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Now what I under understand (not condone) is the reddit leadership trying to cash out.
What I cant understand is why a VC / big investor would want to touch it with a 10ft pole. There is nothing unique or proprietary on Reddit. Its value commercially is in the existing content and paid ads. With ads you’re limited because you can only saturate so much before you see user drop off.
Now they took it one step further and are censoring the content creators that make it all possible in the first place. As if anyone is stuck on that site - I know I’m not.
Anyway - nice to meet everyone. Fled digg for Reddit; now thankful this island appeared after fleeing once again.
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Reddit has a huge user base, that is their value. They generate a lot of data every second, which can be sold. Of course this is technically possible on other platforms, but they do have it right now right here.
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I get that, but long term investors need to be confident that the user base will stick after continuing to erode the platform.
That’s the part I have no confidence in. Will they make money for the short term? Absolutely, and a lot of people will get rich. But in 5-10 years?
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I joined reddit ~15 years ago and there was already a very large, active userbase. It's not a young platform, and there have been multiple protests against them by their users, yet reddit is still very much alive. I don't think the confidence from investors is unfounded. Pissing off their users has kind of proven that there isn't a real competitor out there.
We're in the minority of users who have actually gotten fed up with them to the point of finding an alternative. Most people will complain but still stick around and stay active on reddit. They get new users daily who don't know reddit as anything other than what it is now. People generally don't care.
As is, I don't see them going out of business anytime soon. If they continue to make ridiculously idiotic business decisions they might, but that's on-brand for them at this point.
I can see it going either way.
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I probably spoke to broadly and I agree with you 100%.
It is not something I foresee happening overnight. But a slow decay.
As censorship, commercialization and advanced bot traffic increase, the content quality will go down. Once it becomes a forced echo chamber (vs the organic it is now), it starts to look like Twitter post Elmo acquisition.
Now does Twitter still have users, paid subscribers and traffic? Absolutely. Does anyone want to buy their stock?
And I’ll repeat this until I’m blue in the face and user name - it’s an old website forum - nothing unique from a technical standpoint. Anyone can start one who has the hosting ability. Their moat is the users. They have no ecosystem that locks you to their platform. The only thing lost from leaving is your reddit Schrute bucks and Stanley nickels.
Edit x5 because I can’t spell Schrute
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