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The design is fine, but you can't make money by showing ads to a bunch of anonymous users and non-logged in visitors. Hence the dickbar for mobile users. Reddit have big investors now, and they are under pressure to monetize. Unfortunately their ad product is garbage, and the Reddit audience is notoriously ad-unfriendly.

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I could be wrong, but doesn't reddit make most of its money (which probably isn't that much) selling awards? It seems dumb to me, but people buy them.

That's like the concession stand for a sports team. It makes them some money, but nothing close to what they'd expect to bring in through a proper ad service.

Sure, I realize they want to make money on ads like facebook, but the reality is (admittedly I could be wrong) they make more on those trophy awards. It seems to have a lot to do with why they struggle to make a profit and go public.

dickbar is my new favorite word.

It was coined in 2011 by John Gruber: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/03/06/dickbar

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