If I go on the reddit website and scroll through posts without doing anything else, would that affect Reddit's ad revenue, or is it insignificant to Reddit?
I want to see updates on the protest on r/ModCoord without affecting Reddit in a positive way.
You are viewing a single comment
A lot of people are incorrectly obsessing over Reddit's revenue
A social media platform IPO valuation is based on a speculative value... A "reasonable prediction of potential value", and that is driven primarily by traffic and engagement metrics.
So, unfortunately, even a "read only with blocked ads" interaction w/ Reddit would still be helping Bost IPO value.
Is there anyway to check up on the protests without helping Reddit?
It depends on how strictly you want to define "helping Reddit".
If you have a very strict definition: then you probably shouldn't access Reddit at all in any way. Ive heard references to some sites that are tracking Reddit protests, but haven't seen them myself. If they've aggregated protest data you could try and find/use them as a source.
Recognizing that although any access to Reddit is helping them, you're still a drop in the bucket... Simply limiting you time/engagement to a bare minimum still reduces any value you are providing to Reddit. Along with what others are saying: use a VPN, don't sign in, use an ad blocker. You can minimize your value in that way. But it won't be zero.
Very true. I would argue that for some people, it might be better to ween themselves off Reddit than stop cold turkey.
If they posted every day, stop posting, maybe reduce commenting, and take an extra 10 seconds to search out other sources of info.
If they commented every day, stop commenting, browse Reddit if you feel like it, but try to find an equivalent article here to comment on.
If they lurked, try finding new sources, try new search engines, etc. Did they lurk because they didn't care about interacting, or because they were turned off by toxic responses in the past? Try commenting here.
I'd rather see people leave slowly and stay away, than go back to their old patterns because they think, "I just really NEED to check that one sub, so I guess protesting is not for me."
Also, I don't think there are many here that would fault those that actually need Reddit in some way (e.g.-Ukraine war, self help, support groups, etc.). They have bigger shit to worry about. Revisit the migration topic when you're comfortable, and if you want.
(It's worth mentioning that some of that material is starting to pop up around here. See if they fill your needs when it's okay for you - no point in joining a group with 2 people if you really need a larger support system.)
This has been my way. I knew it would be hard, so every time I find myself wanting to check reddit, I think of what I planned to do there and attempt to find an alternative. It's led to a lot more browsing the internet like I used to "back in the day." And then I only visit reddit if I can't find what I was looking for elsewhere. For most things, I find alternatives easily. I've mentioned in comments before, really the only things that I haven't been able to replace are the CPTSD and CPTSD memes subreddits.
Spez has been correctly advised that investors are going to be concerned with profitability, or at least a viable pathway to profitability.
There’s a huge startup bubble starting to burst. Companies reliant on cheap money to supplement a business model that at best is years away from profitability but in some cases decades or will never be profitable.
Uber and Doordash IPO’d when money was cheap and investors were fine with speculating on these disruptive, yet unprofitable, companies.
I work broadly in the VC funded start-up world. My observation is that money is running out. All of these companies are trying to commercialize, even if the product isn’t fully ready, because they have to show revenue and there has to be a path to profitability of that revenue. That’s the only way they’ll get more money.
In this context, Reddit is more like these startups. They’ve been funded by investors, including big ones like Condé Nast and Ten Cent, and they need more money, so they have to show a path to profitable revenue.
The IPO is going to be a shit show. I wouldn’t touch it with a 9 foot pole. Reddit has been notoriously unprofitable for its entire existence. Now there’s no more juice to squeeze and their backers want to pawn it off on retail investors.
It is for sure going to be a shitshow.
Even if we want to talk about the IPO in the context of profitability, spez' decisions are still pretty bad.
Forget revenue for a second and look at expenses. Reddit has had a long chain of extremely foolish expensive endeavours. They keep investing dev effort into things like snoovatars, becoming a content host (images videos), trying to roll thier own video player, creating "spaces" which failed miserably. The resistance to even using their new UX is very high, old.reddit still is in massive use simply because their new UX isn't very good.
Reddit has been obsessed with throwing money away on things that aren't making them any money, and aren't driving site traffic or engagement.
The clearest path to profitability for Reddit isn't about trying to invent notional revenue with an API pricing structure that nobody will actually pay for... But instead simply stopping spending money on pointless development.
In fact, I think this whole stunt will have backfired in the sense that if he hadn't made this API pricing mistake, IPO investors may have believed it was an opportunity for improved revenue. I expect that when the dust settles, spez will have instead proven that it ISN'T a significant untapped opportunity to be had.
It all hinges on how much bot activity the SEC will allow them to pass off as legitimate.