out that I was banned. When I inquired, it was because because I posted videos that are spammy advertising, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Based on the response, it was clear that I was not dealing with someone in normal state so I just wrote it off as lost cause and stopped visiting.

I had already thought the sub was on decline due to aggressive and unnecessary policing, because despite its huge membership, the content has become very stagnant.

It's a shame because I've been on reddit for 10 years and I joined it the sub since its inception.

___

Looking at the sub now, it's clear that there was change in mod / ownership. https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtisanVideos/comments/oo7oxm/annou...

Quite unusual.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#426

Post by SilverRed » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:49 AM UTC

ndesaulniers wrote: post #361

tarr11 wrote: post #316

Every time I hit the back button on Reddit i get an error that says “something went wrong with this page” Every time i watch a video there it flashes and reloads at least two times before playing.

Don't try to scrub forward in a video in their player. In my experience, the video never loads.

Building a functional video player seems to be one of the hardest problems in web tech. Youtube and maybe Vimeo seem to be the only sites that have an actual functioning video player.

I guess you could use the browser built in one but you likely lose features like dynamically switching video quality.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#427

Post by stormdennis » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:51 AM UTC

I hate reddit with a passion though I still visit it. Largely a consequence of despite having clicked a thousand times on the greyed-out 'continue in browser' button I still get the "see reddit in" dialog take up half my screen every damn day I visit.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#428

Post by SilverRed » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:52 AM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #120

kiba wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what make reddit great. Certain reddit are heavily moderated and you get great content. If you don't like how moderation done, go start your own reddit.

> go start your own reddit. This is actually what makes reddit great, that anyone can start their own subreddit, mod it however they want, and compete with all the others based on the merits of its own content, community and moderation style.

I think the worst part is how things are silently removed. On many sites you get a message saying 'your content has been removed for violating rule x'. On reddit you almost always get nothing. Often you don't even get a ban message and will just be added to a shadow ban list so you end up wasting your time commenting but no one can see it.

There is a site that shows you your deleted comments[1] and its pretty shocking. I found out every single one of my comments in one sub had been auto deleted with the reason being I did not have any link karma (because I only comment). What a waste of time and it turns me off from the platform.

[1] www.reveddit.com

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#429

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:52 AM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #387

paxys wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a LOT standing in the way of monetization for Reddit: - younger user base (so less disposable income) - loose concept of user identity, so can't tailor ads - more corpoarate and mainstream advertisers tend to stay away due to the nature of the community and content shared - primary usage is on web rather than mobile apps All of these are fixable, but the question is can they do so without alienating their us…

Can't tailor ads? Loose concept of user identity? I would think having a list of every subreddit a user subscribes to would give you a good indication of what interests they have! But from reading this thread it sounds like Reddit makes it difficult to choose which subreddits you want to advertise to.

Don't forget the invasive data mining they get from the app and location tracking.

Re: Reddit raises $410M in new funding

#430

Post by potamic » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:56 AM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #332

warning26 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I'd say most of the hardcore Reddit users have both old.reddit as well as an Ad Blocker, so I'm guessing that slightly better ad configuration tools wouldn't adversely impact the longtime users too much. As for other users, they are already seeing incredibly random and irrelevant ads. Seeing actual photography themed ads on a photography themed forum doesn't seem that bad IMO (provided that they are clearly marke…

Naw. The new Reddit design is much nicer than the old. There, I said it. It is much easier to use. It took them a while to iron out the bugs but it is way better. Now their new mobile app video player… ho boy…..

Some things I think are objectively bad design -

1. Images open by default on my feed and videos and gifs autoplay as I scroll. It's a massive distraction. I'm trying to find content I might be interested in, but here I'm forced to scan pretty much every post out there.

2. On similar lines, showing a (cropped) summary for text posts. Again a distraction when you're trying to find content. The cropping makes it worse since you have to change the page after reading halfway through.

3. Having to click on view discussion to open the comments each time. This is a forum. The only reason I go there is to discuss.

4. Lack of borders for comments. It looks like one continuous feed and reduces grouping between individual comments.

5. Large avatars, icons on the reply bar compete for attention on every single comment. The reply bar on old reddit is so nicely blended away into the background. You don't see it unless you want to reply.

6. Hover popups on the large icons trigger unintentionally all the time. Very rarely do I need to see somebody's karma. What's the point of this feature even?

This is basis design considerations for a discussion forum. I completely understand where they are coming from though. They are not interested in this being a discussion forum. They want to optimize for post views. The more views a post gets, the more they will be able to monetize. Engaging in discussion is time consuming and that time could be better spent in viewing more posts.