Fire Steve Huffman and install a CEO who is capable of even pretending to care about balancing the needs of users and (potential) shareholders. It’s too late to ask for feedback.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Nobody with the power to fire spez has a problem with what he's doing. This is likely driven by VCs and other investors wanting their money now that the Fed has turned off the cash hose.
Their valuation has dropped by at least 20% this year based on what’s been reported.
They care.
Not if the stock price for IPO can be pumped enough for the investors to dump for a profit. The problem is they don't realize Steve is too dumb to do that for them. They need a Bernie Madoff with grifter skills and no morals, they've got a spez with a chew toy and no sense instead.
The “they” you are talking about are the ones who say it is worth 20% less. article
I think “they” know
From the article you linked:
Fidelity now estimates that Reddit’s holdings could be around $15.4 million as of May 31, which is down over 7% from the fund’s estimates of $16.6 million from this past April.
This was from before the whole shit fiesta actually happened.
Further in the article
This new figure is is also a reported 45.4% slide since Reddit secured Series F funding in August 2021, when an asset manager acquired the platform’s shares for $28.2 million.
That asset manager was also from Fidelity, who are the investors who keep writing off Reddit value.
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I couldn’t think of a worse time to try an IPO, though. They’re selling into an already less than enthusiastic market. Although there’s been recoveries on parts of the tech sector, if the VCs are hurting for funds and the institutions are being conservative, it’s going to be a disaster.
I am not sure that the bad press over the APIpocalypse is going to have a lasting effect in and of itself, but if they’ve lost users or have slowed growth in the US market as a result, that definitely might. Elon destroying all remaining value at Twitter and spurring an exodus to Threads and other sites is also going to make people question hopping onto a big social media investment because the market has become less predictable than it was a year or two ago.
The late 90s were where you could use an IPO as a take the money and run exit strategy. I think they should have avoided Musking the site and instead pushed all out for growth and look to get acquired, maybe by a Chinese company looking to own a large US-based social media company.
It really looks like the financial decisions at reddit are being handled with the same level of competence as the site policy decisions.
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I feel like they might actually do this. It wouldn't be the first time that they use a CEO to implement unpopular stuff, then fire him to say "everything is fine now" - cue to Ellen Pao.
They won’t, Spez is the ass clown they need to toe the line and take the bad press for all this. Once they get what they need, they’ll reward him but make it look like he was fired and hope you’ll be to happy to realize.
They should. At least half of this debacle was created by the mind-numbingly horrible communication straight from his mouth (or fingers). Even if they just said look guys our CEO is dick, he shouldn’t have insulted the moderators and passionate users who loved apps…it isn’t ok snd we’re sorry. Even just that would be something.
They intended on crushing third party apps, they don’t care about users or moderators…that will never be different. The lying, insults and douchbagery was the cherry on top.
I used to browse Reddit with my Adblock turned off, man, so they would make money. The people that are the most pissed cared the most…
The irony is that Pao was brought in to implement changes that Spez wanted. Remember he used to own it, then sold it and “stepped down” as CEO to bring Pao in. Then he took the seat back again after she left. But this time they just skipped that step entirely, because Spez has just been making the unpopular changes himself.
So I don’t actually think it’s the case this time. If it were, Spez wouldn’t be CEO during all of these changes. I think Spez is simply trying to cash out when the company goes public later this year. He doesn’t care what the users think of the changes, because he’s entirely focused on the investor valuation. He’s doing everything he can think of to claw profit out of a site that has never been profitable, simply so he can point to this quarter during the IPO and go “Look! Reddit makes a lot of money! It’s worth a lot, and the stocks I’m offering should sell for a lot too!”
The irony is that while Reddit tried to commercialise what it's users perceive (whether accurately or not) as a community. It's like your local picnic spot or doggy park that you've been going to for years all of a sudden started charging an entry fee. That alienates consumers.
The unfortunate truth is that Reddit could have ended up being a very profitable respected business had the leadership decided to monetise it's venture in a different model.
Ultimately consumers have had their fill with the perceived corporate greed culture and in this author's view is the main drive away from Reddit by early adopters to other platforms such as this one.
Time will tell if the middle majority will follow in time.
It’s like your local picnic spot or doggy park that you’ve been going to for years all of a sudden started charging an entry fee. That alienates consumers.
