this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Fidelity has further slashed the estimated worth of its holdings in Reddit and Discord as well as SaaS startup Gupshup.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Spez's leadership is clearly leading Reddit in a bold, new direction... down.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Bold new direction. LOL that's a good one.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I can't believe they gave the job to such a clueless and arrogant leader. At this rate, it's not a matter of if, but when Reddit is going to crash and burn like Digg did.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Most likely reddit is holding out till the IPO. Getting a new CEO beforehand would cause some chaos. Stability is what saves valuation. Reddit's recent instability is what is messing with its worth.

Then reddit can blame everything on their scapegoat: spez. The old CEO gets a nice severance package for acting like the villain reddit needs till all the new changes are in place. Even if the CEO was not the only one making these decisions.

The new CEO will remove a few of the harsh changes reddit recently made; but not all of them. The people then rejoice as the new CEO is "nicer" than spez and the evil villain is gone.

It's not like reddit can ever go back to the way it was; it wasn't making enough money to please its stakeholders. The preceding sentence is why the fediverse is so important.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I agree. They've already did this once before with Ellen Pao. She came in, played the villain and made changes that people didn't like, and then went away and was replaced with a "nicer" CEO.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I can't believe Steve Huffman (u/spez) is acting like this before an IPO. An IPO usually means a board of directors. Usually, the CEO reports directly to the board of directors and serves until they decide they need a new CEO. Forget third-party apps for a second, Fidelity has further slashed the estimated worth Reddit. Users are protesting against the site's leadership. Porn bombing has brands concerned about advertising on Reddit; see https://techstory.in/advertisers-grapple-with-rising-brand-safety-concerns-as-reddit-protests-escalate-into-porn-bombing-campaigns/ He's tarnished Reddit's image. The sooner they do an IPO, the better as Huffman will become the artist formerly known as CEO.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Reddit has (very very likely) had a board ever since their first VC investment round in 2005, the board is backing this otherwise Spez would get voted out in a heartbeat

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

If Reddit has a board, and they let Spez loose to do this crap, then they deserve a $10 BN devaluation. Maybe this will be the wakeup call.

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

Thanks for the chuckle:)

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I read before all this started reddit was valued around $10 billion.

Now it's already down to $5.5 billion.

These are estimates, since reddit hasn't gone public yet, there is no official market value.

Still I'm guessing that next week it will be valued even lower. Tomorrow is when the real shit hits the fan.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

5.5 billion ... BILLION that's with a B

Moderators are volunteers

Content is subject to right be forgotten

Management is mostly hostile and toxic

Management is driving away the content creators.

If they decapitated the management (not literally...well...no this is not constructive) and made the API cheap as balls, you might retain the existing users and pull half that are leaving back.

There's not 5B in advertising opportunity there. Any company that wanted to get out in front of their customers is already in there talking to them for free.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I wish more people weren't waiting until June 30 to tentatively make a decision or leave. I have a feeling many of them aren't leaving if they haven't already.

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

I made my decision to leave as soon as I saw how the app devs were treated. Been back only to edit all my comments to state what I think about spez & co. I’ve simply been waiting to add my little weight to the end of month exodus.

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

IDK but we are close to finding out. In my experience people are generally bad at preparing. And only react when absolutely necessary.

[–] ItsaB3AR 1 points 1 year ago

I wonder if there are a lot of people, average users, that just aren’t in the know, and will only realize the third party apps are gone when they’re physically gone.

[–] ItsaB3AR 1 points 1 year ago

I wonder if there are a lot of people, average users, that just aren’t in the know, and will only realize the third party apps are gone when they’re physically gone.

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

I would have thought that most people who didn't want to use Reddit anymore have probably already stopped using it.

But yes I hope to see more bad news for Reddit such as this diminished valuation.

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

Oh I am SOOO looking forward to that shitshow 😂

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, that's a bit misleading. It was $10 billion in August 21. But all of the startup type tech companies have taken huge dives after that.

So the actual impact of the protests are yet to be seen. E.g. the value of Discord shrank even more than reddit.

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

I'm pretty sure I saw it valued at 10 bil 14 days ago.

Tech has gone down, then up again, since august, for instance alphabet is higher now than back in August.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOG/

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Tomorrow is when the real shit hits the fan." I don't know about that. I think it'll take a while and there will be several stages. Tomorrow the power users leave, and moderators might either do a lot less or disappear completely.

Then would be a rise in bots (i saw an AITA post i thought might be bot generated as i couldnt possibly think how "OP" could be anything but an asshole) and spammers, people voting might help keep some of that at bay while the users who browse by hot might still get what they want. Then there would likely be migrations of users.

I think people who go to subs like funny and AITA could still be there for a while, but i think the content will degrade and some subs i think have taken permanent hits in viewership. 4 months ago i could think of some where i'd consider advertising a product to a niche, but there's zero chance i'd be parting with money today.

I think the effects of this will be large and far reaching, but those looking to cash out are still steaming ahead for their IPO payday, and whatever happens from there will be the new owners concern. It'd be different if i thought they wanted to IPO and still hold a large share of the company, but everything im seeing leads me to believe thats not the case.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tomorrow the power users leave

Today the app users are forced away.

We can already see lemmy.world has grown 15% or 8k users in half a day. If that's representative, the coming days will be worse for reddit than the blackout and protest period.

That was what I meant, that for reddit the shit hits the fan today for real, as in the consequences of their decision will hit harder when they are actually implemented.

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

Here's to hoping Musky boy buys it!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"how low can we go?!"

  • Spez, probably
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Today is my last day as a logged in user on Reddit. Hope it is for many others as well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

spez the business genius

That’s down 7.36% from the $16.6 million mark at April’s closure and altogether a slide of 45.4% since its investment in August 2021. The updated share value suggests a $5.5 billion valuation for Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

hah, rest in piss. spez got the elon musk syndrome

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

Spez so smart

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

what can i say except... nice 😏

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We gotta pump those numbers up! Those are rookie numbers!!!

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

Pump them down*

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

RIP Bozo. People will absolutely leave your site if you take away the apps they have used for years.

[–] ItsaB3AR 3 points 1 year ago

I wanna see the current or former patrons of r/WallStreet short Reddit to oblivion on the IPO. Spez should realize that if you piss off a large group, they can hit back when you’re most vulnerable.

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

It's even funnier that second time!

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

It’s working!!! Keep up the good work protestors :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Nelson:

HA ha.