
Reddit’s revenue per user is much lower than that of other social networks - kiyanwang
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-users-are-the-least-valuable-of-any-social-network.html
======
zeeed
That’s a good thing folks.

Talking about the user being the product, I’d try to choose a platform where
my value is minimal since I think it’s fair to assume that there’s less data
collection and profiling going on.

~~~
abhiminator
One _good_ thing I commend reddit for is their business model centered around
the user-funded 'gold system' (now called reddit premium [0]).

Kind of like a win-win: You see a great post or a comment by a random user,
you buy gold (or awards/coins as it's now called), reddit gets the money, post
or comment's author gets the recognition in that thread via a special badge
(aside from a host of other experience-enhancing benefits) -- everyone's
happy.

I'm aware of the fact that they run ads, but one can choose to evade all of it
by going premium -- pretty neat, imo; Imagine Facebook or Twitter giving users
this choice!

[0] [https://www.newsweek.com/reddit-gold-silver-platinum-
premium...](https://www.newsweek.com/reddit-gold-silver-platinum-premium-how-
get-awards-1172321)

~~~
pjc50
I'd love to see something similar for Twitter. Perhaps with better moderation
support as one of the perks.

"Gold" systems that actually pay the content creator, patreon-style, are an
interesting idea too. But they have considerable potential downsides.

~~~
rchaud
Content is constantly being reposted on Reddit with zero attribution. You're
better off trying to create a new community with these types of pay-the-
creator systems built into it, than shoehorning it into Reddit where the
incentive systems would be completely warped due to the Wild West nature of
'content ownership'.

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mschaef
My first inclination is to think this is a good thing. That it's a sign of a
better customer experience. It's the cynic in me that worries this will be
seen by some as an opportunity to increase RPU and screw up the site. (And the
new UI supports that cynical take, at least somewhat.)

I 'grew up' in the era of USENET, which had a couple benefits over the forums
and then social media sites that sprang up to replace it. It wasn't perfect,
but it did offer more individual control over user experience and less
dependency on a single corporate entity. It would be nice to find a way to get
back to some of that.

~~~
dublo7
The new layout is annoyingly modern but I do like the ability to read an
article and go back to the list without reloading the page.

Now if res can just be updated for the new site to further fix all the little
niceties. The fast use switching inevitably drives me back to old mode soon
enough.

In the mean time create a bunch of accounts to help their valuation right?
I've got a dozen accounts and forgotten the password to at least as many.

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zelon88
Obviously. They practically promote throwaway accounts and don't require any
real personally identifiable information through their registration process.
Their users aren't nearly as attached to their account as, say, an Instagram
user or Facebook user with a vested interest in keeping their account closely
tied to their identity.

On the contrary, Reddit users typically don't want their Reddit activities
tied to their identity at all. As such, Reddit accounts probably don't get
used nearly as frequently thus aren't as lucrative from a data harvesting
standpoint.

Although there's a special place in hell for a website with 17 cookies.

------
dominicr
That makes me like Reddit more. I wish more social media would allow me to pay
to access a version of the service that wasn't centred around advertising.
Even with adverts Reddit doesn't feel like it's manipulating everything you
see just to sell access to your eyeballs.

Reddit has an ad-free premium subscription, although at $5.99 a month it's
obviously a lot more than the $0.30 they reckon each user is actually worth.

~~~
z3t4
Selling ad-free premium subscription is not a good idea if you rely on ads. As
those willing to pay, is exactly those an advertiser want to target.

~~~
indigochill
>As those willing to pay, is exactly those an advertiser want to target.

How does this follow? A user is not just on a scale from "I don't pay for
anything" to "I pay for everything." People pay to solve what they perceive as
problems. For some people, that problem is online advertising (but they don't
use adblock because for instance they think it's unfair to the platforms they
use). For others, it might be that they're looking to buy their kid a new toy.
People could easily be in both groups, but they're unrelated so let's keep
them separate for this example.

