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Why Reddit and u/spez must win (fedia.io)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Seeing a lot of hate and schadenfreude over spez and what he's doing with Reddit.

I feel this is really uncalled for.

What no one seems to understand is that Reddit is unprofitable.

You know what happens to unprofitable tech companies? Think of Geocities shutting down. How many great websites, how many communities were lost?

I can see that spez is trying the best he can to save Reddit. He was one of the original founders. This is his baby. He doesn't want to see it die.

His plan is clear to me.

Reddit is getting too much traffic. It's too big and has too many users, moderators, and communities.

So this means Reddit needs a lot of employees. Someone asked why Reddit needs 2000 employees? Well, where do you think the admins come from? I bet most of them are the hardworking admins who form the bridge between Reddit and the communities.

Since Reddit is so big, perhaps too big, it's hard for them to be profitable. Opportunity cost on users using third party apps means that Reddit has to charge them high prices to make up for lost ads revenue. That's unavoidable.

Okay, sure, maybe some third party apps will agree to run ads in return for lower rates or something. That can work.

Reddit doesn't have an existing way to feed ads to third party apps. I'm don't have experience in that field but I bet developing something like that takes a lot of time. It's also uncertain as Reddit may spend many long months, if not years, developing a way to serve ads to third party apps only to find no takers. Too big a risk.

Remember, the IPO is supposed to happen later this year. Not enough time to develop it and do it right.

So he has no choice but to go in hard against the third party apps. They pay up and make up the cost. If they can't, then they die. Sucks to be them. Their users go to the official app, and get the ads from Reddit. Revenue is saved.

Maybe they don't. Maybe those users quit Reddit altogether. This means less traffic, so fewer expenses for Reddit. Less expenses meas more revenue. Revenue is saved again.

Moderators quit? No problem. Reddit will find new ones or replace them with admins.

Not enough moderators? No problem. Reddit can shutdown the smallest communities that bring in the least revenue. Admins can run the biggest ones.

Section 230? No problem. Reddit adds a new review required mode. Maybe this already exists. Every thread posted is hidden until an admin reviews and approves it. Same for every comment on a thread. This way they can make sure there is no libel or copyright infringement or any other issues before approving.

Need too many admins to review and approve things timely? No problem. Charge users to be able to jump the queue. Those who do not want to pay up then just need to suffer wait times of many months or even years before they can get reviewed and approved.

Less traffic means they need fewer admins. Fewer employees. More layoffs. A more profitable Reddit.

It absolutely sucks that the moderation tools are not ready yet and moderators have to suffer. It sucks worse that those with accessibility needs have fewer options now.

Would it not be worse if Reddit dies altogether? Think about losing those communities. You can't talk to the folks you used to in your subreddits. You have no way to go back and see your own threads, or the useful advice from fellow members of your community. It's all gone.

I have already been through this several times. It hurt to lose Geocities. All MySpace content also gone.

Do YOU want to be responsible for this happening again?!!!

Please do not let this happen again. Please help spez save Reddit.

Give Reddit time. Let spez save Reddit and turn it into a money-maker. Once he does this and Reddit is no longer in danger of being shut down for being unprofitable, then Reddit will have breathing room to solve these issues. A profitable Reddit with a successful IPO will have more cash to spend on recreating the lost moderator tools and accessibility features from third party apps.

FIrst Reddit must manage to survive.

Because Reddit is on it's death throws now.

Because there's no way spez would destroy the trust he's built with the Reddit communities. Unless it is the only way to save the soul of Reddit.

This is why Reddit and spez must win.

P.S. Reddit and spez winning does not mean that we have to lose. If Reddit wins and becomes profitable then the communities are saved. There will be no Geocities or MySpace loss. At the same time a lot of moderators and users who are upset at being monetized will come here. Our communities here will be enriched by this and will continue to grow and blossom. Everybody wins! We can all be winners here!

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

You seem to be missing two rather important points.

First, users have no obligation whatsoever to ensure Reddit is profitable. That is not our job. We're the customers (we also arguably create all the value of the service, but let's set that aside since nobody's expecting to get paid for commenting on threads on Reddit). If Reddit needs to find a way to be profitable, then it's up to them to do it in such a way that doesn't damage their business. They have full control over all of this, and have consistently made the wrong decision every step of the way. Reddit management could easily have done what most other companies do in situations like these and backpedaled, given some kind of pseudo-apology, and found a way to do what they want to do in a less objectionable manner. They didn't. If Reddit goes the way of MySpace, it'll be the fault of the /u/spez and the others running the business.

