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Comment by zbentley | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't follow at all. There are all sorts of insanely popular websites which have significant monetization issues (think tumblr, wikipedia).

Just because lots of people use something doesn't make them willing to pay for it, and it doesn't make a platform inherently monetizable.

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Any attempt at monetization through the "normal" means, such as increasing the number of ads or selling user data, would completely undermine the things that make Reddit such a valuable site. We've already seen a few examples of Reddit moving toward a more legitimate, financially viable social media model, and each one of those moves has been met with significant backlash. It seems that they're in a lose-lose situation: either run out of money to keep the site running, or lose all their users.

I thought Wikipedia doesn’t have monetization issues, but maybe things have changed? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/cash_rich_wikipedia...

Indeed, also not everybody is trying to squeeze money out of their user base regardless of costs (to popularity, principles...).

Reddit gold, the new Reddit platinum and bronze, they already show ads, redesign shows ads much more prominently. Literally dozens of ad trackers when you load their site.

Reddit is just as much of a profit driven company as Facebook or Twitter, I’m not sure why you’d think otherwise.

> Reddit is just as much of a profit driven company as Facebook or Twitter, I’m not sure why you’d think otherwise.

Because, among other things, they don't show annoying ad formats and don't demand real names and phone numbers from their users.

Yet :)

We'll see. Meanwhile, the old design is still available and not burdened with lots of trackers.

Their old design totally loads ad trackers...

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