
How Reddit plans to make money through advertising - elsewhen
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/29/how-reddit-plans-to-make-money-through-advertising.html
======
bionoid
It seems to me like they are deliberately sacrificing the old userbase for a
younger, "more naive" audience. I moderate a medium-sized subreddit, and I am
seriously considering just closing the thing down, because I'm not going to be
willing to adapt my bots to a work with a crippled API (its bad enough as it
is). And let's be real here, the API will be crippled in the near future. Do
you really think you'll be allowed to have an ad-free and tracking-free
experience in a third-party app when they are done with this redesign project?

* They went closed-source.

* They removed the cloudsearch syntax from the search API. That may not seem very signifficant since very few _people_ used it for their day to day redditing. But this was the _only_ way of acquiring submissions older than the most recent 1000 for any given subreddit. Now there is no way to obtain old data, short of searching for random keywords and checking the date. I guess they don't want _you_ to benefit from the aggregated data.

* They abandoned iterative development to do a redesign-by-giant-committee. They are just pushing hostile shit and adjust if the complaints get too loud. That's a clear warning sign of things to come.

* They rolled out the redesign on wide scale while it was not even close to alpha state. Half of the endpoints just straight up didn't work, and the remaining half was broken, like flairs, rules, css, and basically everything else.

* The new system refuses to serve hosted image content to non-trackable clients (ie, you need img.png?sid=valid_sid to get image data). It also includes some rather hostile tracking technology, I forget the details but it was described in /r/privacy somewhere.

At this point, it seems like the best thing to do is to set my subreddits to
private so at least I am not contributing to their $100M revenue... but yeah,
unfortunately it sucks for the community (and possibly other mods interested
to keep the place running), hard decision to pull the trigger :/

~~~
hungerstrike
I am looking forward to the death of reddit because I think it can be done way
better. One big thing I'd like to see changed is the very blunt
upvote/downvote hammer that results in tyranny of the majority every time.
Instead, I'd like comments to be sorted based on my "network of influencers",
or users who I've rated positively...

Another thing I think should be changed is that mods shouldn't be all powerful
and they shouldn't be able to just shut down.

~~~
beirut_bootleg
> Instead, I'd like comments to be sorted based on my "network of
> influencers", or users who I've rated positively...

This would in essence create your personal echo chamber.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Echo chamber usually means it merely reflects back what you emit -- that's a
possibility, but personally I like inciteful or thought-provoking comments
more than I like comments that agree with me, and seeing more of them is also
possible: this is one of the reasons I hate that pg (and thus HN) promotes
downvoting for disagreement, and basically censors (with near invisibility)
dissenting voices.

My favourite system has been Slashdot because you could promote your view of
(moderated, and meta-moderated) content voted to be insightful, say, whilst
reducing viewing pure joke posts, and such. You could also boost/nerf
particular voices.

Reddit is too much "cutesy animal" content, I wish I could filter all of that,
it just doesn't amuse me.

~~~
glenstein
Exactly, and this highlights what I've never understood about echo chamber
arguments. You might genuinely like things that you learn from, things that
change you. You might like a subject matter that encompasses a huge variety of
types of content- for instance if you follow astronomy, and see an article
about a new discovery, it seems like more is going on than a pre-existing
belief being echoed back at you.

I'm not saying there's no such thing as echo chambers, but there's so much
else going in when you engage with sources you select that doesn't have
anything to do with whether a pre-existing belief is being echoed back to you.

------
MoronInAHurry
By turning their site into this:
[https://i.imgur.com/TtVAiMN.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/TtVAiMN.jpg)

That's what a new visitor to reddit.com would see, as of about a month ago.

