Seeing a lot of hate and schadenfreude over spez and what he’s doing with Reddit.
I feel this is really uncalled for.
What no one seems to understand is that Reddit is unprofitable.
You know what happens to unprofitable tech companies? Think of Geocities shutting down. How many great websites, how many communities were lost?
I can see that spez is trying the best he can to save Reddit. He was one of the original founders. This is his baby. He doesn’t want to see it die.
His plan is clear to me.
Reddit is getting too much traffic. It’s too big and has too many users, moderators, and communities.
So this means Reddit needs a lot of employees. Someone asked why Reddit needs 2000 employees? Well, where do you think the admins come from? I bet most of them are the hardworking admins who form the bridge between Reddit and the communities.
Since Reddit is so big, perhaps too big, it’s hard for them to be profitable. Opportunity cost on users using third party apps means that Reddit has to charge them high prices to make up for lost ads revenue. That’s unavoidable.
Okay, sure, maybe some third party apps will agree to run ads in return for lower rates or something. That can work.
Reddit doesn’t have an existing way to feed ads to third party apps. I’m don’t have experience in that field but I bet developing something like that takes a lot of time. It’s also uncertain as Reddit may spend many long months, if not years, developing a way to serve ads to third party apps only to find no takers. Too big a risk.
Remember, the IPO is supposed to happen later this year. Not enough time to develop it and do it right.
So he has no choice but to go in hard against the third party apps. They pay up and make up the cost. If they can’t, then they die. Sucks to be them. Their users go to the official app, and get the ads from Reddit. Revenue is saved.
Maybe they don’t. Maybe those users quit Reddit altogether. This means less traffic, so fewer expenses for Reddit. Less expenses meas more revenue. Revenue is saved again.
Moderators quit? No problem. Reddit will find new ones or replace them with admins.
Not enough moderators? No problem. Reddit can shutdown the smallest communities that bring in the least revenue. Admins can run the biggest ones.
Section 230? No problem. Reddit adds a new review required mode. Maybe this already exists. Every thread posted is hidden until an admin reviews and approves it. Same for every comment on a thread. This way they can make sure there is no libel or copyright infringement or any other issues before approving.
Need too many admins to review and approve things timely? No problem. Charge users to be able to jump the queue. Those who do not want to pay up then just need to suffer wait times of many months or even years before they can get reviewed and approved.
Less traffic means they need fewer admins. Fewer employees. More layoffs. A more profitable Reddit.
It absolutely sucks that the moderation tools are not ready yet and moderators have to suffer. It sucks worse that those with accessibility needs have fewer options now.
Would it not be worse if Reddit dies altogether? Think about losing those communities. You can’t talk to the folks you used to in your subreddits. You have no way to go back and see your own threads, or the useful advice from fellow members of your community. It’s all gone.
I have already been through this several times. It hurt to lose Geocities. All MySpace content also gone.
Do YOU want to be responsible for this happening again?!!!
Please do not let this happen again. Please help spez save Reddit.
Give Reddit time. Let spez save Reddit and turn it into a money-maker. Once he does this and Reddit is no longer in danger of being shut down for being unprofitable, then Reddit will have breathing room to solve these issues. A profitable Reddit with a successful IPO will have more cash to spend on recreating the lost moderator tools and accessibility features from third party apps.
FIrst Reddit must manage to survive.
Because Reddit is on it’s death throws now.
Because there’s no way spez would destroy the trust he’s built with the Reddit communities. Unless it is the only way to save the soul of Reddit.
This is why Reddit and spez must win.
P.S. Reddit and spez winning does not mean that we have to lose. If Reddit wins and becomes profitable then the communities are saved. There will be no Geocities or MySpace loss. At the same time a lot of moderators and users who are upset at being monetized will come here. Our communities here will be enriched by this and will continue to grow and blossom. Everybody wins! We can all be winners here!
Okay then. I guess by your logic, these are the actions of a person who cares about his users. By making the API access so economically unfeasible, it prices out the majority of developers (not saying it should be free, either but let’s be reasonable).
If you’re so convinced he wants to do good by the users (he doesn’t) and nothing can change your mind, why are you here? Nothing we say is going to convince you and nothing you say is going to convince us. Not by any means trying to silence you, you have a right to your opinion but really, why are you here? I can produce article after article, quote after quote and none of it is going to change your position. What are you hoping to achieve?
That looks quite bad. The best I can hope for is that this was a hostile interviewer who mischaracterized spez.
My point still stands. Maybe the reason spez is so defensive is because he knows he has to succeed here or Reddit dies? Maybe spez tried to make the pricing more reasonable and that is why it took Reddit so long to give an answer on the numbers? Maybe spez realized that because of Reddit’s poor financials there wasn’t really a way to come up with reasonable pricing, that clawing back the opportunity cost was the only way? Maybe spez is like this because Reddits financial situation is that bad and he is getting increasingly desperate?
Even if spez is the devil, there is no way for Reddit to continue as it is now. It is bleeding money. It is hard enough to become profitable under the conditions that Reddit is under. Asking Reddit to provide extra things for free or even for just barely unreasonably cheap is not going to help at all.
Maybe Reddit is pure evil. Our best chance at saving Reddit is still to help Reddit become profitable first and then hope that once it no longer has to worry about failing that Reddit can be reformed into a company that cares about and listens to it’s users and it’s communities.
Why do you assume that there is nothing you can do to change my position? I am here because I believe we can save Reddit and the communities. I hope that I can inspire others as well.
As painful as it would be I am still open to the chance that I am just plain wrong and the doom of GeoCities is about to repeat itself with nothing that can be done by anyone or anybody to prevent it from happening again this time to Reddit.
It was not just this one time or one interview. spez lied about the Apollo dev and tried to drag his name in the mud, forcing the dev’s hand and making him feel compelled to release recordings to clear his own name.
Before the numbers for the API pricing were announced, the devs and the mods who had a direct line with the admins all agreed that reddit was at least being highly professional about things.
Notice how no one is saying that anymore? Doesn’t that tell you something?
We shouldn’t help reddit when all we get in return is contempt from a Musk-wannabe. In fact, you want us to give up our best leverage here - take away the user generated content and the hard work of the mods to keep that content high quality, and there’s nothing for reddit to offer to advertisers.
With a guy like this in charge, reddit probably is lost anyways. (Not that reddit would die right away necessarily, myspace is still around after all.) But more on how the trust with the mods and the users of subs is now broken. They will never be the same again. So let’s go and build something better here, where we don’t have to deal with this kind of crud.