Secondly, the company was founded in 2005. That's almost 20 years ago. If they haven't found a way to be profitable in that amount of time then they're not going to. They have a fundamental business problem they need to fix, and they're in a tough spot because most solutions to that problem will end up damaging the business they're trying to save. Sucks to be them, but they really should have thought of that over a decade ago.

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

I agree with most of what you said. However, we are not, nor were we ever, Snoosite's customers.

We, and the content we make, are the product they sell to advertisers.

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

Yes, I realize that, which is why I added the parenthetical about users providing Reddit's value. The fact remains that in the business/customer dynamic, we're on the customer side. We're not neutral bystanders, and we're sure as hell not part of the business side.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The lesson from GeoCities, MySpace, Yahoo Groups, etc. and now Reddit is that you can’t depend on a large corporation to host your content indefinitely.

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

Correct, the dilemma isn't profitability or oblivion. The correct answer is not to play. Don't be corporate.

Sure, there are still costs associated with running a federated instance, but the scale allows other solutions. Non-profits, co-ops, publicly funded, or just self hosted.

I'm sure Reddit will be fine, money will be generated for shareholders, etc. I just won't be there any more. Same with a lot of you here.

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

Perhaps you are right. Even so, even in that case, I wish to delay the end from coming for as long as possible. Avoid breaking up and fragmenting the communities for as long as possible. Prevent the irreversible loss of users' content for as long as possible. Pushing Reddit's focus away from profitability to means making the same choice as GeoCities did. To die.

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

The thing is (IMHO), fediverse communities are spread but they are not « fragmented ». That’s the beauty of it, no matter where they are, they’re not isolated from each other.

Forever it’s been like that, even before the internet. Communities come and go, and seeing them go can be sad… but when hosted centrally by large corporations, maybe those communities were not at a healthy place. In that case, the place dies, the communities go someplace else, I do hope they go to a healthy place like the fediverse, and they can live « prosper » (socially instead of financially)?

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

I am no opponent to the fediverse communities. I am here after all am I not?

I just think that there is room for all of us. KBin, Tildes, Squables, community.win, and yes even Reddit. Why can we not all win?

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

This can only happen in two cases. The fediverse has many instances and thus can survive a single instance going mad, for lack of a better term. The guy behind Tildes seems like a nice enough fella, so he'd fit the other mold - benevolent dictator. I know less about Squables but assume for the same of argument it's the same thing.

Reddit's CEO has shown that he's a dictator, but not the benevolent kind. So why does he and his company deserve anymore help from us? Why not put our efforts into places where we will be treated and respected better.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Opportunity cost on users using third party apps means that Reddit has to charge them high prices to make up for lost ads revenue. That's unavoidable.

The problem here is that the price that they're asking is not realistic. Have you read the original post from the Apollo developer? They could have asked for a reasonable price, and choose not to do so.

Also, this was the original problem, but then they created more problems in how they handle this. You're menrioning GeoCities and MySpace, but we should be talking about Digg, in the sense of not hearing your community opinion.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Exactly. All that had to be said after the protests was one of three things:

You the community have been heard, and we will try harder to work with third party apps so they can continue while we purse profitability before the deadline is up.
You the community have been heard, and we will delay by x months to give everyone a better, and more fair chance of adjusting.
We have heard you. Unfortunately it is not possible, and here are the transparencies about our finances to explain why. (No more would have to be given than what would be filed for a public company anyways. Doesn't seem an unreasonable ask for a company actively trying to IPO.)

Instead, he went with the all-out-war option. There's no negotiating with this company.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is this satire? If yes, don't forget to add /s at the end of your post.. thx..

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

no im serious

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

Oh woh. Well I agree on Reddit being in need of making a profit. I uderstand he found Reddit and does not want it to die. But the problem is the "fuck you" price. I would be totally fine to pay Reddit Premium to keep using 3rd party apps. I would have been okay with paying 40 bucks a month instead of 20 to the 3rd party app so the dev can pay the API fees.
But what u/spez is constantly doing and showing is driving me away from being nice and respectful to him. He blackmails 3rd party devs, he falsely accuses them of saying things that never happened. If he just said "I do now want 3rd party apps anymore" I'd be frustrated but I'd forgive and forget. At this point u/spez just seems to fight with the mindset of a preschooler against the community.
Oh and he is sympathizing with Musk and his moderation and way to run a company. These two things already made me say FUCK NO to Twitter.

