Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 296 posts

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

#51

Post by Deimorz »

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #15
carboy wrote: post #3

I’m done with Reddit. It was a nice ride, but now it’s officially over. They’ve been trying to turn reddit into Facebook, a personal data vacuum, but now it’s going to get ugly. Considering the valuation, remaining as an unpaid moderator for a reddit sub, is absolutely crazy. Hopefully all the mods up and leave, nothing like letting others get rich from your free efforts.

While I think this is a little extreme, I understand fully the sentiment behind it. It's lamentable considering how simple the site is but there exist currently, no good alternatives! I suppose we can attribute that at least partly to the Network Effect. I've been tired of it since the front-end redesign; I grew weary of the dark patterns, the constant nagging to use their app when on mobile, the fact that my back bu…

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 doing to the site (which, like you mentioned, is manifesting through the redesign, the dark patterns, and so on). They've now taken $500M in VC since I left.

A few months later, I decided to start a non-profit with the goal of building a site that would actually be able to stick to its principles and address a lot of the issues that I think are hurting online communities: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes (HN discussion of the announcement here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17103093)

It's in private alpha and is still fairly small, but it focuses on higher-quality non-fluff content and discussions, and gets several hundred posts/comments a day. If you (or anyone else) is interested in an invite, please read the blog post I linked above and send me an email at the address listed in there and I'll be happy to give you one.

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

#53

Post by robertAngst »

djohnston wrote: post #17
sixQuarks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a 13-year reddit user. The quality of the site going down is simply a symptom of its popularity. Think how dumb the average joe is, then realize that 50% of the population is dumber than him. You can still find intelligent discussion on reddit, you just have to do a lot more work filtering.

not sure why you're being downvoted, you're exactly right. if hn got a user base the size of reddit's overnight, you can be sure the quality of discussions would similarly degrade. the same is true for every social network (digital or otherwise) i've ever been a part of.

HN has gotten worse since I started visiting ~2 years ago.

That said, still some of the best comments.

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

#54

Post by beginningguava »

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…

>erode away why HN is a gem of the internet

At this point HN isn't much more than a means for YC marketing their investments and job openings for their investments

Any actual attempt at discussion or debate ends up with flagged posts, warnings, and bans

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

#55

Post by lanevorockz »

77pt77 wrote: post #45
wiggler00m wrote: post #22

China now owns the front page of the internet.

Can you even browse reddit behind the great firewall?

Definitely not like in the west, user interaction tends to be very closely tracked. Although, China became a model that the EU is trying to copy.

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

#56

Post by brownkonas »

adtac wrote: post #39
farresito wrote: post #9

Maybe if they get another $300M round they will be able to afford some designers to fix the abomination that the current design is.

I think a few DNS records can fix their UI, don't need 300MM for that. Just make reddit.com the same as old.reddit.com.

The mobile app UI is fantastic IMHO. List is snappy, easy to perform upvote, downvote, comment.

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

#57

Post by rtpg »

derefr wrote: post #13
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…

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…

It’s kinda frustrating how recommendation systems on most of these sites are just broken. It recommends popular stuff instead of using this power to help “spread the love”, meaning you end up in a sort of monoculture of popular content.

I think it’s on tic-toc where they try to feature “new stuff” a lot more than just popular things, effectively helping along newer users. I know hello talk tries to do this too.

Popular users and content don’t need help! If these places used their power to point at more hidden gems in their content the entire system would feel healthier

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

#58

Post by gammateam »

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?

A broader perspective on the world

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

#59

Post by peteretep »

sixQuarks wrote: post #10
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 a 13-year reddit user. The quality of the site going down is simply a symptom of its popularity. Think how dumb the average joe is, then realize that 50% of the population is dumber than him. You can still find intelligent discussion on reddit, you just have to do a lot more work filtering.

I think you’re exactly on the money. Popularity + weak moderation policies. Happens to almost all communities. Eventually enough assholes show up who are accommodated that it stops being fun.

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

#60

Post by hprotagonist »

randlet wrote: post #38
curiousDog wrote: post #11

I'm probably a luddite but the new reddit ui is downright painful to use.

I use the "Old Reddit Redirect" FF add on which redirects all Reddit links to old.reddit.com which still uses the nicer old UI.

that, and apollo on iOS, and i forget that there is such a thing as the new UI at all.
Post reply on HN