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Reddit acquires ML startup Spell

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Re: Reddit acquires ML startup Spell

#51

Video player fixes? Nope. Search being an open joke? Not going to even look at it. Purchase a few ML people? Oh that will surely increase our valuation. Do something about toxic supermods? That's a feature.

They somehow managed to make the video player worse recently by removing quality selection and having only "auto" that drops down to 1 FPS 240p on a gigabit pipe with no issues anywhere else. Pretty impressive.

Re: Reddit acquires ML startup Spell

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now they are floating on viral momentum. They are a few stupid decisions and one neat alternative away from going the way of Digg.

I worked at Reddit for several years in the past - if anything, they have the exact opposite of viral momentum: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1360263618508521480?lang=en I do agree on the neat alternative piece, but all of the ones that have come up in the past had some sort of flaw (or in some cases deliberate slower growth) that caused them not to go viral (Voat, Tildes, etc)

That may be true, but here's some context to that:

https://imgur.com/a/6le18xj

The blue line (reddit) does indeed keep going up. But it's barely noticable compared to the red (facebook).

Re: Reddit acquires ML startup Spell

#53
post #21
post #9

Reddit should prioritize their site working on the browser. Clicking a nested thread seems to crash whatever browser I use 1/10th of the time, the videos never work, and the time it takes to open a thread is almost unbelievable in 2022. (Never mind the times it won’t let me view content without the app.)

Reddit has an odd strategy. I have Apollo on my phone, which is a great Reddit app that doesn’t have ads. Sometimes, I go to Reddit in Safari out of habit. The experience is so terrible, that it forces me to go from the website, which has ads, to Apollo, which doesn’t. The performance of the mobile website is absolutely terrible as well. It’s like they’re trying to make a garbage website.

They are trying to make a garbage website. Most of their users use adblock, so they're trying to funnel you onto an app. They'll probably ban 3rd party apps at some point, then they can serve all their mobile users ads.

Re: Reddit acquires ML startup Spell

#54

This acquisition is...unusual. I strongly suspect it's not a 10x exit. (last raised $15M in 2019: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/spell ) Reddit obviously has the data for robust machine learning, but not sure how an experiments-management startup aligns with it unless it's an acquihire.

This is the only explanation that makes sense. This strategy in general seems a bit short-sighted though. I suspect engineer retention is going to drop off a cliff after whatever acquisition bonuses have paid off.

Re: Reddit acquires ML startup Spell

#56
post #21
post #9

Reddit should prioritize their site working on the browser. Clicking a nested thread seems to crash whatever browser I use 1/10th of the time, the videos never work, and the time it takes to open a thread is almost unbelievable in 2022. (Never mind the times it won’t let me view content without the app.)

Reddit has an odd strategy. I have Apollo on my phone, which is a great Reddit app that doesn’t have ads. Sometimes, I go to Reddit in Safari out of habit. The experience is so terrible, that it forces me to go from the website, which has ads, to Apollo, which doesn’t. The performance of the mobile website is absolutely terrible as well. It’s like they’re trying to make a garbage website.

Amplosion + Open In Apollo extension "On"

Never see Reddit's website on mobile ever again

Re: Reddit acquires ML startup Spell

#58
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do something about toxic supermods I got banned for a year from Armenia sub for criticizing an Armenian politician from the ruling party (who has been involved in a bunch of corruption scandals, including fake companies winning tenders under his grandma's name). The country subs, especially in post-USSR space, are run by ruling party representatives who tolerate zero dissent.

Shadowbanned (through automoderator) from all Dutch subs (same clique of moderators) for no apparent reason and mods won't even respond to my messages. Apparently I'm far from the only one this has happened to. If Reddit doesn't do itself in it'll be the moderators ruining their own communities.

Banned from GreenAndPleasant for hinting that trans charities weren't more important than regular charities

Re: Reddit acquires ML startup Spell

#60
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment they kill/break old.reddit.com is the moment I quit reddit for good Unless they magically release a not horrible new UI, which I'm not holding my breath for

Likewise. It's probably the worst web UI I currently know of. Whatever team designed and implemented it should really feel bad about themselves and their work, it's unnecessarily bad, as if they were trying to make a shitty UI. I will happily stop using reddit if they kill old.reddit.com

I agree. If I ever actually meet the designers or team responsible for it I would seriously question their abilities. This includes if I saw it on someone's resume or in their portfolio. Even with the current state of web UI, the new reddit UI is astoundingly bad.
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