Edit: he also fucked with long time, loyal super moderators

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

The loyal super moderator actually did take part in the blackout according to that post, despite later denials. Maybe it is justified from Reddits POV? Most users both in and out of Reddit agree it was the right call so I hardly see why that matters.

Maybe 40 bucks a month is not enough. Would you do 500 a month to keep them alive? Even if you would how many others could say the same?

We can not know the answers about how realistic a cheaper price would be from Reddits own POV unless we know their financials. Until then I think they deserve a showing of good faith.

I thought about it for a long time and I can not come up with any justification for spez doing the blackmail and false accusations. That was wrong and spez needs to own up to it like he did for the edits he did back in 2016. I do not think Reddit deserves to die because of these mistakes.

I did not know he was like that with Musk. I hate that guy. He is so ugly. Not at all sexy like blonde spez.

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

Yeah Reddit dying would be a very bad thing. I do not like the actions of its CEO but the content is extremely helpful. There is so much knowledge archived on Reddit.

And about the API Pricing I'd argue it would be very similar to YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Netflix, ...
If a user pays monthly for premium, the company will get more money than it would get from that user relying on ads. And running an API costs you nothing extra since you need one anyway, when you want to have any App or website that is written somewhat well.

Ngl I thought you were sarcastic at first but I thank you for the kind of reply you gave. More often than not threads like this get heated very quickly 👍

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

@spez_fangirl wow, lady, read the bloody room :(

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I do not agree with her, I think this is overly optimistic. I don’t think Spez is going to try to actually fix the problems after Reddit becomes profitable. I think if Spez’s motivations were more money for more employees he would have actually said so. I think we’re just going down the usual path of enshittification and squeezing users for as much money as possible without anything for us down the line. But I do think that she should be able to at least post disagreement on this topic instead of staying quiet because it doesn’t match the general sentiment on the site. She seems to be posting in good faith.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

He disregarded the protests as "noise". Of course he doesn't give a damn.

Let them die then. There's a point (that she's completely missing) about decentralization and not being beholden to billionaires to make the right decisions (they won't).

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

I am hopeful that spez means that the protests are just noise compared to the goal of profitability. Concerns that do not need to be dealt with immediately. This is a far cry from not giving a damn.

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

Huffman’s response to almost every question asked by Jay Peters reeks of spite. Every response has a passive (or not) aggressive undertone. The responses are laced with defensiveness. It’s the behavior of a petulant child. Huffman is trying to imply that third-party apps took advantage of Reddit to build successful businesses on the back of its API, but that’s simply not true. https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/15/reddit-blackout-third-party-apps/

Throughout the interview, Huffman repeatedly says that Reddit is “willing to work with the apps that are willing to work with us.” But that offer only seems to apply if you agree to the imminent deadline, agree to the as-proposed API pricing, and agree to not ask for any changes or further clarification.

Okay then. I guess by your logic, these are the actions of a person who cares about his users. By making the API access so economically unfeasible, it prices out the majority of developers (not saying it should be free, either but let's be reasonable).

If you're so convinced he wants to do good by the users (he doesn't) and nothing can change your mind, why are you here? Nothing we say is going to convince you and nothing you say is going to convince us. Not by any means trying to silence you, you have a right to your opinion but really, why are you here? I can produce article after article, quote after quote and none of it is going to change your position. What are you hoping to achieve?

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

That looks quite bad. The best I can hope for is that this was a hostile interviewer who mischaracterized spez.

My point still stands. Maybe the reason spez is so defensive is because he knows he has to succeed here or Reddit dies? Maybe spez tried to make the pricing more reasonable and that is why it took Reddit so long to give an answer on the numbers? Maybe spez realized that because of Reddit's poor financials there wasn't really a way to come up with reasonable pricing, that clawing back the opportunity cost was the only way? Maybe spez is like this because Reddits financial situation is that bad and he is getting increasingly desperate?

Even if spez is the devil, there is no way for Reddit to continue as it is now. It is bleeding money. It is hard enough to become profitable under the conditions that Reddit is under. Asking Reddit to provide extra things for free or even for just barely unreasonably cheap is not going to help at all.

