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I don't want to kick someone when they are down, but this just stood out to me: And reddit's revenue isn't great. The good news is, our traffic continues to gr

I don't want to kick someone when they are down, but this just stood out to me: And reddit's revenue isn't great. The good news is, our traffic continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Talk about doing it wrong. When you have growth but no revenue, it's probably because you aren't asking your users to pay. That should be every website's first option - ask people to pay for the service they receive. Paying users are great, un-paying users are a liability.

maurycy 16y ago
Not quite. Sometimes, free users increase the network effect; also, sometimes the longer they use the system, more likely they are to pay for it eventually.
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  1. I'll concede the network effect, but if you are having trouble supporting - for example - 10,000 users with a .5% conversion rate, 100,000 with that same conversion rate isn't going to help you. You need to change the ratio, not just grow. 2. You'll need to find me some stats that back up the point that there is a relationship between the length of time a user is on a site and their commitment to purchase. If this is true, all websites should see increased per capita conversion rates over time. I don't think this is the case, but please prove me wrong.
axod 16y ago
Paying users aren't the only way. Reddit could have started at the outset with adverts. They could have made that decision early on that they were going to generate revenue. But they didn't - which is why Reddit has attracted the sort of demographic that don't click on ads.
- zach 16y ago
  A very good point -- the characteristics of a website's community is determined usually well before, and only rarely after, its point of big growth. Reddit definitely ended up with, um, less-monetizable DNA, and didn't want to "sell out," so that characteristic never changed. It's also a good illustration of what Joe Kraus said in his brilliant Startup School speech -- when you put your product into beta, put your business model into beta at the same time. They could at least make their ad display scripts deposit tokens for the user via async requests, and throttle users who run out of them. It's a better way of thanking me for not running AdBlock than a PNG of the alien giving me the thumbs up.
lsc 16y ago
free is fine; the problem is that you can't make something with a high marginal cost and then give it away for free... This is why I think cheap infrastructure is so important.
superuser2 16y ago
Reddit has long-running jokes mocking the idea of paying for websites. The backlash to being asked to pay for anything on the internet would be massive. Strange, because you'd think a community of programmers would appreciate what the engineers do.

maurycy 16y ago

Not quite. Sometimes, free users increase the network effect; also, sometimes the longer they use the system, more likely they are to pay for it eventually.

run4yourlives 16y ago
1. I'll concede the network effect, but if you are having trouble supporting - for example - 10,000 users with a .5% conversion rate, 100,000 with that same conversion rate isn't going to help you. You need to change the ratio, not just grow. 2. You'll need to find me some stats that back up the point that there is a relationship between the length of time a user is on a site and their commitment to purchase. If this is true, all websites should see increased per capita conversion rates over time. I don't think this is the case, but please prove me wrong.

axod 16y ago

Paying users aren't the only way. Reddit could have started at the outset with adverts. They could have made that decision early on that they were going to generate revenue. But they didn't - which is why Reddit has attracted the sort of demographic that don't click on ads.

zach 16y ago
A very good point -- the characteristics of a website's community is determined usually well before, and only rarely after, its point of big growth. Reddit definitely ended up with, um, less-monetizable DNA, and didn't want to "sell out," so that characteristic never changed. It's also a good illustration of what Joe Kraus said in his brilliant Startup School speech -- when you put your product into beta, put your business model into beta at the same time. They could at least make their ad display scripts deposit tokens for the user via async requests, and throttle users who run out of them. It's a better way of thanking me for not running AdBlock than a PNG of the alien giving me the thumbs up.

lsc 16y ago

free is fine; the problem is that you can't make something with a high marginal cost and then give it away for free... This is why I think cheap infrastructure is so important.

superuser2 16y ago

Reddit has long-running jokes mocking the idea of paying for websites. The backlash to being asked to pay for anything on the internet would be massive. Strange, because you'd think a community of programmers would appreciate what the engineers do.