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

techcrunch.com

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

#711

Post by rswail »

[deleted] wrote: post #589
HNLurker2 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate more about the part of being messy? Is it really like the open sourced of lobste.rs with messy code that just works? Also I am sorry for your job experience.

[deleted]

No comment on the internal management issues, but why is drug use considered an issue unless it is in the work environment? I'm really sick of people thinking that "drugs" are bad, while alcohol/tobacco are not.

If someone's substance use is affecting their work, then that's a legit issue. Otherwise it's as irrelevant as which (if any) football team they support.

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

#712

Post by joejerryronnie »

maceurt wrote: post #700
yesco wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're definitely right about this, the fact that even /r/4chan isn't quarantined despite the content of it's comment section tells you everything you need to know. WPD had very strict rules imposed before the quarantine occurred and the comments weren't nearly as bad as one would expect. Frankly I think it's obvious that the entire point of quarantines is to hide away the content Reddit doesn't want advertisers to s…

I remember just last year r/4chan literally had a picture of an overweight woman drinking a big gulp getting fucked doggy style by a man covered in blood with a caption "I have evolved" as the background to their subreddit. 4chan regularly got to the frontpage of reddit and many posts were not marked nsfw. Reddit should have done something about that subreddit years ago, because that could actually turn new users off…

Big Gulps are very disturbing. I mean, why would you not just spend the extra 10 cents for a Super Big Gulp?

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

#713

Post by alasdair_ »

maceurt wrote: post #701
slg wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The binary SFW/NSFW designation is also a problem. First there is the difference between NSFW text and NSFW visuals. You will see plenty of text posts on Reddit labeled as NSFW because they include a dirty joke, talk about sex, or includes something incredibly un-PC. When it comes to visuals, there is a big difference with how comfortable people are with sex vs violence (NSFW/NSFL). Some people would be happy to see…

I don't know how reddit even operates while having subreddits dedicated to hardcore pornography and extreme gore and violence on the same domain as sfw subreddits. Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, do not allow those type of things for a reason, because once young children start using the site and the parents/ media find out what their kids could be looking at, their is a large amount of outrage. Reddit seems to…

Reddit definitely had that problem in the past. As an example they had a “jailbait” forum which they only took down when CNN ran a long story about it at primetime.

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

#714

Post by newsbinator »

vvillena wrote: post #581
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're more effective on a non-technical user-base where a larger fraction of users are unaware or less aware of those techniques.

Psychological techniques tend to work no matter whether we are aware of them or not. Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, fast and slow" explains why this happens, with lots of examples. It's a great read.

I'd argue that's hard to measure.

Can you convince a subset of doctors to go anti-vaxx as easily as you can a randomly sampled subset of laymen?

I suspect much of the readership of HN isn't only aware of dark patterns, but actively primed to recoil from them.

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

#716

Post by [deleted] »

deminature wrote: post #286
benbristow wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If their API is killed I think Reddit's done for. I wouldn't use it if I were forced to use the official app myself, sure many others wouldn't either. Folk would probably move over to something like voat.co

Voat is appalling and revels in its terribleness. There has to be something better to migrate to.

[deleted]

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

#717

Post by acct1771 »

EnFinlay wrote: post #2

Fun, I deleted my 9 year old account last night. It's wasn't out of some high-minded thing about how they're turning more into Facebook or privacy or anything. That site just hits my dopamine so effectively I had to quit and block it in my /etc/hosts. I am spending more time on HN though...

It's better this way.

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

#718

Post by [deleted] »

Guest10928391 wrote: post #585
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an attempt a few years ago to do just this. Remember Imzy? If the answer is "no," you're probably not alone; it shut down after only two years of operation. They didn't have any of the problems that we're discussing here, as far as I remember. (Personally, I suspect its extremely weird and confusing UX design was at least part of what did it in; I found its navigation so baffling I gave up pretty quickly.)

If I remember right, you couldn't see any content on Imzy without creating an account. I assume that instantly turned away over 90% of the users. Then, their design was extremely childish, and it looked like a safe place for kids, rather than a site for adults to socialize. I think they did a really poor job at understanding the market, and I'm not surprised they failed. https://i.imgur.com/9uzaciS.png

[deleted]

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

#719

Post by shay_ker »

komali2 wrote: post #39
minimaxir wrote: post #16

I've been a fan of Reddit for a very long time (as the amount of data science work I've done with their data can attest to), but lately it seems like the incentives between Reddit as a business and Reddit as a community leader are not aligned, and that is a problem. The increasing amount of dark patterns Reddit has been employing lately is concerning. (recent example: Reddit now gates content in mobile Safari to push…

Re: "Download the app!" gates, banners, etc. Medium does this too. Why? What's the business reason? What does a native app provide the business that a mobile website doesn't?

Biz reason: No adblock, push notifications

Product reason: (potentially) better ux/design, but obviously a lot of people think they went down the wrong route

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

#720

Post by socratesque »

GordonS wrote: post #93
minimaxir wrote: post #16

I've been a fan of Reddit for a very long time (as the amount of data science work I've done with their data can attest to), but lately it seems like the incentives between Reddit as a business and Reddit as a community leader are not aligned, and that is a problem. The increasing amount of dark patterns Reddit has been employing lately is concerning. (recent example: Reddit now gates content in mobile Safari to push…

2 things about Reddit's "use our app instead!" buttons: 1. They cycle through a couple of different messages, and the buttons get switched around 2. The wording is such that you read it twice and still aren't sure which button will just take you to the damn website I don't mind them promoting their app, but these dark patterns truely rile me

A good rule of thumb in these situations is to go for the hard-to-see button.
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