An advertiser representing Toys-R-Us for instance would love to advertise to
that second group. The first group? Not necessarily.

~~~
dominicr
^ What indigochill said.

In addition, for Reddit it seems a paying subscriber is worth 20 non-paying
subscribers and is a more secure form of income. So I imagine they're exactly
the type of user they want. Why would the subscription model exist if it hurt
advertising revenue?

~~~
Nasrudith
My guess although I don't agree with it is that some marketers think "people
willing to pay to not deal with ads" are a more valuable demographic to
advertise to. Which is cosmically missing the point really.

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swalsh
Reddit has some valuable users, but its poorly monetized. For example, I dont
trust political support reddits... after 2016 they all feel gamed. I think a
paid sub, a sub that has a monthly subscription which added an extra level of
scrutiny to the users and posts might be interesting.

Alternatively, a revenue sharing model where I pay for a subscription to a
sub, and I can read normally paygated links.

~~~
zrail
I participate in a forum with paid subscriptions and heavy moderation. The
politics threads still feel gamed occasionally.

~~~
abrawill
I would not think that having to spend a little money is an actual deterrent
for those who want to game public opinion. So I wouldn't be surprised if it
still happened.

~~~
ctack
The only way it wouldn't is if the money paid for an editorial staff and then
you'd be approaching a traditional media setup.

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cube00
It makes sense when you consider how many "throw away" accounts are out there.
You couldn't get away with creating those kind of accounts on other platforms.

~~~
qrbLPHiKpiux
Users won’t ask the stuff they do without throwaways. They’re needed for some
level of anonymity, within reason.

~~~
rchaud
I agree with this. But one of the irritating things about Reddit is just how
much straight up lying happens simply because the poster wants a high-
attention thread. r/relationships and r/sex is full of these 'that happened'
absurd scenarios that well-meaning posters do still try to help with.

~~~
MiddleEndian
They're entertainment. You read with the expectation that they're mostly
false, but the possibility that any one of the absurd situations is happening
for real.

------
rchaud
Normal display advertising will not work on Reddit, but native ads will. Take
content that already gets tons of comments (pictures of pets looking cute),
add in one paid promotion item, like a dog jacket. Then get someone to
innocently ask where they can buy the jacket, and reply in a link.

The meme of Reddit users is that they consider themselves to be harbingers of
rational thought and logic, but they are easily influenced consumers just the
same. As Amazon starts looking more like AliExpress, Reddit will become a
place where Twitch/E-gaming/Cosplay personalities separate 'followers' from
their money.

~~~
thwythwy
You're a genius. All reddit has to do is violate the FTC Act on a massive
scale.

------
huhtenberg
Are there any sources on the split of per-user revenue between ads, reddit
premium and reddit gold?

I would've normally expected ads to be the bulk of it, but now that we have
Fortnite with its strictly vanity merch... you just never know.

------
jeswin
My view is that apps will evolve to be more user hostile, and there is no
solution in the current internet landscape. Take the most snoopy internet
corp, FaceBook - well above half their revenue goes to paying for
infrastructure and salaries. Even if they choose not to build the technology
(and hardware) that exists merely for user monitoring, a product working at
that scale cannot exist without prying on user data and selling their privacy.
Same situation with Google, and maybe Reddit eventually.

For a number of apps, a possible alternative is the P2P model - in which
infrastructure costs are shared by participants and development is done by
enthusiasts (either for free or with lifestyle-business sized incomes).

------
Meekro
I'm not surprised to hear this.

I run a game server hosting company (primarily for Ark: Survival Evolved) and
I buy lots of ads. My best sources for ads are Google and Bing, both of which
have excellent conversion rates for relevant search phrases-- in other words,
people who click the ads are very likely to ending up signing up for a paid
plan with my company.

The reddit ads are very different. I bought ads on relevant subreddits and
plenty of people clicked them, but no one ever signed up. After wasting
thousands of dollars on this, I stopped advertising on reddit.

------
gpmcadam
Do people who use reddit consider themselves part of a social network?

