Reddit pays an SF startup millions to analyse all shopping-related Reddit data
old.reddit.com
old.reddit.com
The users already paid for the service by looking at ads and buying prizes or whatever (not to mention all the free labor that the mods give).
Now Reddit wants to have full monetization control of the data that their users created and moderated.
The users and moderators are then choosing to stop creating and moderating that data for Reddit.
No concern trolling needed.
If this were Facebook and the “hook” was first-party moderation, algorithmic recommendation, not allowing posts to be indexed on the open web, etc. then it’s more understandable, but Reddit wants it both ways (free labor, open web indexing, and complete ownership).
> You grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content and any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with Your Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world. This license includes the right for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit. You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.
Sure, Reddit doesn't "own" the data. But they can do whatever they want with it.
Like I said no need to concern troll.
And that is a standard TOS for every social media site and has been so for decades. Most people seem to be fine with the exchange as exhibited by the incredible amount of content on social media websites.
Maybe you didn't read the whole thread, but that's what I'm referencing.
Reddit users did pay for using the site, and now they're choosing to not use it. They are not choosing to use it and not pay.
Without them Reddit is just another hole in the ground.
And of course reddit being used as an aggregator for third party content, which is reposted to their site,
It's not like someone saw a metric saying "oh no the memes are getting stolen and reposted we need to shore it up or else we'll lose money" rather an out of touch exec used the website, saw it was easy to download videos and images, and started directing their devs to "fix it".
2.70B MAU for YouTube (with ads)
0.08B pay for YouTube Premium (ad-free)
Note: I’m not saying I agree with Reddit’s recent actions, but I also understand why they are doing it.
https://www.demandsage.com/youtube-stats/#:~:text=Youtube%20....
Reddit as an ecosystem is remarkably tool-centric, especially for the minority that contributes the most. What’s happening is not that people demand free stuff (whatever that means in this case). They see Reddit make unreasonable demands, lie and argue in bad faith. So people like me, who didn’t use a 3p app, participate in the protest because we see the writing on the wall. I deleted my 12yo account and wiped all “my” content. It sucks, but I don’t want to be part of a value-extraction phase without a term-sheet. It’s our own fault for having assumed a “gentleman’s agreement” and thinking content we post will be accessible, when Reddit is well within their legal rights to gatekeep any way they want.
To be clear, I believe the business model makes this inevitable, and isn’t unique to Reddit. In fact, Reddit was a temp refuge from the norm. Long term I think it’s good that this business model produces the same predictable results. That makes it easier to recognize (a certain kind of) failure earlier when looking for alternatives.
People kept repeating "If it's free, you're the product" and "You're paying with your data".
Now Reddit's execs heard this and thought "what a great idea", tried to charge for the data, and are getting absolutely destroyed for it.
Im sure one of these guys is currently biting his nails in his bubble, repeating "I don't understand why people don't want to pay for our users' data, or why our users aren't happy about us selling it!"
I'm exaggerating but.. c'mon. Conspiracy theory time: Reddit and Twitter are participants in a large-scale study for how badly a social media website can be managed until it destroys itself. Facebook is the control group.
How do we determine what that line is? Is there something unique about large businesses that make scaling costs difficult?
Once everyone's parents and children and dogs are using a platform, the free users vastly outnumber the paying to an unprofitable degree
I'd expect that in a targeted community, though, the "drive-by" users are a lot lighter of a burden. You get the search spiders swooping in and archiving everything, but by and large, even the most passionate lurker on, say, VCFed or Audiokarma, is not going to be generating thousands of pageviews and complex queries a day. They might browse a few dozen pages to figure out exactly how to fix their doohickey and move on with their life. Maybe they eventually convert and become a content contributor.
Conversely, when it becomes a sOcIaL pLaTfOrM, you intentionally are trying to corral many more low-engagement users. Notice the key metric is always Daily/Monthly Active Users, not any form of "Quality Participant". So they're eager to have as many people scrolling their site 24 hours a day as possible, even if they're adding no real value. This spikes your infrastructure cost without creating users who are necessarily connected enough to contribute back, whether with direct payment or content.
I also suspect that the "social platform" tends to have a different economic drive than the enthusiast community. Nobody really says "I want to build a community for ALL THE THINGS" unless they have some grand vision of going public, grand monetization, or becoming some sort of new-media titan. They're going to be much more finicky when these dreams aren't met.
As a community effort you find need to fund the dev costs, even if you do find some money to donate in that direction.