Maybe Reddit is pure evil. Our best chance at saving Reddit is still to help Reddit become profitable first and then hope that once it no longer has to worry about failing that Reddit can be reformed into a company that cares about and listens to it's users and it's communities.

Why do you assume that there is nothing you can do to change my position? I am here because I believe we can save Reddit and the communities. I hope that I can inspire others as well.

As painful as it would be I am still open to the chance that I am just plain wrong and the doom of GeoCities is about to repeat itself with nothing that can be done by anyone or anybody to prevent it from happening again this time to Reddit.

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

It was not just this one time or one interview. spez lied about the Apollo dev and tried to drag his name in the mud, forcing the dev's hand and making him feel compelled to release recordings to clear his own name.

Before the numbers for the API pricing were announced, the devs and the mods who had a direct line with the admins all agreed that reddit was at least being highly professional about things.

Notice how no one is saying that anymore? Doesn't that tell you something?

We shouldn't help reddit when all we get in return is contempt from a Musk-wannabe. In fact, you want us to give up our best leverage here - take away the user generated content and the hard work of the mods to keep that content high quality, and there's nothing for reddit to offer to advertisers.

With a guy like this in charge, reddit probably is lost anyways. (Not that reddit would die right away necessarily, myspace is still around after all.) But more on how the trust with the mods and the users of subs is now broken. They will never be the same again. So let's go and build something better here, where we don't have to deal with this kind of crud.

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

Thank you for respecting my views even when they disagree with your own.

You could be right. I could be overly optimistic. What if spez and other top management and developers leaves after getting rich from the IPO and Reddit crashes and burns without them? Maybe spez stays on as CEO after the IPO but continues to ignore the protests because he thinks actually addressing these issues will hurt Reddit's profitability and he doesn't see a way out.

If spez will not deal with these concerns of accessible moderation tools after profitability, how can we expect him to do so before then? Put a different way, there is a chance that spez might actually fix the problems after Reddit becomes profitable. Fixing them before is impossible. There's no chance of that happening.

I never said spez wants more money for more employees. The opposite is going to be true. Reddit will have more layoffs before it gets in the black. Reddit admins will lose their jobs. We are not the only ones suffering. This is exactly why we must stick together to support Reddit and help it become profitable.

I could be overly optimistic. It seems our best chance remains having a benevolent CEO of a profitable Reddit. Without the profitable part, the benevolent part does not matter.

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

I think that's it, really. This only works if we have both a benevolent CEO of Reddit and a profitable Reddit. I don't need to repeat what others have already quoted and linked to in this article, but I think at this point it is crystal clear - spaz has shown his true colours and he is not benevolent. Helping Reddit make bank at this point would only enrich a guy who seems to hate his user's guts. We'd not get a single thing in return for our efforts, so why bother? That's better spend on the fediverse.

Edit: TBH I get the impression that spez would totally kill off Reddit if he thought he could get a big enough payday.

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

No problem, it’s not like you came in here disrespecting our views.

I got the “more money for more employees” thing from

Reddit is getting too much traffic. It's too big and has too many users, moderators, and communities.

So this means Reddit needs a lot of employees. Someone asked why Reddit needs 2000 employees? Well, where do you think the admins come from? I bet most of them are the hardworking admins who form the bridge between Reddit and the communities.

Since Reddit is so big, perhaps too big, it's hard for them to be profitable.

But it’s definitely possible I misinterpreted you!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I don’t think most people have any problem with Reddit taking steps toward profitability. The whole time it’s always been about how they’re going about it, and how the fallout could have been far less bad if he had approached everything a little differently (such as: more realistic/less oppressive API pricing, giving warning of changes much farther in advance to allow 3P apps time to adjust, and behaving himself a lot better when interacting with people about the changes).

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

OP seems to be leaning towards the "bad financials" theory on why reddit is being so out of touch - like they literally can't afford it.

But it still doesn't explain the drastic change in attitude from spez and friends. The above (assuming that it's even true) isn't an excuse for admins making up crazy rules about NSFW or kicking off entire mod teams without notice or warning, or randomly permabanning mods and regular users for no apparent reason.

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

Exactly

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

What I was trying to say was that these were all out of the control of spez. If Reddits finances were bad enough then spez might not be able to wait long enough to give more time or be able to afford to offer even one penny less in pricing. There is no justifying the poor attitude but maybe spez is just really stressed out?

