Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#51

Post by lazyjones » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:18 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #32

ics wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I confirm that reddit is not profitable." Yishan Wong, CEO [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/CrazyIdeas/comments/1i7crj/antigold_... [2] http://blog.reddit.com/2013/08/reddit-myth-busters_6.html

I would find it incredibly strange if reddit is never able to make money. I don't think they are really trying at the moment. Reddit is an incredibly valuable service. Maybe a lot of people on Hacker News don't see this, but reddit has basically become the Geocities of online discussion communities. The subreddit system has eliminated the "eternal september" problem, since all non-casual users will trickle into the c…

> * I don't think they are really trying at the moment.*

I can - sort of - confirm they are not trying hard. Last time I tried to advertise on Reddit, I failed because they could not accept CC payments from mainland Europe ... Just think of all the ad revenue they are losing.

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#52

Post by billybob255 » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

jlouis wrote: post #48

diminish wrote: post #7

I am curious how much a Go lang rewrite would make a difference in scaling up.

It depends how much time is spent doing computation and how much time is spent doing lookups from disk. If the latter is clearly dominating, then a switch to Go will not help much.

I read a comment from one of the sysadmins (alienth?) saying their main bottlenecks were I/O.

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#53

Post by jedberg » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:04 PM UTC

billb2112 wrote: post #42

"ask me anything about running a profitable social media company". Except for that reddit is not profitable. http://blog.reddit.com/2013/08/reddit-myth-busters_6.html http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1ihwy8/rathe...

Funny story about that. When we were owned by Conde, the accounting was a little different (they took on some of the charges, like Akamai), and so we were actually told we were slightly profitable.

When that blog post went up I was as surprised as you to see it wasn't profitable when I was there.

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#54

Post by jedberg » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:05 PM UTC

grandpoobah wrote: post #39

Reddit still uses Pylons, and I imagine moving to Pyramid would be very painful. He's not clear on this in the video.

I don't think I made any indications one way or another, but yes, it would probably be difficult to move.

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#55

Post by jedberg » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:05 PM UTC

OGC wrote: post #11

Reddit's not profitable though..

I wrote this just above but I'll repeat it here:

Funny story about that. When we were owned by Conde, the accounting was a little different (they took on some of the charges, like Akamai), and so we were actually told we were slightly profitable.

When that blog post went up I was as surprised as you to see it wasn't profitable when I was there.

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#56

Post by gargoiler00 » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:15 PM UTC

Keyframe wrote: post #33

gargoiler00 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time they shared, they were spending ridiculous amounts of money on Amazon ec2 a month. Like ridiculous amounts. Someday, the money will run out, and they'll have to try and turn a profit. Their business model is fundamentally bad.

If those outdated figures of ~$50k/month are true, I wonder if they could move to their own infrastructure or dedicated and turn some of those savings into getting from red to black.

That wouldn't address the lack of a sustainable business model.

Being a forum where low wage/students/anti-corporate/anti-advertising types go and share memes is the elephant in the room problem.

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#57

Post by danilocampos » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:21 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #53

billb2112 wrote: post #42

"ask me anything about running a profitable social media company". Except for that reddit is not profitable. http://blog.reddit.com/2013/08/reddit-myth-busters_6.html http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1ihwy8/rathe...

Funny story about that. When we were owned by Conde, the accounting was a little different (they took on some of the charges, like Akamai), and so we were actually told we were slightly profitable. When that blog post went up I was as surprised as you to see it wasn't profitable when I was there.

But weren't you "deeply involved in the business?"

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#58

Post by jedberg » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:23 PM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #57

jedberg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story about that. When we were owned by Conde, the accounting was a little different (they took on some of the charges, like Akamai), and so we were actually told we were slightly profitable. When that blog post went up I was as surprised as you to see it wasn't profitable when I was there.

But weren't you "deeply involved in the business?"

Yes. What point are you trying to make?

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#59

Post by raldi » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:27 PM UTC

gargoiler00 wrote: post #56

Keyframe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those outdated figures of ~$50k/month are true, I wonder if they could move to their own infrastructure or dedicated and turn some of those savings into getting from red to black.

That wouldn't address the lack of a sustainable business model. Being a forum where low wage/students/anti-corporate/anti-advertising types go and share memes is the elephant in the room problem.

Just because reddit has a lot of anticorporate types doesn't mean they don't also have a lot of pro-corporate types, too.

For example, I wouldn't be surprised if the Internet's largest right-wing community turned out to be one of the subreddits.

Re: Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion – Pitfalls and Lessons [video]

#60

Post by gargoiler00 » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:27 PM UTC

chroem wrote: post #23

gargoiler00 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look back in time. Read up on other things that had a massive userbase, but were unsustainable. Checkup alladvantage - they paid people to surf. Had millions of users, but ultimately failed because their "business model" was idiotic. Getting millions of users is pretty easy if you pay them to be a user. Someday though, it's only worthwhile if you can build a sustainable business which at least doesn't lose money hand…

That was more of a general statement than a comment specifically on reddit's position. I can make millions of dollars selling condom wrappers, but just because I have made millions of dollars does not mean that I have done something important. I may catch quite a bit of hate for this, but a large portion of HN's content is on things that make money, but are not truly important.

I think the mantra from the startup community is often:

1. Make money doing whatever it takes. eg come up with some crappy website, sell it to google, then shut it down. 2. The money problem is solved! 3. Spend money solving world hunger, diseases, philanthropy.

Which IMHO is pretentious BS.