Should Reddit allow Startups on it's Platform?

Creating an account dedicated to a startup will get the startup banned from Reddit. I know this because I've tried. I didn't realize this was a rule and tried sharing my startup (RentZed) with InternetIsBeautiful Subreddit. It is a website where users can post and view rent prices, like a Glassdoor for Rents. The post got a lot of traction with 200k views and 1.5k upvotes within 8 hours and lots of comments asking questions about it and some saying how helpful this could be. I then got banned for having an account dedicated to my startup because I made 3 other posts about it in other subreddits.

I've tried using other social media platforms to share the site but haven't had much success. It seems pretty difficult to navigate other social media algorithms starting from 0 compared to Reddit.

As a user of Reddit, I really don't care if a startup makes a post or comment on Reddit. In fact, I'd like to see startups do this so it's easier for me to learn about their services in case I ever want to utilize them.

I'm curious if anyone else even knows about this rule and what they think of it.

- Reddit has ads, and they want companies to buy ads on the platform instead of posting them for free. - Reddit has a rule that max 10% of your posts can be self-promotion; i.e. they want people to contribute back to the community. - There is some hypocrisy in the fact that you'll get banned if you admit that you're the creator, but if you pose as a real person who liked the website it's not against the rules.

I got permabanned from the subreddit and then I tried a second time on my main account in the hopes of getting a second chance and that got both accounts banned for a few days, then I tried going to some other subreddits and sharing the site on a few other alt accounts and they caught me and I am now permabanned from Reddit, Lol. I'm pretty sure they have my IP and stuff on a blacklist at this point.

It’s a rule that spamming your startup is not appreciated by many communities. Especially once is has been removed, do not insist. Some Reddit communities are about startups, and will enjoy your posts. Though you will unlikely convert these users into customers.

You can read the Reddiquette:

> Feel free to post links to your own content (within reason). But if that's all you ever post, or it always seems to get voted down, take a good hard look in the mirror — you just might be a spammer. A widely used rule of thumb is the 9:1 ratio, i.e. only 1 out of every 10 of your submissions should be your own content.

https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddi...

> So lets be honest about what really occurred - you spammed.

Is that really the case?

I view reasonable and fully disclosed self-promotion as qualitatively different than spam and something that should be treated differently. Even HN makes this distinction by having a show section where self-promotion is allowed, but still blocking random spam.

Here's an example of self-promotion: "Hi, I'm Joe, the founder of Flextape. Watch me saw this oil tanker in half. Environmental disaster? No, we have flextape. Bam, good as new! Ask me anything."

Here's an example of spam: "These viagra pills are the best. Cheapest price! Send $69 they send you big box today!"

Now, I can understand that some communities don't want to allow self-promotion and might block self-promotional posts. But I'm not sure that treating an honest entrepreneur the same as a viagra spammer with a site-wide ban is the right approach for Reddit.