~~~
slg
Their new design is comically bad at this point. I just loaded up Reddit full-
screen on my desktop with a 2560x1440 resolution. I saw 3 posts above the fold
in the default non-signed in format. Those 3 posts occupied the center 650px
of the screen. There was a column to the right that took up a little over
300px and contained two ads among other site navigation stuff. The other
1600px of horizontal screen real estate was completely empty. I get the idea
of mobile first design, but the new design is actively hostile to anyone using
a screen larger than a tablet.

~~~
rap_rap_wrapper
The few subreddits I follow have also become hostile towards users wrt
participation. People are banned frequently and questionable accounts vote in
easily recognizable patterns.

I'm not saying there's a concerted effort (by Reddit or 3rd parties) to sway
public opinion -- but it certainly feels that way.

And yes, the site has become horrible for usability.

I really wish someone with more free time than me would combine a bunch of
current buzzwords (distributed, blockchain, whatever) and cook up something
that was easy to use but still free from the tyranny of special interest and /
or profit.

That's not to say that they shouldn't get rich in the process, just that they
should be building something incorruptible.

I'll donate $1000 to a crypto address if others are willing to match.

~~~
imglorp
Remember to keep mods (volunteers who curate a subreddit) separate from
admistrators (employees with legal and $ constraints). They usually have no
contact with each other.

So if you got banned from one sub for some reason, it was the mods. The beauty
of reddit is, you're free to take your friends and, in 5 minutes, make another
sub which you guys mod. Perhaps you'll outgrow whatever sub you're ditching.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _So if you got banned from one sub for some reason, it was the mods. The
> beauty of reddit is, you 're free to take your friends and, in 5 minutes,
> make another sub which you guys mod. Perhaps you'll outgrow whatever sub
> you're ditching._

The problem is that you lose most of the community. Starting a new sub is
easy, growing one is hard.

~~~
go1dfish
This is why you make it possible to fork a community, retain the content and
as much or as little of the moderation decisions as you agree with.

------
vivan
I do hope people start leaving Reddit.

I love Reddit, don't get me wrong - you can find a community of people who are
passionate about pretty much _any_ topic.

In the old world, each of these communities had their own disjointed forums -
with Reddit they are all becoming centralised. If Reddit ever decides to be
really evil they are very difficult to migrate away.

~~~
swalsh
This redesign really makes me think of digg v4. The usability of the site is
completely different, the inline ads. The biggest difference is they have 10
years of momentum.

But if someone takes the old open source code base and starts "readit.com"
i'll move.

~~~
LaikaF
I was part of the digg to reddit user migration. The big difference this time
around is there is no reddit to migrate too.

I was affected by that recent wave of subreddit bans and started looking at
alternatives.

There's plenty but none are very good.

The biggest move I've seen is people going to Discord servers. The two
problems with that are: -Searching and history aren't really a thing on them
-Discord does not really have a good way to make money other than nitro.

------
ksec
For a site that had 3rd largest visitor count on the web, they only managed to
make $100M.

It is very hard for me to understand how Google and Facebook manage to make
that much money. Because even if Reddit made 10x at 1 billion, it is still so
far off from the other two.

~~~
swalsh
Google is there when you're in the buying mindset. "I need car insurance,
let's google car insurance" that's worth $40 a click. And there's return on
investment from that too.

Facebook is fantastic for advertisers what it mastered is targeting. It knows
EVERYTHING about you. However it is at a disadvantage from google in that,
you're not in a buying mindset when you're on the site. So as an advertiser
the clicks are worth less.

Reddit could enter facebooks space. Your comments and forum activity could be
data mined to build an advertising profile. However, they haven't really
mastered that yet.

~~~
gowld
Reddit has many many shopping/spending-oriented or -friendly subreddits, many
of which hit frontpage frequently.

The #1 post on [https://www.reddit.com/](https://www.reddit.com/) right now is
an post about a Marvel movie.

#2 is World Cup, surely monetizable.

#4 is a video game

------
dredmorbius
Former Reddit admin and automoderator creator Diemos has launched an
alternative site, as-yet invite-only, Tildes
([https://tildes.net](https://tildes.net)). I've been exploring that over the
past few weeks, and am positively impressed. It's young yet and small, but
shows promise, a sane and healthy community (sharply contrasting both Voat and
Imzy in this regard), and some innovative and positive technical features, as
well as an expressly member-driven, donor-supported, model.

There's plenty of opportunity to go wrong, but the launch looks good so far.

Reddit are certainly providing a golden window of opportunity.

[https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-
tildes](https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes)

~~~
Crespyl
Tildes is still kind of finding its feet as a community, and there's a certain
degree of navel-gazing as everyone tries to figure out exactly what kind of
content and behavior is/isn't desirable.