~~~
deadbunny
Nope, it's just centralized newsgroups IMHO.

~~~
mschaef
Exactly. (But just the alt hierarchy... I don't think Reddit has anything like
the old voting process used to create groups in other hierarchies.)

------
mrweasel
The revenue from Twitter and Snapchat is actually more fascinating.

I have no idea how Snapchat is making money. I know they have ads, I just
don't know where, I've never seen one.

~~~
he6s4vyu
The right tab is full of ads, no?

~~~
mrweasel
What tabs? You have the friends list and the "send a snap" screens, those are
the only two I see... and sometime my profile.

~~~
he6s4vyu
First tap down here:
[https://i.imgur.com/6SUbJeK.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/6SUbJeK.jpg)

Scroll down and you will see lots of ads.

~~~
mrweasel
Interesting, I'm surprised that they're able to make money on that. Also
Snapchat apparently thinks I'm Norwegian.

~~~
he6s4vyu
All I get is gossip, clickbait and political propaganda. Very unethical,
especially for an app where the dominant demographic is early teens. :/

------
z3t4
I thought advertising on Reddit must be really cheap then, compared to
Facebook, Google et.al. But it seems I can not advertise on Reddit if I have
an ad blocker ... !?

~~~
rimunroe
I’m all for adblockers, but why would you be allowed to advertise if you use
one? Do you have some reasoning for why other people should potentially see
your ad while you don’t see those of others? Does your adblocker whitelist
some things? Genuinely curious.

~~~
z3t4
You wont do much business if you lock out all the hypocrites.

------
r3bl
You don't need an email address to sign up, let alone anything else.

Personally identifiable information are more valuable than those that are not.
That's not a surprise.

------
swarnie_
Not shocked honestly.

A lot of Reddit users are against the idea of being advertised to or having
their data sold. In addition to this semi-anonymous and throwaway accounts are
common which must lower the worth of any data collected.

I personally have 3 different accounts, One for work, one for politics and a
final one for games. I'm more then happy to rotate (throw away and recreate)
any of these accounts at any time.

~~~
shaki-dora
Populations are just different among the networks. Facebook is probably
closest to “all people”. Twitter skews towards urban professionals. Instagram
has the artsy/fashion-conscious crowd. Pinterest attracts more traditional
women.

Reddit, for its part, attracts the young, male underclass. Not exclusively, of
course. I have an account myself, so don’t feel insulted.

That demographic just isn’t as valuable, unless you’re selling games or
conspiracies. They have neither money nor power.

~~~
dageshi
I would say that was true until 2-3 years ago, my sense is reddit has
broadened out a lot recently.

~~~
mschaef
I tend to agree with you. I joined Reddit back before the time they allowed
sub-reddits to be created at well. My view of the site was more or less
entirely /r/programming, which had a post celebrating 65,536 users. This was
also around the time they switched from using Lisp to Python:
[https://redditblog.com/2005/12/05/on-
lisp/](https://redditblog.com/2005/12/05/on-lisp/)

Then at some point, the site opened up sub-reddit creation and a vast new
world popped up around 'me' that I was completely oblivious to. (And
/r/programming is now at 1,700,000 users...) The site's changed a lot over the
years, and not necessarily in ways that are immediately obvious. (But that
lisp post is almost 15 years old, so maybe that shouldn't be a surprise.)

------
jesuslop
call us poorly monetizable instead please

------
stestagg
I wish the title included the word ‘commercial’.

I’m not a Redditer myself, but _some_ of the things to come out of various
eclectic reddit communities have been amazingly valuable

~~~
shaki-dora
The commercial value would seem to correlate rather well with other values.
Sure, there are some subreddits that are well-moderated, and where some
genuinely creative stuff happens. But when weighted by the number of users and
comments, most of reddit is just the lowest common denominator of
entertainment.

In contrast, Twitter can at least claim that it is the place where news
increasingly happens. And whatever the reason, I find a politician’s twitter
stream far better than any ama (which really are rather terrible, for the most
part).

Similarly, many professional communities seem to congregate on Twitter far
more than on reddit.

Facebook obviously owns the real-world-relationship angle, which puts them
above the others.

