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Comment by foolfoolz | Hacker News Reader

none of this will have any impact. the subs need reddit as much as reddit needs them. collectively sure the subs can control reddit; for a short time. but new ones will appear. and the subs make money by being online so none of them will risk pledging more than 2 days

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There is no tech secret sauce to reddit. Reddit is a good experience because of unpaid moderators who care a lot. There is a reason quality of content on reddit is higher than similar websites like quora.

There is SOME secret sauce. The admins _do_ play a crucial role. The history plays a role.

Everyone says this about reddit and Twitter and yet it's still not true that twitter has been replaced in spite of the shit show going on there.

The various alternative reddits that have popped up in the past prove the tech stack isn't complex. Their lack of user adoption shows that the secret sauce is the userbase, not the tech.

>Reddit is a good experience because of unpaid moderators who care a lot.

Arguably they care too much, and a bit of humbling will be good for Reddit. If the powermods had their way Aimee Challenor would still be working for the site.

Moderators aren't paid though, why would they be risking any money?

How do the subs make money on reddit?

I've seen some pin posts from sponsors. Eg advertising for SaaS apps.

Can you share a link to an example? I've been using reddit for a decade, I've never seen anything so blatant (unless it's a sub dedicated to a specific product).

I can’t find one now, but it was in the e-commerce merchant space, promoting a Shopify app. I thought “interesting”, I hadn’t thought of it before.

I think most people who run sub-reddits don't make meaningful income from the platform. Yes, one could advertise certain things, but it is rarer in larger communities.

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