That said, the stated goals and driving philosophy seem sound, and the design
of the site functionality seems to be on track to fix some of the core
problems with reddit and similar sites.

The concepts of nested groups with "bubble-up", content tagging, and multi-
dimensional vote/tags on comments (when comment tags are eventually re-
enabled) are all really appealing.

~~~
dredmorbius
Morbius's Law of New Media Platforms:

The first topic of discussion shall be of the platform itself, what it is,
what it isn't, and how its design shapes those roles.

Add in healthy quantities of tugging from all sides trying to shape their own
pet platform of choice.

[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/H4mXSK6nC35gLUucGdkrqw](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/H4mXSK6nC35gLUucGdkrqw)

------
shafyy
Two thoughts as someone who is also building online community software:

\- I think there should be ways for community creators to monetize directly
through Reddit. For example, allow community creators to add a
donation/subscription button for really small amounts (e.g. 1$/month).

\- There is a growing opportunity in online chat communities. I guess that's
why they also started experimenting with chat. There is a large but non-
obvious difference between a forum and a chatroom, and as you might know from
Slack vs. email, it's a significantly different vibe.

~~~
CM30
Discord is basically the latter, aka Reddit for chat rooms/IRC equivalents.
Slack is pretty close to that idea too. So if Reddit got into that market,
there'd be real tough competition, even before taking the
decentralised/federated stuff into account.

~~~
shafyy
No, it's not. Discord is made for gaming.

If you would build a software for communities (for discussion in general),
then you would add different features that don't make sense for Slack or
Discord.

It's a huge market with a lot of distinct use cases, and therefore can support
a lot of similar players that focus on different use cases.

~~~
deyan
You seem knowledgable about the space. Mind sharing examples of such features,
or where you feel Discord is lacking?

~~~
shafyy
Sure. My company is focussing on communities that revolve around discussion
and learning (mostly targeting teens and young adults). Some features we are
working on are specific tools like a whiteboard that helps you quickly draw
something to better explain. Or a library of common definitions (e.g.,
formulas for math, definitions for CS) that take the friction out of helping
others. Furthermore, with our target group gamification and providing
incentives to a meaningful discussion is important, so we're working on
avatars and points that you can collect and use.

More general communities could use features such as:

\- Monetization directly in the software vs. sending users to a signup and
payment form (better UX, higher conversion rate)

\- Discoverability (e.g., a search function similar to Reddit)

\- Better onboarding for communities: For some communities, it makes sense not
to be public, but to require a short application (for whatever reason) -
currently community creators much build a separate website and send users
there, etc. This would be much better if it existed natively.

\- More focus on conversations/discussions instead of productivity tools

Just to mention a few. Of course, for Slack and Discord, it doesn't make sense
to implement these features because it would dilute the whole product.

------
codingdave
I'm not sure this is a wise move - Reddit already has ads, which clearly
haven't done enough for them. And there are legit reasons that ads are not as
reliable of a revenue stream as they were in the past. Tweaking a failing
business model won't produce a major shift in revenue.

They need some real change if they ever want to be something different than
what they are today. And what they are today is a mildly entertaining site
with both good and bad impacts on our society. But reddit is not a great place
to find paying customers, and therefore not a place I need more ad
capabilities.

------
aerialcombat
How good of a job are they doing at advertising? Advertising is tough since it
has to satisfy both the ad buyers and the users. It’s very easy to turn off
one or the other side.

~~~
mbo
Unlike, say, Facebook, I hate the ads that Reddit presents to me. They're
often poorly targeted, or flat-out obnoxious.

~~~
code_duck
Reddit has shown me the same ad about online mental health counseling every
day for 4 months. “Because I deserve it”.

