Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/raiseit/
835 comments
I actually hate Reddit these days. I've never really been into their various communities/subredits- and on occasion they're really useful spots of information or entertainment.
But...
Their current "force you into app" (which appears to leave you logged in, able to make account changes, even if you change your password) approach is fucking horrible. Their mobile navigation is broken by design and.... for what? What incentive do I have to sign up? Why should when its in such a hostile way. The incentive clearly is for them the organization to get new funding and not for me as a user since functionality has been reduced for NO reason. It's like Quora... that worked great for funding but has really done a lot to develop a mature business, eh?
... I'm gonna go pour out some coffee in memory of Digg.
But...
Their current "force you into app" (which appears to leave you logged in, able to make account changes, even if you change your password) approach is fucking horrible. Their mobile navigation is broken by design and.... for what? What incentive do I have to sign up? Why should when its in such a hostile way. The incentive clearly is for them the organization to get new funding and not for me as a user since functionality has been reduced for NO reason. It's like Quora... that worked great for funding but has really done a lot to develop a mature business, eh?
... I'm gonna go pour out some coffee in memory of Digg.
The HackerNews community is more appreciative of these problems than Reddit's. But Reddit will suffer from the same problems that Facebook and Twitter suffer from, if not already. Reddit users are easily manipulated by engineered content and engineering content on Reddit is not hard if you know what you're doing. Evidently, there are power-users on Reddit (e.g. /u/GallowBoob) who know exactly how Reddit ticks and can get practically anything to the front page in front of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
Reddit is huge -- I suspect they will be bigger than Facebook (maybe not in valuation, but usage) in the next 7 years and these problems will only be exacerbated. Facebook isn't what 12-13 year olds today are interested in. Reddit is a more apt model for online discourse and culture than Facebook ever was.
Reddit is huge -- I suspect they will be bigger than Facebook (maybe not in valuation, but usage) in the next 7 years and these problems will only be exacerbated. Facebook isn't what 12-13 year olds today are interested in. Reddit is a more apt model for online discourse and culture than Facebook ever was.
It might soon be time for The Oatmeal to add a new panel to his famous "Digg vs. Reddit" cartoon:
https://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter_2012/reddit_digg
I love Reddit and have no problem with this move in principle, though I do wish there was at least one social platform that would try to follow the Craigslist ethos and stay "proudly independent."
I'm not a big believer in crypto, but Reddit seems like one of the few platforms that would allow a crypto economy to develop and provide an alternative to the dominant money-making models.
https://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter_2012/reddit_digg
I love Reddit and have no problem with this move in principle, though I do wish there was at least one social platform that would try to follow the Craigslist ethos and stay "proudly independent."
I'm not a big believer in crypto, but Reddit seems like one of the few platforms that would allow a crypto economy to develop and provide an alternative to the dominant money-making models.
I've given up most social media but have become obsessed with Reddit.
No matter how much I use it, I'm constantly amazed that I can be immediately connected with the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic people on virtually any subject I care about.
I'm not a fan of the redesign or their push to look at other social media platforms, but I understand the direction they have to go to build revenue.
No matter how much I use it, I'm constantly amazed that I can be immediately connected with the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic people on virtually any subject I care about.
I'm not a fan of the redesign or their push to look at other social media platforms, but I understand the direction they have to go to build revenue.
It amazes me the kind of sheer incompetency their product team has demonstrated over the past 2-3 years. (Edit - as pointed out in replies to this post, this is an unfair characterization fueled by my recent frustrations with the direction the site is going. I don't think it is unreasonable to point out that reddit is failing the expectations of their users, but I don't doubt for a minute that the individuals working at reddit are very talented)
10 years ago when reddit would go down, you rooted for them as the underdog to figure it out. Now when it happens, it's just sad. They still can't even handle the kind of traffic that the super bowl brings them. They've had years to figure this out.
What has the focus been if not stabilizing their infrastructure? It appears to be the introduction of a single page application that feels clunky, conceals ads better, and implements all kinds of dark UX patterns.
Meanwhile, there are still bugs that have existed for years that still aren't fixed. There's even a redirect loop that you can get stuck in during authentication in certain scenarios that will completely break the site and bring you back to the same page until your session expires. It's been there for at least a year now.
Reddit has gone full digg v4
EDIT: After thinking about this more, I'm not sure that reddit going full digg v4 means that they'll share the same outcome as digg. The internet now seems to be a small set of companies so entrenched in their position due to swallowing mass amount of users and raising enough funds to optimize all the various little corners that can be optimized. Reddit might not actually be dead, but as they continue to optimize the weird and cool ways that people used to use the site, I know it will be for me.
