
Reddit CEO Asks Users To Buy Revamped Membership - ssclafani
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/08/reddit-digg/
======
aston
Deep within the 1000+ comments on the accompanying reddit thread is a really
interesting fact: Reddit is not (currently) profitable. [1]

I was already a reddit gold subscriber, but the fact that at the moment
they're literally running into the red to provide cool stuff like the Obama
AMA makes me want to subscribe again. Anyone looking for a reddit gold
account?

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/12v8y3/now_is_the_time...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/12v8y3/now_is_the_time_to_invest_in_gold/c6yfbuh)

~~~
slackerIII
Does anyone know what Reddit's AWS monthly bill is these days? I suspect they
would be closer to profitability if they ran their own hardware, but I haven't
seen any numbers recently.

~~~
rogerbinns
In previous talks they have never revealed the numbers, but have said that
their bills have been fairly constant over time - Amazon's price decreases
have balanced growth in AWS usage.

~~~
raldi
Sure we did. Jedberg used to talk about it all the time.

~~~
rogerbinns
Closest I have found is this (two years old):
[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/ctz7c/your_gold_dollar...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/ctz7c/your_gold_dollars_at_work/c0v8ug8?context=1)

~~~
raldi
Well, try updating it for the present.

------
SoftwareMaven
I really, really hope Reddit and 4Chan succeed in this. It would be great for
other new services to be able to point to services like Reddit and say,
"Customers will pay for something that is valuable to them, even if it's just
a web site."

I don't use Reddit enough to justify paying for it, but I would certainly pay
to support HN.

~~~
fudged71
Is 4chan doing something similar? Where did that come from?

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I was just going off what was printed in the article. :)

~~~
fudged71
Oh shoot, I missed the last paragraph. Thanks

------
nikcub
> See, the problem is that if your site is funded primarily with advertising,
> then you are beholden to your advertisers.

There is a lot of precedent for handling this, as newspapers have been doing
for decades. Newspapers have the content producers and the business people in
the same building employed by the same company.

You separate your business and editorial and put a wall between them in the
company. Nobody from business has access to the admin panel and nobody from
editorial has access to the business contacts.

I really couldn't imagine an advertiser asking reddit to remove a post for
them. To advertise on reddit means that you have some understanding of how it
works, and how it works doesn't involve admins censoring content.

There are more than enough advertisers in the world who both understand reddit
and would pay good money to get their ads infront of that audience. The only
problem is that the ad product is not sold or promoted well.

~~~
adamjernst
That didn't work out too well for the newspapers, did it?

Newspapers got away with it for so long because they held a monopoly on
information distribution.

~~~
krichman
Unless I am mistake, newspapers have distribution costs that are orders of
magnitude larger.

------
citricsquid
I don't really understand why they're so against doing _proper_ advertising,
so much so that they're willing to operate at a loss. Digg didn't fail because
of advertising and if reddit can approach advertising in a "mature" way -- not
just going after every penny -- it could work out well.

    
    
        you come under editorial pressure from advertisers to 
        remove or modify it…This eventually results in a 
        watering down of the true, authentic content on the site
    

If you're in a situation where you have no advertising and you're losing
money, why not be in a situation where you have some advertising and if an
advertiser gets annoyed you tell them to leave and not work with you again? If
reddit has value to advertisers a few annoyed advertisers aren't going to
break the site, especially when it can exist as a money losing business.

Their current advertising is just... pointless, I rarely see adverts on
reddit, almost every page load has the advertisement block filled with an
internal reddit notice (eg: "check out the FAQ!", "Thanks for not using
adblock", "check out reddit gifts") or an advert that someone has paid for via
self serve for their subreddit.

Maybe I'm missing something but surely even just throwing up a simple adsense
block in the advertising space would generate enough revenue to be worth
whatever supposed good will these cutesy cat picture adverts exist to score.
Adsense certainly wouldn't "destroy" the trust people have placed in the
site... As someone that puts time into reddit I'd be more annoyed if they let
the site become so unprofitable they have to shut it down vs. have a few
adverts that I can opt out of with a tiny monthly fee.

Would anyone here (that uses reddit) leave if they had proper advertising
(that could be opted out of with reddit gold and was not audio / video
advertisements, just "standard" web adverts)? I've never met someone willing
to leave a website over adverts, if the adverts are reasonable.

Also during the time I wrote this comment I was constantly refreshing
reddit.com, so far I have not seen a single non-reddit related advert and I'm
at 30 page loads.

(maybe raldi or jedberg or whoever that left reddit and lurks here can explain
why this isn't being done, because it's confusing, is there an internal belief
that reddit users are so touchy that they'll leave if reddit tries proper
advertising?)

edit: oh and for the perfect example, imgur has advertising, what about 75% of
popular reddit content uses, and I don't see people boycotting imgur? (of the
100 links in r/all right now 75 are to imgur, 25 of those are to imgur.com
which has advertising, so that means 25% of the front page links go straight
to imgur with adverts)

edit edit: in an attempt to explain my opinion succinctly, I think the real
problem reddit has is the toxic idea that any attempt to make money will
alienate the community, when in reality the majority of reddit users don't
care and the vocal minority would not leave the site as long as the
advertisements were _reasonable_. People want a stable website that they can
be a part of, advertisements don't destroy that. Look at how many people love
imgur, 9gag and funnyjunk. Having so little faith in reddit users ability to
deal with adverts is to me more "insulting" than the adverts themselves.

