
Reddit raises $300M at $3B valuation - Deimorz
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-raises-300-million-at-3-billion-valuation.html
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Deimorz
This was rumored last week, but the details such as amount/valuation weren't
known yet. Here's the HN discussion from that:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19087558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19087558)

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sadris
How is Reddit only valued at 3b but WhatsApp was 19b?

~~~
quacked
Probably a much larger international userbase for WA. Anecdotal, but I've
found that most non-English subreddits are pretty dead (or have niche users in
foreign countries), whereas when I meet Turkish, Polish, Russian, French, etc.
people in the US and abroad, they all ask me to add them on WhatsApp.

~~~
luckylion
Not just internationally: a much larger userbase in general. And, I believe
more importantly: reddit is essentially a forum. Few people are super invested
into forums. They get older, their interests change, they have less time to
argue about politics, they move on from forums. Whatsapp is a messenger,
people rarely move on from those - it's usually the messengers that abandon
their users, not the other way round (aim, icq, skype...), and they do profit
from a network effect, reddit doesn't.

~~~
IMTDb
In 2 years 75% on my social network moved from facebook messenger to WhatsApp.

In 5 Years, snapchat went from the next crazy thing to something I barely hear
about.

Remember frontback ? They turned down $40 million 5 years ago.

I could go on and on. Meanwhile, reddit is in the top 10 most visited websites
in the world for as long as I can remember.

~~~
luckylion
Facebook messenger wasn't actually a messenger in the IM sense, it was a bad
site chat, and too locked in. Hence buying Whatsapp = good idea (plus much
more data to mine, obviously).

You're right though: things can change. But they usually don't do too quickly
once the dust has settled and the giants have emerged. Yeah, yeah, there could
be a Google killer tomorrow, but there probably won't. That's very different
when markets are still developing and nobody has any clue what's going to
happen in 6 months time, but monopolists don't just disappear over night
because a new kid rode into town. That's what's different between snapchat,
myspace and facebook.

Reddit has nothing even close to that kind of pull. To get to the advertising
dollars, it will have to crack down on users and become sfw, and that will
turn lots of people away. When there's money to be made, they will also have
to deal with copy right, and that will shut down a good part of the meme
subreddits, I'm afraid. I'm sure it'll still have a place in a few years,
controlling a major discussion platforms is worth money after all, but I don't
see it going to the big league by staying what they are now.