10 years ago when reddit would go down, you rooted for them as the underdog to figure it out. Now when it happens, it's just sad. They still can't even handle the kind of traffic that the super bowl brings them. They've had years to figure this out.
What has the focus been if not stabilizing their infrastructure? It appears to be the introduction of a single page application that feels clunky, conceals ads better, and implements all kinds of dark UX patterns.
Meanwhile, there are still bugs that have existed for years that still aren't fixed. There's even a redirect loop that you can get stuck in during authentication in certain scenarios that will completely break the site and bring you back to the same page until your session expires. It's been there for at least a year now.
Reddit has gone full digg v4
EDIT: After thinking about this more, I'm not sure that reddit going full digg v4 means that they'll share the same outcome as digg. The internet now seems to be a small set of companies so entrenched in their position due to swallowing mass amount of users and raising enough funds to optimize all the various little corners that can be optimized. Reddit might not actually be dead, but as they continue to optimize the weird and cool ways that people used to use the site, I know it will be for me.
Ever since the site redesign in May, popularity has been falling (source: Alexa Top Websites): https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com
I hope that affected the amount of money they raised. As a reddit fan, the site redesign has not been pleasant. The mobile experience, too.
I hope that affected the amount of money they raised. As a reddit fan, the site redesign has not been pleasant. The mobile experience, too.
I know someone worked for reddit for a while last year (they don't anymore because they hated every second of it) and from what I understand the engineering teams there are a nightmare of groups that don't talk to each other, constantly write the same code in completely different ways, have no common style and just shoehorn in whatever they want. Everything breaks pretty much all the time.
All of that is aside from the fact that the workforce acted like a bunch of teens that just arrived at college and are going crazy due to lack of supervision (Every project had to be tiptoed around because of complicated interpersonal relationships).
Not to mention the CEO offering drugs to people in his cabin at camp Reddit (the yearly retreat they do)
Oh, and the fact that the platform itself hosts tons of alt-right, incel, racist, sexist, and violent content.
Apparently last year Steve (ceo) told everyone to enact a hiring freeze while he figures some stuff out, and then after a month or two, when managers informed him of all the candidates they passed up, Steve freaks out and tells them that they should have hired them. During the hiring freeze. That he enacted.
The app also sucks. They try to make everything play embedded, so that if you want to share it, you pretty much have to share the reddit link, because the link to the actual content is hidden. That's bad enough but the embedded stuff also barely works. More often than not I have to go directly to the source for an embedded video or giphycat thing to play.
Every story I've heard about reddit sounds like a nightmare. It really sucks that it's become the defacto repository for so many hobbies.
The app also sucks. They try to make everything play embedded, so that if you want to share it, you pretty much have to share the reddit link, because the link to the actual content is hidden. That's bad enough but the embedded stuff also barely works. More often than not I have to go directly to the source for an embedded video or giphycat thing to play.
Every story I've heard about reddit sounds like a nightmare. It really sucks that it's become the defacto repository for so many hobbies.
Reddit has been raising money for almost 15 years! I wish I had the connections to VC's that reddit apparently does. I can definitely spend all the money a VC gives me, then raise more money, and then spend all that money, and never turn a profit for 15 or 20 years.
Fun, I deleted my 9 year old account last night. It's wasn't out of some high-minded thing about how they're turning more into Facebook or privacy or anything. That site just hits my dopamine so effectively I had to quit and block it in my /etc/hosts.
I am spending more time on HN though...
I am spending more time on HN though...
This works with most user script plugins like GreaseMonkey, ViolentMonkey or TamperMonkey:
// ==UserScript==
// @name BackToOldReddit
// @namespace Reddit
// @match *://www.reddit.com/*
// @grant none
// @run-at document-start
// ==/UserScript==
const currentURL = window.document.location.toString();
if(currentURL.includes('//www')) {
const newURL = currentURL.replace('//www','//old');
window.document.location.replace(newURL);
}last round was 200 million in July of 2017. if we assume they had around 30 million left of it in bank today that puts them in 10 million negative every month. how does an online community/discussion website that makes money from ads and with not a lot of staff and no other expenses lose 10 million per month? when are they going to become profitable and how? Is it just a tax write off thingy? I never understood these things.
Reddit is still great if you take the time to curate subreddits that pertain to your interests and you use a 3rd party app (Apollo is really fantastic.)
I mostly spend my time moderating r/CrohnsDisease and making sure the people who post there get at least one thoughtful reply. I browse r/all most days but rarely do I post content or comments outside of my main subs because there’s just so much toxicity on the platform.
