Rather take your money to the casino kids. I think the reddit IPO will crash and burn. Not only because spez is a total fucking tool destroying the platform. But the reddit model will be tough to be a booming profitable business. All they really have is add revenue and users will start seeing through the smoke and mirrors no matter how hard they try to disguise them as normal posts. We have already seen this type of manoeuvre is not easy with Twitter.
Yes ads revenue itself but also Data. Lots and lots of data to sell to advertisers to build profiles on what people are into and how they interact with following their hobbies and interests across subreddits.
But i agree that theres not too far to go after that.AI training data too. Years’ worth of conversations in natural language.
Because LLMs are already hallucinating enough as it, but now they can do it with more racism and zoooomg is that a squirrel ‽
I can’t wait for an AI that responds to my prompts with “and my axe”
“This.”
nice
I can’t wait for an AI that responds to my prompts with “and my axe”
Why would I need redditor data when I could just download top 40s song lyrics and a book of puns?
They’re gonna link your account to your identity and then your data will be worth a lot more in a sale. removed that shit
Time to use the Redact app, folks!
I initially thought I might participate in the IPO. I’m still not over what /u/spez did last year but I justified it the same way I ever bet AGAINST my favorite sports teams. That way if they lose there would is still an upside. I don’t think Reddit will be a great investment. But if they are, hey, at least there’s some money in my pocket.
This would have been my first IPO. And what made me finally decide against participating was the recognition that buying into an IPO, unlike regular stock trading, is actually putting money directly into the company’s pockets.
removed that; removed them; and especially removed /u/spez.
Of course they would. They have first hand experience with how reddit has been mismanaged by spez into oblivion.
All it takes is people going elsewhere and they are worth nothing. Reddit isn’t like Twitter, where it’s all about you. I came here, have the same conversations, and haven’t even noticed I’m not on Reddit any longer.
I used to be pretty big into Reddit. I haven’t been back in almost a year except a couple of google search results. I do notice a difference though. There is less diversity in expressed thoughts here. I don’t miss the doomscrolling though, I can run out of new content here and I like that.
Also because there is less content its more meaningful. There’s a lot of fluff and garbage on Reddit just so people can get karma.
I have, I’ve noticed. I’ve noticed that I’m no longer screaming out in a sea of people and being ignored or ridiculed. We’re in a smaller pond here and the waters are much clearer
That’s it, it’s just the userbase size. I still unfortunately have to type ‘Reddit’ after any question I throw at a search engine but that is on the useless search engines and not indicative of Reddit being a great platform.
I first used Reddit over ten years ago. It was SO much better before the Digg implosion, and Lemmy reminds me of Reddit pre-digg days. Quality over quantity.
I got the email. No way in hell I’m throwing my money into that hole. I left with the API changes and haven’t looked back. Part of what made Reddit successful is it was user-centered. Chasing profit has only made Reddit worse. Going public will accelerate that exponentially. I give it 6 months tops before they start deleting subs, particularly porn ones, because advertisers complain.
Reddit doesn’t function like a real business (i.e. most of the work is unpaid volunteers, users and especially mods). There’s no genuine site-wide code of ethics beyond what will actually get them criminal charges. The written rules don’t matter - many moderators are unpaid bullies who permaban if their feelings are hurt and ignore questionable content they agree with. That system of banning users based on opinion kills discussion of “unapproved” views and sorts people into forums where their favorite opinions (and often outright hatreds) are popular. Loathe a particular race/gender/political ideology etc? Just find a subreddit where the mods agree and you’ll be fine saying some truly terrible stuff. Read the bloodthirsty posts on r/worldnews and tell me if the site-wide rules on not promoting violence or racism apply. For these reasons and more I don’t think anyone should be buying into their IPO because they aren’t a reliable business.
I don’t know if Lemmy is different because I’ve been here for less than a month, but at least here it feels like you can have different opinions and the worst that happens is you eat downvotes. Plus a lot of the really unethical takes are usually checked pretty hard in my (limited) experience by the users, which doesn’t happen when the only other voices are basically guaranteed to agree with you (a la most of Reddit).
The rest of this is just my Reddit survivor tale so if you don’t care stop here. I got invited to the IPO on the same week I got a 3-day site-wide ban after appealing a subreddit permaban for a fairly popular comment that the US should stop funding Israel and give the money to Ukraine (on a post about how the US is having trouble finding money for Ukraine). In those words, no hate speech or racism etc. When I asked why I was banned I got a 4-word insult as the only communication back. I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist, but it sure felt like I was being deliberately censored/punished for high-ish profile “dangerous” anti-Israeli opinion. May not be the case, but it was my first site-wide ban ever for a comment that broke no written rules.
My Reddit account is 13 years old and in 2023 I think I made about 100k karma, primarily with comments about history, education, and in one case a post about how awesome sperm whales are. My experience mirrors what I’ve read happens to others enough that Reddit has lost my participation (I’ve only posted 2x in the last 3 months, down from a few times daily) and my faith. I only go back to check on specialist communities (video game tips etc) and almost never participate anymore. Frankly I hope it either changes to allow for discussion or dies.
“You’re all landed gentry! But hey, send some money to me by buying a little stock okay?”
Yeah spez, kindly go removed yourself.
Most people I think see through this, they’re just trying to bring in some bag holders to inflate the share price while they cash out.