That's a great analogy, specially if the hypothetical doggy park (or picnic spot) had multiple kiosks selling stuff - so the park owners already had some profit. As soon as the fee pops up, the owners do get a bit more short-term profit... but then people stop visiting the park, and that reduces the associated profit from both the fee and the kiosks, making the park even less profitable in the long run. And the alienated customers might not come back, even if the park owners realise the mistake and get rid of the fee.
Time will tell if the middle majority will follow in time.
My bet is that they'll leave. Not due to the alienation, but because the content there will become trash. They'll simply disengage, and their disengagement will snowball into more disengagement.
And the alienated customers might not come back, even if the park owners realise the mistake and get rid of the fee.
This is exactly what happens most of the time. Check out the short Twitter thread on the thermocline of trust.
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On the surface I agree with you but please remember that content quality need not be high. 9gag is apparently still going despite, well... Points vaguely at 9gag
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A community garden(Reddit) with bad, broken or non existent tools.
Volunteer workers(Mods) bring their own tools(3rd party apps) to maintain the garden. Other volunteers(Reddit OC contributing users) plant seeds, water and harvest the garden. Other non-volunteers (Non-OC contributing users who only consume media) benefit, leech and take home food.
Garden owners(Reddit) decide to charge tool companies to allow their tools into the garden(3rd party app makers being charged for API access). Tool companies(3rd party app makers) can't pay exorbitant amounts. Volunteer maintenance workers(Mods) can no longer use outside tools(3rd party apps) to upkeep the garden.
The workers(Mods) become angry and disruptive by limiting access to the garden(Mods privatize and demonetize subreddits).
Non-Contributing leechers become upset. "We don't care about you workers! Give us food!"("No one cares about you Mods! We want to mindlessly consume! Give us media!")
Workers and real gardeners leave to find a better garden (Mods and OC contributors leave to find a better social media platform).
Old garden fills with weeds and dog shit(Reddit fills with reposts and bots).
The End.
Sadly, it is working.
The same mfs who blame mods for spez's decisions will be the one who blame them for that platform's lack of content that they want to consume. Or "moderating too hard and I can't get more content". Once again, I'm glad we're all here and not there anymore.
Gaslighting is exactly right. They also did a fair amount of goalpost shifting, cited non-existent rules to engage in punitive/retaliatory behavior against anyone who wasn't 100% on the party line, etc.
And don’t forget outright libel against the Apollo dev before he came back with recordings.
The only reason why they decided to pull this stunt is because more mods left than they expected and they’re realizing there aren’t enough qualified people out there to replace them.
I hardly think that's fair. They also completely underestimated the quality impact there would be on reddit from losing mod tools, and they've also had just about enough time to start to realize how very very much they don't know about accessibility needs for the disabled.
The fact they completely forgot about disabled users. I really don’t understand how that got past the lawyers.
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I'm not sure they even care, they just need to pad the numbers long enough to IPO and sell. It's a pump and dump, but Steve is a moron and doesn't know how.
pad the numbers
Which is exactly why they're running /r/place again tomorrow: they've lost traffic and the need to pad the numbers so they expect (probably rightfully) that /r/place will give them numbers to offset their losses.
Of course, they're going to totally ignore the image that comes out of /r/place, which is probably going to be "API - fuck /u/spez". Or maybe they'll invite xQc and his cult to grief the instance again. Or do the thing where admins can ignore the rate limits again.
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Are they expecting to fool anyone?
The CEO called them landed gentry, even while mods run reddit day to day for free, and the admins told them to fuck off and eat all the shit changes.
I'd like to peek into the brain of whoever made that post and look at all the mental gymnastics going on in there.
At this point probably not saying anything would be better?
What a tone-deaf fuckwit.
Go die in a fire is the only feedback I have.
How does one monetise when the customer is also the content? They're in a pickle here.
Personally, I don't see it as all that difficult. The platform is an aggregator. They have falsely (naively?) overvalued their product. It's easy to make money by taking care of the community who creates their content, but the key is 'don't be greedy' and they can't help themselves.
The core issue of most US corporations is thst they're chasing impossible long term growth strategies to extract quick money. If they aimed for reasonable growth, people could join the company and plan to retire off their pension. Tech doesn't do that kind of 'old business bullshirt'
term
They have a 5 bil valuation. They vould lose 50% value and still be worth a lot. They are trying to trim the fat to make their conversation rates and ratios increase as to pump up their valuation for their IPO, then probably dip.
Why in the world would anyone want to go back to relying on a company that can't be trusted when they can be as independent as they could possibly want to be?
Maybe they should actually pay the mods. That's the only way they will be able to get them back on their side after the way they were treated
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