~~~
gkya
I started enjoying Reddit when I unsubscribed from all subreddits, i.e. having
0 subscriptions. What I did instead was to group all of them in various
private multireddits inspired by USENET, so I have comp, emacs, langlearn,
laugh, etc. Thus when I'm just checking to see if a notification I'm expecting
is there, there is no links that can immediately distract me on the front
page. This saves me countless hours, and combined w/ opting out of all
personalisation [1], of the new profile overview and of the
fuckup^H^H^H^H^H^Hredesign, and with strict JS and content blocking, and
Redirector extension, it becomes bearable.

One thing Reddit should note is that people are there for the communities. If
there was sth. identical but run by a foundation or NGO, I'd jump there and
delete my reddit account once the important communities are migrated.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/personalization](https://www.reddit.com/personalization)

------
smithmayowa
Compared to the companies started at similar times which followed the grow
fast path but ultimately failed and looking at the slow but steady growth path
reddit has been allowed to follow I wonder why ycombinator does not accept
more companies like reddit(slow but steady growth companies) into their
accelerator, I mean being a founder of one such company I think that will be
awesome .

~~~
Deimorz
reddit grew fast and was acquired just over a year after it launched (which
was in June 2005): [https://techcrunch.com/2006/10/31/breaking-news-conde-
nastwi...](https://techcrunch.com/2006/10/31/breaking-news-conde-nastwired-
acquires-reddit/)

I'm fairly sure YC's stake in it was bought out at that point.

~~~
minimaxir
YC's stake maybe, but Sam Altman followed on as a lead investor later:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2hwr02/i_am_sam_altma...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2hwr02/i_am_sam_altman_lead_investor_in_reddits_new/)

------
noddy1
Anyone have any insight into why goog/fb haven't acquired reddit at this
point? If they could get it for anything near the 1.8billion previous
valuation surely they would just snap it up?

------
thinkingemote
The reason marketeers don't like traditional advertising in Reddit is because
they are getting their advertising for free by pretending to post as normal
users. A room full of students can push any product, message or image. Its
rampant in resdit. Why pay more for less reach?

------
dalbasal
To me Twitter is a sort of archetype of online, mass media businesses and some
of the quirky side effects of "unicorn culture."

At least at early stages, market value (and hence wealth of founders,
investors & early employers) is some version of: (Likelihood of reaching $N bn
revenue) X (N).

The size of "N" is so open ended that a lot of traditional economic/finance
logic of the kind Warren Buffet's generation used, it gets very abstract.

When Google launched adwords, no one really knew what the potential was. The
adwords team themselves understood the model (overture had already proven it)
and probably knew it would get > $1bn. Past that, it was an unknown. That kind
of a business had never existed at this scale before. Adwords is now $100bn
pa, and growing.

Facebook were in the same boat. The adwords/overture system didn't work on FB,
and the size/value of the new market they were building was unknown. They knew
it had potential, because of all the attention FB commanded, but how much was
a guess. They waited until after IPO to find out. It turned out to be a lot,
about $45bn currently, halfway to Google and gaining.

We have already forgotten this, but when Facebook IPO-ed they hadn't really
launched their mature business/advertising model. Revenue potential was still
unknown and the range of possibilities was still very wide. Even on the
premise that FB remained as popular as it was, anywhere from <$1bn to >$100bn
was very possible. A huge range of possible outcomes.

My belaboured point is that without the benefit of hindsight, the revenue
potential of Google, Facebook, Twitter & Reddit is very detail dependant.
Extrapolating from user/usage stats will only get you to within 100X.

Anyway, in this kind of environment, the pressure is on to hit the top of your
potential range. Take risks. Add costs.

About 5 years ago, Twitter looked down this barrel. They 10X-ed their number
of employees from 300-400 to 3,000-4,000 and cost base. Very little of this
expansion was strictly necessary, to provide the service they were/are
providing. Twitter was still Twitter @ 300 employees, more or less the same
Twitter we have today.