I wish Alexis had been able to influence the core values of the company before leaving the second time, he seems like one of the few genuinely good people at that level of major tech companies these days. It’s a shame he’s moved on to other things.
I mostly spend my time moderating r/CrohnsDisease and making sure the people who post there get at least one thoughtful reply. I browse r/all most days but rarely do I post content or comments outside of my main subs because there’s just so much toxicity on the platform.
I wish Alexis had been able to influence the core values of the company before leaving the second time, he seems like one of the few genuinely good people at that level of major tech companies these days. It’s a shame he’s moved on to other things.
Reddit isn't worth $3B, and management trying to justify the validation and provide returns to the investors will kill it. Just a quick peek on `/r/beta` will show you the weird things Reddit is doing to maximize value and how it is alienating users.
Unobtrusive ads don't make investors enough money, Facebook has already shown that. To derive maximum revenue per user, you need to drive your users to the edge of not enjoying the site anymore. With these investments Reddit will be walking that line, and who knows if Reddit is too big to digg?
Unobtrusive ads don't make investors enough money, Facebook has already shown that. To derive maximum revenue per user, you need to drive your users to the edge of not enjoying the site anymore. With these investments Reddit will be walking that line, and who knows if Reddit is too big to digg?
It amazes me that a fourteen year old company with a mature business model requires equity financing. I'll never really understand how tech companies work, I guess.
Interesting that most of the comments here are about Reddit itself (the product) and almost nothing about Tencent.
For reminder, Tencent owns
- Riot Games (League of Legends, one of the most played game in the west)
- Epic Games (Fortnite, another one of the most played game in the west)
- and now Reddit (one of the most visited social network in the west)
For reminder, Tencent owns
- Riot Games (League of Legends, one of the most played game in the west)
- Epic Games (Fortnite, another one of the most played game in the west)
- and now Reddit (one of the most visited social network in the west)
Must be .com bubble 2.0 if VCs will throw that much money at a company who can't monetize that many users after this many years.
Not my money, so I don't care, but I do really have to wonder what their plan is.
The way I see it, Google, Apple, and Facebook won't buy them because they're not competitors and they already have more users. And 99% of Reddit users probably use 1 or more of those 3 already anyway.
An IPO seems unlikely because they're not making enough money.
So maybe they're hoping for a buyout from a media company?
Not my money, so I don't care, but I do really have to wonder what their plan is.
The way I see it, Google, Apple, and Facebook won't buy them because they're not competitors and they already have more users. And 99% of Reddit users probably use 1 or more of those 3 already anyway.
An IPO seems unlikely because they're not making enough money.
So maybe they're hoping for a buyout from a media company?
Reddit is the only social media I use. Never used any other services at all. The only annoyance is the redesign. It completely sucks. Very much reminds of the digg 4.0 redesign before it died. I don't know why all these aggregation sites go to that look and feel but its very bad to use. Hope they don't abandon supporting the old design. That would definitely make scale back my time on there significantly.
Something about Reddit that has been really irking me lately is the decline in quality of the comment threads, which is arguably one of the only reasons to visit the site nowadays since link aggregators are so common.
People seem to treat commenting like a game instead of a forum for discussion. I often see the same patterns from Twitter there (i.e., inciting outrage to get upvotes, virtue signaling, or just pointless jokes on serious articles). The introduction of Reddit Gold has made this substantially worse, as now there’s an additional point system which awards single comments instead of points of discussion.
People seem to treat commenting like a game instead of a forum for discussion. I often see the same patterns from Twitter there (i.e., inciting outrage to get upvotes, virtue signaling, or just pointless jokes on serious articles). The introduction of Reddit Gold has made this substantially worse, as now there’s an additional point system which awards single comments instead of points of discussion.
Has Reddit ever had a profitable quarter, let alone year? I thought I saw that revenue had been rising but they also have significantly ramped up expenses, doubling employees and lots of new infrastructure (ex: their self-hosted video platform).
This sounds like greater fool theory if the investors in the latest round think they'll be able to peddle it for greater than $3 Billion without it ever bringing a dime of actual profits.
This sounds like greater fool theory if the investors in the latest round think they'll be able to peddle it for greater than $3 Billion without it ever bringing a dime of actual profits.
Is there an ActivityPub or similarly decentralized alternative? I don't want to get invested in reddit only for them to shut down their API (it'll happen, always does) and force me to use their garbage mobile client.
