There's nothing about fake users in the Reddit start-up story that equates to cheating (cheating what or whom exactly?).
Cheating requires that there's a framework of defined fairness in place such that you're violating it.
No such framework exists in the context in question (eg: other human users were not promised there were no fake users). Your premise is wrong accordingly.
You might as well claim that when someone at an old-school software conference showed off their product in person, it was cheating (after all, they hadn't even purchased the product and they weren't an organic user). Or that to demonstrate a product on QVC is cheating, because the people doing the demonstrating aren't likely real customers and didn't come to discover the product in a strictly organic manner.
If you have to create fake users to demonstrate how an entire system works to the first real users, the last thing that qualifies as is cheating. As in the QVC example, showing off how a product works through simulation, is among the most important things you can do with a new product or service.
If Reddit used inflated figures anywhere when convincing advertisers to use their platform (especially in growth rates), then they "cheated"--or more precisely, lied.
There's nothing about fake users in the Reddit start-up story that equates to cheating (cheating what or whom exactly?).
Cheating requires that there's a framework of defined fairness in place such that you're violating it.
No such framework exists in the context in question (eg: other human users were not promised there were no fake users). Your premise is wrong accordingly.
You might as well claim that when someone at an old-school software conference showed off their product in person, it was cheating (after all, they hadn't even purchased the product and they weren't an organic user). Or that to demonstrate a product on QVC is cheating, because the people doing the demonstrating aren't likely real customers and didn't come to discover the product in a strictly organic manner.
If you have to create fake users to demonstrate how an entire system works to the first real users, the last thing that qualifies as is cheating. As in the QVC example, showing off how a product works through simulation, is among the most important things you can do with a new product or service.