For reddit at least, The money from VCs dried up. They have to monetise fast or go broke.
Elon way way way overplayed for Twitter and the company is hemorrhaging money paying the loans he took out to pay for the purchase.
Google in general is in decline. Ad sales are down as the net becomes SEO'd to death. Marketing teams just aren't willing to pay for Google ads like they used to since the roi isn't there anymore.
But there are so many ways Reddit could have played this better. It wasn't just about monetizing. The API changes were in bad faith and meant to kill 3rd party apps without flat out doing it. Users would have been understanding if they charged a reasonable amount of started injecting ads into the API feeds, but instead they went full aggro and disrespected not just the devs working to make their platform better, but the users as well. If they wanted 3rd party apps to show their ads or charge a fee to remove ads I would have been understanding, but because of the disrespect I've dropped them.
That plus their own app being abysmal. The official Reddit app is a terrible experience without the necessary features of the old ones
I forgot the actual numbers, but it's downright bizarre that Reddit can't figure out how to make money. They have a massive platform that is user-moderated for free, filled with free user-created content, with third party developers creating solid apps and features, again for free. Reddit should be able to do fuck all and make money
but it’s downright bizarre that Reddit can’t figure out how to make money.
Because of (venture) capitalism...
They made more from people giving it to them. If the company posted a profit, they'd have to pay taxes
So they pay themselves and amass assets.
If it fails you keep your salary and sell the assets. If you owe more than that's worth, declare bankruptcy. If not, collect a check.
Startups stay in this phase right up till IPO, where they try to flip to profits as fast as possible. Then you can not only declare x profits, but y% increase in profits.
Tldr:
They're nonprofitable by choice. This method just doesn't work during a recession.
In general, i agree with your post, but GOOG is up ~ 30% in the last 6 months. Specific parts of Google may be dwindling but their overall business is thriving right now.
The stock is not the company, that's important to remember. The PE ratios for tech companies are totally out of whack compared to basically any other company.
Google stock is doing ok in part because they have Bard which means they're participating in the AI boom. I think that's going to turn out to be mostly hot air, but in the meantime it's helping a small number of companies stay afloat
Idk where you got the idea that Google is in decline, but they're still the leader in search and advertising on the Internet, plus video hosting and livstreaming with YouTube. Googles only problem right now is how behind they are on AI and that they can't support a new product so no one is willing to try anything new they make.
I really hope this the end of an era of milking the users for data and then selling that for ad money. Twitter and Facebook are switching to a subscription model, but I’m not so sure it’s actually going to reduce the amount of data they try to get from everyone.
For reddit at least, The money from VCs dried up. They have to monetise fast or go broke.
Elon way way way overplayed for Twitter and the company is hemorrhaging money paying the loans he took out to pay for the purchase.
Google in general is in decline. Ad sales are down as the net becomes SEO'd to death. Marketing teams just aren't willing to pay for Google ads like they used to since the roi isn't there anymore.
But there are so many ways Reddit could have played this better. It wasn't just about monetizing. The API changes were in bad faith and meant to kill 3rd party apps without flat out doing it. Users would have been understanding if they charged a reasonable amount of started injecting ads into the API feeds, but instead they went full aggro and disrespected not just the devs working to make their platform better, but the users as well. If they wanted 3rd party apps to show their ads or charge a fee to remove ads I would have been understanding, but because of the disrespect I've dropped them.
That plus their own app being abysmal. The official Reddit app is a terrible experience without the necessary features of the old ones
I forgot the actual numbers, but it's downright bizarre that Reddit can't figure out how to make money. They have a massive platform that is user-moderated for free, filled with free user-created content, with third party developers creating solid apps and features, again for free. Reddit should be able to do fuck all and make money
Because of (venture) capitalism...
They made more from people giving it to them. If the company posted a profit, they'd have to pay taxes
So they pay themselves and amass assets.
If it fails you keep your salary and sell the assets. If you owe more than that's worth, declare bankruptcy. If not, collect a check.
Startups stay in this phase right up till IPO, where they try to flip to profits as fast as possible. Then you can not only declare x profits, but y% increase in profits.
Tldr:
They're nonprofitable by choice. This method just doesn't work during a recession.
In general, i agree with your post, but GOOG is up ~ 30% in the last 6 months. Specific parts of Google may be dwindling but their overall business is thriving right now.
The stock is not the company, that's important to remember. The PE ratios for tech companies are totally out of whack compared to basically any other company.
Google stock is doing ok in part because they have Bard which means they're participating in the AI boom. I think that's going to turn out to be mostly hot air, but in the meantime it's helping a small number of companies stay afloat
Idk where you got the idea that Google is in decline, but they're still the leader in search and advertising on the Internet, plus video hosting and livstreaming with YouTube. Googles only problem right now is how behind they are on AI and that they can't support a new product so no one is willing to try anything new they make.
I really hope this the end of an era of milking the users for data and then selling that for ad money. Twitter and Facebook are switching to a subscription model, but I’m not so sure it’s actually going to reduce the amount of data they try to get from everyone.