I've always felt that Reddit would work really well as a non-profit. This would remove the inherent conflict between keeping the focus on communities/shared-interests (what drew me to Reddit in the first place) and the financial incentive pushing towards profiles/gathering personal information for ads. I would definitely donate to Reddit monthly if it went that route.
Sadly I feel like Reddit has become like a Facebook news feed.
That and the fact that now so many comments keep getting deleted and posts locked makes me wonder who the target audience is these days.
Also the overzealous moderators are annoying.
That and the fact that now so many comments keep getting deleted and posts locked makes me wonder who the target audience is these days.
Also the overzealous moderators are annoying.
I expect this raise to result in a number of enhancements to the user experience which make it a more pleasant and enjoyab[Open this link in the Reddit App?]le place to discourse.
This is a crazy revenue model. It is reminiscent of the dot com era when land grabs were a thing. But a lot has settled down since the fun days and it is not possible to get investors onboard with promises when there is a clear track record.
The track record does look okay:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=reddit
There is continued growth in engagement. But still, shouldn't the actual product - the website - be built out by now with all the content coming from users, therefore not much of a business case for investment? How can they have this continually growing audience and not be making enough bucks to pay the bills and grow organically?
The track record does look okay:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=reddit
There is continued growth in engagement. But still, shouldn't the actual product - the website - be built out by now with all the content coming from users, therefore not much of a business case for investment? How can they have this continually growing audience and not be making enough bucks to pay the bills and grow organically?
I would not be surprised. Reddit is easily my most visited internet community and go-to for many niche matters as well.
I use it through 3rd party apps or my PC, so have mostly avoided their dark patterns.
I love HN, but the limited scope of the discussions here (for obvious and good reasons) makes it far less frequented than reddit.
Reddit is like a slightly worse HN for everything else apart from CS/Tech.
I also love how everyone I meet in the US seems to feign ignorance about Reddit, despite it being the Alexa #5 website here (behind Google,Amazon,FB and YT) It is almost as if people don't want to be called a redditor despite using the website a lot.
It is also the site with the 2nd greatest daily time per visitor (behind only salesforce), above YT, Facebook, Twitter or ...... pornhub ....
I use it through 3rd party apps or my PC, so have mostly avoided their dark patterns.
I love HN, but the limited scope of the discussions here (for obvious and good reasons) makes it far less frequented than reddit.
Reddit is like a slightly worse HN for everything else apart from CS/Tech.
I also love how everyone I meet in the US seems to feign ignorance about Reddit, despite it being the Alexa #5 website here (behind Google,Amazon,FB and YT) It is almost as if people don't want to be called a redditor despite using the website a lot.
It is also the site with the 2nd greatest daily time per visitor (behind only salesforce), above YT, Facebook, Twitter or ...... pornhub ....
>But supporting and moderating all that content isn’t cheap
What? Moderators don't get paid at all to moderate.
What? Moderators don't get paid at all to moderate.
I've used Reddit since day 1.
The new website is a usability disaster, and one that they don't mind shoving down your throat at every turn.
Moderators are increasingly beating anyone who isn't politically correct enough over the head with their moronic code of conduct and banning users for simply disagreeing.
Most of the people who still hang around are very negative individuals who seem to be there more to project their hatred in general than to learn and/or share. Oppose their abuse and they'll invariable mob up on you and make sure your posts never see the light of day.
If I was Aaron Swartz, bless him; I would be turning in my grave by now.
The new website is a usability disaster, and one that they don't mind shoving down your throat at every turn.
Moderators are increasingly beating anyone who isn't politically correct enough over the head with their moronic code of conduct and banning users for simply disagreeing.
Most of the people who still hang around are very negative individuals who seem to be there more to project their hatred in general than to learn and/or share. Oppose their abuse and they'll invariable mob up on you and make sure your posts never see the light of day.
If I was Aaron Swartz, bless him; I would be turning in my grave by now.
It's weird to me to see more investment in reddit as it mostly feels like it's gone downhill. It could be my own interests but most of the subreddits who don't have an outside feed (around a game like overwatch, or primary/secondary major city sub) just have been withering away and it's those niches that makes reddit 'stick.' The new design/company focus seems to feel directly in contrast to the staying power that the niche-ness provides and I am not sure how far apart these two points are.
Reddit is worth more just for the political influencing alone. It's known within certain circles that they manipulate the voting system so that articles of their choice reach the front page.
The increasing amount of dark patterns Reddit has been employing lately is concerning. (recent example: Reddit now gates content in mobile Safari to push users to the app: https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/1086002848926593025 )
That said, it seems like the really bad dark patterns I reported 7 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17446841) no longer appear to be in place.