Reddit has never really had a competent CEO and that has never been more apparent than with Steve Huffman who has no background or skill as a leader. He also was never the one responsible for building and fostering the community side of things, that was Alexis’ department. One could argue that even as a developer he was second fiddle to Aaron. “What would you say you do here, Steve?” - The Bobs
I wouldn’t be sad if OpenAi or Google acquired Reddit as a source for training future models. Don’t try to optimize it for advertising, the value is in the human-created content.
A google ad that appears when someone searches "car insurance" is very different from an ad in a car insurance subreddit. It's also different from Facebook where you could target based on demographics.
In addition to ads they have Reddit Gold (or whatever their membership program is called, it's bad that I've been on the platform for a decade and I have no idea). They made the same mistake Twitter did with Twitter Blue: "Why would I subscribe?". At least Reddit gives you "No ads", Twitter gives you "Less ads". Ok, so no ads but the UI/UX of the official app is trash, it's messy and inconsistent. If they had said "Buy our subscription to keep using 3rd party apps" I would have paid in a heartbeat.
If you want a successful internet ad business you need to do one of those, but preferably both.
That being said, it's wild to me that Twitter never managed to build a DR (i.e. selling clicks/conversions) business, so maybe Reddit is equally as badly managed (which again, is really surprising to me).
These are very bold claims to make, considering that Reddit is at the bottom of every advertiser's priority list, despite being a lot cheaper.
Have you considered that Reddit users simply do not like being advertised to? Asking for a product recommendation on a message board is fundamentally different from seeing an ad for a product on said board.
Does anyone like being advertised to?
Incompetence. Pure and simple. It was clear before Huffman really decided to go full-Elon and it's crystal clear now. He has no business running a company. The revenue that Reddit brough it in 2021 ($350M) should be able to cover the staff and servers for Reddit easily. Of course they got VC money which means you overhire and spend like no tomorrow which is partly to blame (bad leadership being the other). Reddit is just not that complicated and they only things they've put time/resources into in the last few years are gimmicks that no one uses (Chat) and/or gross cash grabs (NFTs) that also lie abandoned all while ignoring what users were asking for until it directly affected them (things like being able to wrest control of a sub from a mod). Also "better mod tools" is pretty much the same as "infrastructure week" to the last US administration.
But yeah, I have zero doubt they could be profitable but they can't be profitable-enough for investors so instead we get this shit.
I bet investors wish he went full Elon.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-30/twitter-i...
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/30/fidelity-deepens-valuation...
According to NASDAQ, pre-purchase it was around $13B. And Elon claims it’s at $20B. So supposedly he has improved the net worth, but yes obviously he’s still $20B in the hole.
Spez's claim that "the app" is "generating" API calls is nonsense. It's users like you and me that generate API calls using an https client that, in this case, speaks API. Reddit Premium users are their highest ARPU class, over 10x what they claim they can get from advertisers.
It therefore seems obvious to partner with premium app devs, to allow the apps to support Reddit Premium users as a perk of Reddit Premium. Subscribing to both Reddit Premium (paying for ad free access) and app (supporting the app developer) is not a problem for these users.
The Venn Diagram for these two premium spends is clear -- and Reddit is attacking it to no possible gain. There is no alternative business model on the table better for them (and their IPO price) than a premium user remaining a premium user.
By killing my ability to pay for Apollo, they will not gain a single ad view from me, because I pay to not see the ads already.
Further, they will now also lose 10 users worth of ad views, because I will no longer pay for Reddit Premium.
Instead, let Premium accounts access through API, Reddit's Premium user count will balloon, and quality apps will gain a new audience of ready-to-spend subscribers, all with no impact on Reddit's ability to sell ads which make strictly less money than Premium accounts.
(I am confused why this obvious solve is never discussed. News reporting is accepting the premise apps issue API calls instead of users, Spez's AMA is terrible, and community threads are missing this. Apollo dev also fails to help the press understand the framing that Apollo is a user agent and "the web" was intended for use by user-agents. None of this is coming up.)
- there's a vanishingly small minority who pay for apps
- Apollo volunteered to be the asserter of what 3Ps thought and they were extremely aggro
- It's a Solomon's baby situation, it's a worse outcome from all sides: 3P would be _more_ irate, their customer base gets slashed to nothing. Reddit needs to be able to charge for the API without having elaborate carve-outs for monetization schemes from years ago that didn't work
- People aren't thinking straight and are extremely aggressive in discounting others. Sure, the user generates API calls. That doesn't mean the app doesn't make API calls
I also have to assume they're fine with it all, or they'd take their skills elsewhere.
Imagine it from the perspective of a user who is new to Reddit and downloads one of those apps off the app store (possibly paying money to do so). After they fire it up they'll discover that they can't even use it until they subscribe to Reddit Premium. Due to app store policies the app can't offer the opportunity to subscribe from within the app, so the best they can do (on Android, at least, Apple doesn't even allow this) is to direct the user to sign up for an account and buy a premium subscription on Reddit itself first. Assume they get past this hurdle and then discover after a week or two that in order to continue using that app they have to sign up for a new, separate subscription through the app store so that the developer can get paid. I imagine a not insubstantial number of users would get extremely frustrated by all of this and take their frustration out on either the app developers or Reddit.
Except that's already how it works, so no change. And users are not confused.
That's why Digg 2.0 happened (and destroyed Digg) and why Reddit is hell bent on getting rid of Old Reddit and all 3rd parties that have any experience like it.
You need something like Facebook or Instagram to successfully sell a TON of ads (in social), which is the opposite of what Reddit is.
Either Reddit needs to realize they're not going to make FB money (spoiler, they're not going to accept that) or they're going to try to completely change their product to make FB money (spoiler, it's probably not going to work - if people wanted FB, they'd just use FB, not Reddit).
My crystal ball doesn't work. Who knows what will happen. That's just all my uncreative brain can imagine.
Shockingly, the average Redditor doesn’t have (or isn’t willing to part with their) disposable income.
I'm not sure why you would think being banned should prompt self-reflection? It's not like any of my reasons for believing the things I do has changed, and it's not like being banned from Reddit really has any negative consequences for me.
I've also been shadow banned for sharing large lists of on topic youtube links.
I believe I am running into some sort of spam prevention system, even though I see other users posting similar content. So my theory is that there is some sort of whitelist for this activity (i changed my username often when i used reddit), or I am running afoul with a certain moderator or admin.
Hard to tell when you're not even banned so there isn't a reason given to me. Wonderful system.
Back to imgur's user-sub I guess. Also I appreciate yall having me here as well.
I got IP banned across my older unused accounts, and my newer ones for mass editing, then deleting my comments to a message that was basically "reddit killed itself due to this API change".
There's also this, from the article:
> Worth noting that the vast majority of markdown in the value of Reddit and Discord holdings by Fidelity predominantly occurred last year.
Apollo is a for-profit app. They are using reddits technology, servers, and users for free to make money off their own advertisements.
Reddit isn't "losing" any money by losing apollo users, since it wasn't making any money in the first place.
This seems like a billing dispute between two companies, not a user issue. Reddit also announced that modtools will be allowed to use the API free of charge.
At the end of the day, most people log in to reddit once or twice a month. Those are the users that are being targetted by advertisers anyways. The power users and terminally online moderating staff are more of a headache for reddit than a benefit.
You have this exactly backwards.
Ads work on repeat exposure, aka impressions. Social media companies have no other reason to optimize for user session length.
Also, someone who uses Reddit once/twice a month would not need to have an account to begin with. Even if they did, their lack of activity would be a negative for ad targeting.