this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
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Reddit CEO Admits "we are not profitable" right before upcoming IPO (old.reddit.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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How do you address the concerns of users who feel that Reddit has become increasingly profit-driven and less focused on community engagement?

We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive. Unlike some of the 3P apps, we are not profitable.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

IMHO one of the biggest mistakes made early on in the development of the Internet is that everything should be free and ad supported. That is how we ended up social media that is destroying our socitey in the name of driving up engagement and thus ad revenue. I think things would have been much better if every one was just expected to pay a few bucks a month for the services they use.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'll have to disagree. Products being paid wouldn't have stopped

  • the internet becoming centralized around fewer and fewer services

  • forced those services to have had upheld their quality and promises

Cable TV started under the pretense of having no ads other than each network's own, and to have access to pay-per-view events (which is sports and we can stop pretending sports didn't sell cable).

And yet Cable, despite exploding more and more on widespread adoption, still became the same if not WORSE than public TV.

The paid-ternet would be the same or worse than what we have. And I know Facebook's dream goal is to make a paid-ternet. If I die and become a cyberghost, I'll haunt the hell out of any server rack where that goal is making progress and make sure it never succeeeds.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I agree with you here. Share holders are never going to be satisfied. The numbers always need to be going up which means new ways to generate profits must be found. Ads, subs, micro transactions, etc - nothing is off the table.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

this. a thousand times, this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nobody "decided" that. Paid subscription services have been around just as long as ad support. The ad support model grew organically out of the converging desires of users to have unfettered access to content, and the desires of advertisers to have unfettered access to new monetization opportunities.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Well said. Honestly while I'm sure many, especially those that have made it here, would have paid an ongoing subscription for a perpetually unshittified Reddit / other social media, the VAST majority of users are going to flock to a free version. We didn't get where we are by accident.