Yeah I don’t think mods and “power users” that stayed after last year are necessarily against reddit succeeding, just not willing to buy in at a 6.5bil valuation for a company that can’t turn a profit and lost 90+ mil last year and 700+ cumulative. The CEO got 193 mil last year it’s clear where their priorities are. And after the bad will they gained last year burning mods and third party apps it’s not a big surprise many are watching with a big ol’ bucket of popcorn.
They kicked myself and my entire mod team from r/Canning because we held a vote and our users asked us to shut the community down in protest of their 3rd party app policies.
Then recently they emailed and messaged me telling me I could get in on the ground floor of buying shares.
That’s going to be a big resounding “no” from me there u/spez.
Are you saying that they… canned you?
Sorry I couldn’t resist.
You’re not the first to have noted that — but it remains funny, so we’re good 🤣.
I got the offer too even though I left in June. 2 million karma, 11 year user. F SPEZ.
I gotta ask, why are you rockin’ a Snoo avatar? Even if you still have love for the company but just hate Spez any advertisement/endorsement of it now benefits him.
I’m still technically a moderator elsewhere, but I haven’t been active since June (no posts, no moderation, no messages). It’s an artifact of being one of the approved contributors on r/AskScience — they delegate a controlled set of moderator powers to anyone in their Panel Plus programme.
While I was going through deleting old messages (that were missed by the auto-deleting program), I noticed I had a 5-year-old message inviting me to be a mod on a tiny little sub. I clicked accept for the hell of it and it was still valid! So I guess I’m technically landed gentry?
Ha they sent me the same message, and while I was not booted as a mod, I led the protest effort in a few subs that I modded in and helped out over in Save3rdPartyApps. I didn’t delete my account, just went silent after resigning when other mods got cold feet as soon as it started to get real.
Yeah, you may have seen some of my posts from the time on r/Save3rdPartyApps and/or r/ModCoord. I was one of the few pretty vocal that we had to hold the line, and that a simple two week blackout wasn’t going to be effective. I knew they’d either be forced to capitulate or kick me out as the head moderator or r/Canning — and wasn’t surprised after most of the other mods chickened out that they did just that.
I wasn’t about to chicken out — the worst they could do is remove from me the privilege of working for them for free. My entire personality and self-worth wasn’t tied to being a Reddit moderator.
Any canning related communities you can recommend now that you are over here?
My experience modding r/Canning burnt me out on online canning forums. There is a ton of unsafe information out there, and so I just got out of online canning discussions altogether.
There was a Lemmy instance out there that was intended to revolve around self sufficiency that offered me moderation rights to their canning forum, but that instance didn’t really take off, nobody ever posted to their canning community, and the instance went offline several months ago.
I still can — but I don’t participate in any online canning communities, so I’m not sure what’s trustworthy out there right now.
Fair enough, I can understand that. Happy canning either way!
Thanks!
Yeah I don’t think mods and “power users” that stayed after last year are necessarily against reddit succeeding, just not willing to buy in at a 6.5bil valuation for a company that can’t turn a profit and lost 90+ mil last year and 700+ cumulative.
I got the invite but didn’t do anything about it because:
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I assumed the invite had been sent to just about everyone;
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I like going there, but not enough to give them money… Or disable my adblock… Or switch to the accursed “modern layout”…
Come to think of it, I don’t like reddit at all, Just the communities that exist there.
Reddit, the company vs. Reddit, the community.
Not an iconic duo… They couldn’t be more different from one another in their goals.
There’s nothing against wanting to make profit of something you own. The way they are forcing through it though. They were just fine with blocking 3rd party apps, in order to not lose on the opportunity to sell the access, because suddenly AI’s hunger to be trained was sucking all the community’s content for free,
I think that they didn’t even lose a thought about the consequences of suddenly charging an absurd amount of money to get API access. They way they handled it, made obvious that they don’t give a flying removed.
An established and beloved way of using Reddit, lots of refined apps, being constantly updated over the years. The very apps that enabled a good experience on mobile, specially for mods, enabling people to create that very content they are selling now.
It’s disrespectful and just bad taste, but not unexpected from a pos like ^removed Spez tbh
I don’t have money to invest anyway, but even if I were a billionaire, there’s no way in hell I’d invest in reddit. It’s never turned a profit, why would anyone ever invest in it?
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“Popcorn tastes good.”
for a company that can’t turn a profit and lost 90+ mil last year and 700+ cumulative. The CEO got 193 mil last year
A private company doesn’t really need to turn a profit…
Even publicly traded companies just need to do it because it effects shareholder price.
With tax shenanigans, it’s often better for a private company to never turn a profit.
If profit was important, they could have just paid the CEO 100 million and turned a 3 million profit.
Not sure I would call myself a power user. While I did have a few posts over 50k, I was not exactly creating a ton of content. Still got an email though and decided against investing.
I was definitely a power user. I didn’t get an email. I know why too:
I find it hilarious that you didn’t get one and a nobody like me did.
On some level, I’m a little surprised they noticed.
Same here. I’d consider it a compliment that they did.
Eh, I bought 100 shares.
I figured:
a) I have the money.
b) I don’t get IPO offers that often.
c) Buy what you hate.https://slate.com/business/2005/12/buy-stocks-in-companies-you-hate.html
Once I have the shares at $34, I’ll put in an order to sell at $69. Nice!
My expectation is that a lot of people will at the least buy in at the start due to the amount of publicity, then sell off after the initial rush.
There might be an early short squeeze that could make this pay off. I predict that this one will be very unpredictable.
