Yes it is not a profitable business, that is not my concern or that of its users. If reddit went under tomorrow and disappeared from the web, users would find a new site (voat.co, some other reddit clone, it doesnt matter) and congregate there.
Are they allowed to monetise their site? Yes of course they are. However there is a fine line between monestising a social media site and killing it. Just look at Digg, they tried to give to much power to superusers and sites that gained traffic from them. Result the users left in droves so that they werent spoon fed corporate shit. It went from a valuation of $150m to being sold for under half a million. It will never regain what it was, diggs are no longer even measure don the site.
The same thing could happen to reddit. The CEOs job is to monetise the site, but if you kill the site you can not monetise it. This is why reddit needs a CEO that the users like. If ellen pao fucks up the monetisation in such a way that it alienates users they will not be forgiving. If the users like a CEO and the CEO fucked up then they are more likely to forgive and remain redditors than if they hate the CEO and the fuckup is the straw that breaks the camels back.
my contention -- perhaps not clear enough -- is a ceo the users like will be unable to monetize reddit. After all, ceos the users liked failed for what, 9 years running: 2005 to 2014?
A successful CEO would, if it is possible be able to monetise the site without destroying it. Yes the standard box of tricks could not be applied, so a good CEO would work out how to do it without using examples from their MBA classes.
The management of reddit means they have only really had 2 CEOs, prior to that they were a subsidiary of CondeNast. The previous one leaving rather unexpectedly although by his own volition.
Are they allowed to monetise their site? Yes of course they are. However there is a fine line between monestising a social media site and killing it. Just look at Digg, they tried to give to much power to superusers and sites that gained traffic from them. Result the users left in droves so that they werent spoon fed corporate shit. It went from a valuation of $150m to being sold for under half a million. It will never regain what it was, diggs are no longer even measure don the site.
The same thing could happen to reddit. The CEOs job is to monetise the site, but if you kill the site you can not monetise it. This is why reddit needs a CEO that the users like. If ellen pao fucks up the monetisation in such a way that it alienates users they will not be forgiving. If the users like a CEO and the CEO fucked up then they are more likely to forgive and remain redditors than if they hate the CEO and the fuckup is the straw that breaks the camels back.