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

You’re right that there’s no justifying it – and there’s no excusing it, either. When you’re the public face of a company, you can’t afford to have an off day/week/whatever and let it show.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm surprised you're referencing Geocities and MySpace because your post really smacks of young-person naivete.

You're severely overlooking overhead costs and multiple revenue streams for reddit in terms of profitability. Yes, it costs money to employ people, but servers and data costs money too. I remember when reddit was NOT its own photo and video hosting site, and everything that was posted as OC was hosted on imgur, flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, and other content hosting websites that were prepared to scale. Instead of defending why Spez has to find more money, why is cutting costs for probably reddit's biggest expense not on the table? Seems to me that reddit took on all the cost and liability of content hosting without there being any asset to the website for doing so.

Additionally, there are multiple revenue streams for reddit. Yes, ad revenue is one thing, but also reddit coins were another stream. I can't even remember the layout of the reddit webpage right now because it's been so long since I've logged in on a laptop, but does anyone else remember the years in which every day, the front page had a progress bar of how much of the daily cost for reddit had been met through the purchase of reddit coins?? Why didn't reddit just become a subscription model? I would have gladly paid $3/month to keep the lights on. Multiply $3 by the massively addictive nature of reddit and its multiple million userbase, and reddit could have set the Guinness book world record for social media profitability.

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

I feel that this answer makes the most sense on why spez is getting so much hate right now. He could have made Reddit profitable in so many other ways. He chose to pick the way that would alienate the maximum number of community members and spez is refusing to right the course even after getting so much backlash when spez has plenty of options and opportunity to do this.

I do wonder if there is still something. Some explanation that is not public but which explains why spez was forced to do things this way. Some reason that suddenly makes everything else forgivable.

I have been around. Early AOL user here.

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

What do you gain by going to bat so hard for someone who doesn't even know you exist? To be so loyal that you're required to go into mental contortions to explain away the facts presented to you so that you can find the most generous rendition of what's going on?

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

I created a Reddit account using a school email address that I no longer have access too and I have since forgotten the password. I have no way of getting back into my account and rescuing my stories.

If everyone comes around to my point of view, then Reddit lives, and my stories stay up. Also the communities that I participate in under my new Reddit account continue to exist. This is important to me.

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

Hey, I think I can help you with this. If you go to https://reddit-top20k.cworld.ai then you can search for and download an archive from the subs you posted in. From there you can search for your old reddit username and rediscover your old content that way.

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

KYS

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

Please shut the fuck up OP, you’re a dumbass (please end)

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

I was really encouraged by the responses from everyone else. A lot disagreed with me but still treated me respectfully and I felt I could at least have a voice here.

Then I see this. How come a post like this is even allowed? @jerry @Shortcake @tchambers

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

You create an account with the express purpose of posting inflammatory nonsense and then cry to the mods to save you from the consequences of your own actions?

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

I followed all rules. This is magazine is not called antireddit but RedditMigration. Nothing I posted is nonsense, as you can tell by the detailed replies and counterarguments that I have received. Reasonable people can have different and disagreeing views.

I looked to the rules to see what the consequences would be. I expected a safe place where I could engage in a discussion with others. When people disagree with me in a respectful manner I do not have a problem with that. So far only one person has asked me to stop engaging, and that is the person that I cried out to the moderators.

I will end this with what @Emotional_Series7814 wrote to me.

"No problem, it’s not like you came in here disrespecting our views."

It does not seem right that I am not entitled to the same level of respect.

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

Reddit was able to cover their costs years ago when they were a small operation. They used to have a meter that showed Reddit gold revenue covering operating costs every day. The company isn't unprofitable for a good reason. It's unprofitable because they have chosen to hire a staff of 2000 people and to prioritize an unsustainable level of growth. It's not good business; it's greed.

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

Slowly or quickly, it's gonna crash. At this point you are just rearranging furniture on the Titanic

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

Win? How does he even "win"? By having random people accept that he can do what he's already doing because he can? Well then he has already won.

He can destroy reddit as much as he wants and call it winning. Maybe the monetization will work this time, but why should I even care about it.

They made it perfectly clear that 3rd party app users are not welcome there.

The service went to shit tears ago and now they won't even let me in? Oh blimey, why should I care what they do there anymore? I'm certainly not going to fight for keeping it regardless of what they do with it.

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

Yes Comrade. Totally agree! Glory to Arstotzka!

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