~~~
neutronicus
If I were an advertiser, I'd much rather pay someone to astroturf Reddit than
buy advertising space on Reddit itself. It seems like a much better
investment.

~~~
raldi
You underestimate reddit's abuse defenses.

~~~
icelancer
And you overestimate the crowd's intelligence if you think this doesn't happen
on a regular basis (quite successfully, I might add).

------
antidoh
Maybe there's a third way.

On one end is their free and ad-supported access. The few ads that I see are
very easy on the eyes, easy to ignore, and I don't feel compelled _by the ads_
to buy a gold account. In return you get user generated content.

On the other end is the gold account, where you don't see ads, and you get the
same user generated content.

In addition to any of that, they might decide to generate content themselves.
Be the paid New York Times of the Internet (whatever that means, to them); the
Site of Record. They've almost got the credibility, and certainly have the
name recognition; their drama gets covered by the mainstream media.

Of course they'd have to hire another body or two.

------
umami
Why not buy the most popular mobile apps for the site and monetize them? Users
seem to be much happier spending money on mobile apps than on web sites.

~~~
panacea
Not sure if Jason (the developer of Alien Blue... far and away the best mobile
reddit client) would want to sell his app. It seems like a labour of love.

------
evoxed
\--- I typed this up just before getting a call, so apologies for the first-
draftiness. I refreshed the page to see if anyone was saying anything similar
but I didn't see anything, so I might as well post it. ---

I really think they should just skip over the whole maj/minority struggle and
work on a more suitable approach. What makes Reddit so special? Each subreddit
and its dedicated and often unique community. When reddit was relatively new I
avoided it, because on the surface all I saw were fellow tech-hungry teenagers
looking for the next big place to gather. Only a few years ago did I stumble
on some of the smaller, more interesting subreddits and realize that I could
spend my entire time among just a few without ever caring about the rest of
'Reddit' because within those _little_ communities, there was something really
cool and fun. Expat living in Japan? There's an r/ for that. Love cartography?
There's an r/ for that. Linguist/mathematician/physicist? Plenty of r/s for
you, of varying quality and concentration but interesting nonetheless.

Sometimes when I'm motivated to learn more about a subject, one of the first
things I'll do is check if there is a decent subreddit that's relevant. Lo and
behold, r/spicy and r/bonsai now come to my frontpage to shower me with
pruning advice, sauce exchanges, and more. Of course, anyone can create a new
subreddit if the existing ones aren't interesting enough, moderated poorly, or
the subject just doesn't have a home yet. My list of micro-wikis and webpages
to set up now has marks for items that would work just as well being a
subreddit. But we're talking about revenue here, so let me get to the point.

 _Don't just think about Reddit as one big thing, but rather as a world full
of lively other things– some some tiny, others huge._ They can make money
without looking heavy-handed or causing too much controversy, as long as they
see the users (all of them) as collaborators in that effort. Subreddits
already enjoy a certain amount of freedom (of moderation, styling), why not
gamify it somehow? For example, most people wouldn't mind if r/pics had real
ads, and r/pics is probably one of the most trafficked subreddits around.
Those who still don't want the ads can get Reddit Gold. However say r/crypto
thought the ads were silly, and wanted them removed. Then they could, for
example, buy their way out directly (garnering a few extra features for the
local mods) or encourage their own subscribers to get gold, with some
percentage reducing the number/location of ads until reaching zero.

------
mung
I don't quite understand why a site like reddit would have "editorial
pressure" from advertisers. If anything it should be the other way around.

~~~
batiudrami
What? A post get promoted 'My experience with AT&T sucks, they're terrible and
here's why'. AT&T's marketing department makes a call, and says 'we'll pull
our advertising spend if you don't pull that item'. Suddenly reddit has to
make a call between having the cash they require to stay afloat, and staying
true to their users.

That being said, I think there's a better compromise for the ad block than
what they're doing at the moment. I don't care whether the ad space shows a
kitten or an ad for Maccas, so it may as well generate them money (and if a
company pulls advertising, well, that sucks, but that's how it goes. Better
than having no advertising at all.)

~~~
citricsquid

        Suddenly reddit has to make a call between having the 
        cash they require to stay afloat, and staying true to 
        their users.
    

but if reddit doesn't have that money now what difference does it make? if
reddit has reddit gold __and __has advertising, don't they end up in a
position where they're able to choose and turn away advertisers if they need
to? unless turning away advertisers causes some sort of industry problem where
companies are unwilling to work with reddit?

~~~
aes256
You burn bridges pretty fast doing that sort of thing.

------
seanalltogether
It might be helpful for them to put a link in the blog post to buy reddit
gold.

