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Comment by dempsey | Hacker News Reader

Not sure I agree with the Marketplace angle. Ads are fine but forcing everyone into the app is odd. Will ios14 change any of that?

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Reddit has pathetic ad revenue per user versus every other social media platform. Part of this is likely due to anonymous users that they lack data on for proper targeting. This is their attempt to "fix" that.

I would think that Reddit would have an advantage here in some ways. As an advertiser, instead of trying to pick interests of a general population, you can just pick specific subreddits.

If a store sells geeky/sci-fi clothing and gifts then I found it is way better to just target anyone that visits /r/startrek and some other relevant subreddits. No need to build profiles on users.

I found Facebook to be a lot harder to accurately target users as you are relying on Facebook's profile of a user. I got a lot more reach, but much less conversion.

Or based on a user’s subscribed subreddits.

It makes sense - there will be greater revenue for a few years maybe, in which time the team/product VP responsible would have been promoted. By the time the site culture/userbase dies (maybe in 5 years) these people would be long gone. Maybe even the higher management don't care about a timeline longer than 5 years tbh.

The true management (ie: stock holders) wants to exist at some point. There's talk of an IPO this year in which case they just want to pump up the numbers and hold things stable for another year before they can sell their stock.

What advantages does a user account have over anonymous session ids? User accounts survive users clearing cookies, but I doubt users clear their cookies often enough for that to be a problem.

Mobile browsers wipe cookies, users switch devices, multiple computers, etc.

Facebook has over a decade of data on its users, no session id will match that.

edit: Also knowing users emails will allows advertisers to match the reddit accounts to their own data stores on users.

Anyone feel like this is their Digg pivot?

I really hate that Reddit insists on you using an app. I tried to share a Reddit post with some friends recently who aren’t on that platform. To my dismay they reported that they couldn’t see the post at all because of the GET THE REDDIT APP in your face bull feathers they were presented with. Reddit, you are a website. I want to use my normal browser tabs to use you, not your app. Please make it web-first.

Why must every app monetize through ads? Why can't they provide features worth paying for?

I think you kind of answer your own question. Social media is just a gossip page on steroids. None of their features are worth paying for; at least, not enough people are willing to pay for it. They realized given showing ads and charging customers, showing ads probably generates 10x revenue for them. Plus, what's to stop another person to offer a free reddit clone?

People pay for junk food all the time. Maybe internet companies are being too greedy and they are pricing themselves incorrectly.

Would you pay $2 USD for all of reddit for a year? How many users does reddit have? It'd probably be a lot of money, but not super profitable. Hence they use adds because they won't shift on price.

They've never tried generating revenue from other meaningful features.

A marketplace would have a very real value for users.

And it would create a much better moat.

Ring, ring. Revenue team, call for you from Cambridge Analytica on line one!

The alternative monetization model is usually subscriptions / freemium features. These don't usually work out for social media sites as people are not willing to pay for user generated content, and the main draw is the content itself so freemium features are usually not high-value enough. Thus, the only remaining viable model is ads.

That's one of the things I suggest. Copy Patreon. They've shown that users are willing to pay for "user generated content"

Isn't that basically Medium?

(Can't reply to the other comment)

> Reddit has 10x the traffic because it's free.

Reddit acquired more traffic because it's free, true. But now, they aren't looking to acquire more traffic. They're looking for more revenue.

One way to get that revenue is to allow already existing content creators to charge for a part of the content.

I think that would not only encourage better content but would bring in other users and generate good revenue.

> One way to get that revenue is to allow already existing content creators to charge for a part of the content.

Brave can do that for reddit and other social media sites now [1]

[1] https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030752872-Whi...

Reddit's model is based on unpaid moderators managing most of the site. There's already controversy around a few moderators controlling all the large communities, karma farming and behind the scenes deals. Introducing money into the mix will just result in even more abuse as moderators try to take their own cut. It's a very messy eco-system that money will just make even messier.

And Substack. And Reddit has 10x their traffic.

Reddit has 10x the traffic because it's free.

> moderators

I suggest to compensate creators not moderators.

Reddit moderators do not support self-promotion [1]. They won't moderate posts where OP is being paid and they aren't.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/6bj5de/state_of_sp...

If you think moderators won't take advantage of their position to get a cut of that money then you're living in fantasy land. Or just sell their accounts to others who will do that.

Because coming up with features worth paying for is very, very hard. Which ad-free apps do you currently pay for?

I pay for several things that make me money. If Reddit added features that let their users make money they'd be able to charge for them.

Because no one pays?

Users pay for marketplace features for anything from handmade bird houses to used underwear.

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