In an alternate world, they could have probably achieved >$1bn (currently @
$2bn) in annual revnue with just 500-1,000 or so employees. That's at the very
top of the revenue/employee spectrum, and a recipe for one of the most
profitable (in % terms) companies in the world. But, the current capital
allocation economy does not have room for this sort of thing.

Say it had been executed perfectly, $1.5bn/$0.5bn revenue/profit. They would
have been worth less than they are currently, even though they'd be making far
more profit. ...And Twitter didn't achieve the high end of their revenue
potential. They've had mediocre results, with their advertising model. Still,
just leaving open the possibility of Google/FB-like outcomes adds more to
market cap than any level of profit.

To put this in some numerical terms, Twitter spends 40% of it's 2.2$bn revenue
($1bn) on "Selling General and Administrative." This is more than twice "R&D"
spending, which I assume means "making Twitter features."

Reddit is in the same sort of boat (though they're userbase are more
beligerant to this sort of thing), but scaled down. Investors are looking at
Reddit's users & usage stats. DAUs, Times-on-sites... They are comparing it to
FB, Google, Twitter. They are coming up with massive revenue results that
_might_ be achieved if only a good advertising model could be plugged in.

What they are not looking it is "how much revenue would it take to profitably
make reddit reddit" without necessarily targetting or leaving open the
possibility of 100X more, at some point.

it seems that for these kinds of companies, you are either Google/Facebook or
you are a probability of becoming one. How profitable, popular or well liked
you are by users doesn't matter, only (probability of X). The implications of
this are big, and worrying for the future of media.

------
pacifika
Social media + sponsored content = fake news problem. It’s taking the trust
and integrity of the platform and selling that in exchange for exposure to
unverified content.

------
neotek
_" It's almost a little strange why marketers and advertisers are so
apprehensive" about Reddit, said Amanda Parker, an account supervisor for
digital marketing agency PMG. "Marketers chase scale, and Reddit has it. I
think they have an old-fashioned view of who Redditors are."_

Pretty obvious I would have thought: as long as reddit remains the platform of
choice for all the worst hate groups in America, the harder it will be for
them to attract advertisers.

If reddit insists on turning a blind eye to open and unchecked racism, calls
for genocide, threats of physical violence, and bucketloads of other abhorrent
content its co-founder describes as "valuable discussion", then that's the
price they have to pay.

~~~
weiming
I thought they did away with nearly most of those "famous" toxic subreddits.

~~~
slivym
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So whilst dead children might
be off limits, /r/the_donald is still around despite the whole pizzagate
shooting.

~~~
weiming
Wouldn't your statement be equatable with "Churches are still around despite
some crazy attacking an abortion clinic"?

~~~
colordrops
Apparently we will gladly give away our rights and freedoms to hurt "the other
side".

------
Waterluvian
I want to think that they're ignorant of how Reddit rose and what happened to
Digg but I'm skeptical that's the case. I think some people would rather kill
something good than continue to not risk capitalising on it.

------
yAnonymous
How's Voat doing these days?

~~~
q3k
Extremely toxic, as usual.

[https://q3k.org/u/0a15b5ec655a7153e7c37ee5062da48c57196af3f0...](https://q3k.org/u/0a15b5ec655a7153e7c37ee5062da48c57196af3f01ebe98acd2ad74a2564b68.png)

~~~
swalsh
I totally respect the "Anyone is allowed to post anything, even if it's
toxic". but when that's all the site is, or if I can't easily ignore it, it's
not usable.

The core audience of a forum set the culture. The core culture of voat were
people angry they couldn't post their racist shit on Reddit.

------
XalvinX
I bet organizations such as the KKK would love to advertise on reddit, so hey,
if they want to turn this into a money thing they should have plenty of
monetization opportunities.

My popcorn is in the microwave..... ;-)

------
XalvinX
What's wrong with $100,000,000? Why does everything have to be about money all
the time anyways?

And if it does have to be about money, then they should give the content
creators and moderators their share, should they not?

This is what's called a "slippery slope" ...

