Seeing a lot of hate and schadenfreude over spez and what he’s doing with Reddit.
I feel this is really uncalled for.
What no one seems to understand is that Reddit is unprofitable.
You know what happens to unprofitable tech companies? Think of Geocities shutting down. How many great websites, how many communities were lost?
I can see that spez is trying the best he can to save Reddit. He was one of the original founders. This is his baby. He doesn’t want to see it die.
His plan is clear to me.
Reddit is getting too much traffic. It’s too big and has too many users, moderators, and communities.
So this means Reddit needs a lot of employees. Someone asked why Reddit needs 2000 employees? Well, where do you think the admins come from? I bet most of them are the hardworking admins who form the bridge between Reddit and the communities.
Since Reddit is so big, perhaps too big, it’s hard for them to be profitable. Opportunity cost on users using third party apps means that Reddit has to charge them high prices to make up for lost ads revenue. That’s unavoidable.
Okay, sure, maybe some third party apps will agree to run ads in return for lower rates or something. That can work.
Reddit doesn’t have an existing way to feed ads to third party apps. I’m don’t have experience in that field but I bet developing something like that takes a lot of time. It’s also uncertain as Reddit may spend many long months, if not years, developing a way to serve ads to third party apps only to find no takers. Too big a risk.
Remember, the IPO is supposed to happen later this year. Not enough time to develop it and do it right.
So he has no choice but to go in hard against the third party apps. They pay up and make up the cost. If they can’t, then they die. Sucks to be them. Their users go to the official app, and get the ads from Reddit. Revenue is saved.
Maybe they don’t. Maybe those users quit Reddit altogether. This means less traffic, so fewer expenses for Reddit. Less expenses meas more revenue. Revenue is saved again.
Moderators quit? No problem. Reddit will find new ones or replace them with admins.
Not enough moderators? No problem. Reddit can shutdown the smallest communities that bring in the least revenue. Admins can run the biggest ones.
Section 230? No problem. Reddit adds a new review required mode. Maybe this already exists. Every thread posted is hidden until an admin reviews and approves it. Same for every comment on a thread. This way they can make sure there is no libel or copyright infringement or any other issues before approving.
Need too many admins to review and approve things timely? No problem. Charge users to be able to jump the queue. Those who do not want to pay up then just need to suffer wait times of many months or even years before they can get reviewed and approved.
Less traffic means they need fewer admins. Fewer employees. More layoffs. A more profitable Reddit.
It absolutely sucks that the moderation tools are not ready yet and moderators have to suffer. It sucks worse that those with accessibility needs have fewer options now.
Would it not be worse if Reddit dies altogether? Think about losing those communities. You can’t talk to the folks you used to in your subreddits. You have no way to go back and see your own threads, or the useful advice from fellow members of your community. It’s all gone.
I have already been through this several times. It hurt to lose Geocities. All MySpace content also gone.
Do YOU want to be responsible for this happening again?!!!
Please do not let this happen again. Please help spez save Reddit.
Give Reddit time. Let spez save Reddit and turn it into a money-maker. Once he does this and Reddit is no longer in danger of being shut down for being unprofitable, then Reddit will have breathing room to solve these issues. A profitable Reddit with a successful IPO will have more cash to spend on recreating the lost moderator tools and accessibility features from third party apps.
FIrst Reddit must manage to survive.
Because Reddit is on it’s death throws now.
Because there’s no way spez would destroy the trust he’s built with the Reddit communities. Unless it is the only way to save the soul of Reddit.
This is why Reddit and spez must win.
P.S. Reddit and spez winning does not mean that we have to lose. If Reddit wins and becomes profitable then the communities are saved. There will be no Geocities or MySpace loss. At the same time a lot of moderators and users who are upset at being monetized will come here. Our communities here will be enriched by this and will continue to grow and blossom. Everybody wins! We can all be winners here!
The lesson from GeoCities, MySpace, Yahoo Groups, etc. and now Reddit is that you can’t depend on a large corporation to host your content indefinitely.
Correct, the dilemma isn’t profitability or oblivion. The correct answer is not to play. Don’t be corporate.
Sure, there are still costs associated with running a federated instance, but the scale allows other solutions. Non-profits, co-ops, publicly funded, or just self hosted.
I’m sure Reddit will be fine, money will be generated for shareholders, etc. I just won’t be there any more. Same with a lot of you here.
Perhaps you are right. Even so, even in that case, I wish to delay the end from coming for as long as possible. Avoid breaking up and fragmenting the communities for as long as possible. Prevent the irreversible loss of users’ content for as long as possible. Pushing Reddit’s focus away from profitability to means making the same choice as GeoCities did. To die.
The thing is (IMHO), fediverse communities are spread but they are not « fragmented ». That’s the beauty of it, no matter where they are, they’re not isolated from each other.
Forever it’s been like that, even before the internet. Communities come and go, and seeing them go can be sad… but when hosted centrally by large corporations, maybe those communities were not at a healthy place. In that case, the place dies, the communities go someplace else, I do hope they go to a healthy place like the fediverse, and they can live « prosper » (socially instead of financially)?
I am no opponent to the fediverse communities. I am here after all am I not?
I just think that there is room for all of us. KBin, Tildes, Squables, community.win, and yes even Reddit. Why can we not all win?
This can only happen in two cases. The fediverse has many instances and thus can survive a single instance going mad, for lack of a better term. The guy behind Tildes seems like a nice enough fella, so he’d fit the other mold - benevolent dictator. I know less about Squables but assume for the same of argument it’s the same thing.
Reddit’s CEO has shown that he’s a dictator, but not the benevolent kind. So why does he and his company deserve anymore help from us? Why not put our efforts into places where we will be treated and respected better.