4 ms·

Anyone have a good run-down of how Reddit makes money? (Or does it?)

peanut_worm 6y ago
Reddit Gold and Advertising
arkitaip 6y ago
Ads and Reddit gold (its own currency). I think that various membership related monetization is the future of Reddit and far more stable than ads. Just look at what Twitch is doing with subscriptions, bits, emotes and donations.
Dracophoenix 6y ago
It used to be just Ads and Reddit Gold. Now it's mostly investment funding from China (via Tenecent) and the Middle East.
CallMeMarc 6y ago
Ads and reddit coins afaik. Coins can be used to buy either their premium subscription (no ads and a few other things) or can be used to "award" posts/comments. You can select which award you want to give, there are multiple that are by reddit and there are awards that are subreddit specific. An award can also give the awardee some coins (e.g. you pay 200 coins and the awardee gets 100).
- nwotnagrom 6y ago
  Would be interested to see the numbers. Assuming no one has ever seen these?
  - CallMeMarc 6y ago
    Would definitely love to see the numbers, but I suspect Tencent is paying their bills mostly
    - Macha 6y ago
      Yeah, my understanding is they were pretty much breaking even after the original introduction of gold when they had a skeleton crew of ops people, a ceo and a couple of backroom staff. They've massively expanded and even yishan forced the company to SF since then, so I'm pretty sure there's no way the extra award types have kept up with that expenditure. Like I think Reddit of ~2015 was a relatively sustainable lifestyle business, but the traffic numbers were way higher than that so there's the big push to turn it into another facebook/twitter.
- hilldude 6y ago
  ouch, they'll probably have their pornhub moment at some point when credit card companies will notice that they have a lot of unmoderated adult UGC content. That's a massive risk for their business. My guess is that they are going to get rid of the nsfw subreddits like tumblr did.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
If they file to go public, they'll have to provide information on how and how much money they make. It'll be interesting to see, because on the one side the public opinion on the awards is pretty bad, but on the other they are being handed out left and right often enough. Maybe it's one of those whale markets like with in-app purchases, where <2% of the users are responsible for >80% of income. That said, Reddit has also been giving out free awards that users can hand out, probably to try and get them hooked into the award system.
- ddingus 6y ago
  I know some redditors who buy packs and hand them out fairly regularly.
- virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
  > public opinion on the awards is pretty bad Huh, I haven't seen that. Do you have any examples? Everything I've seen seems to indicate that most people are at least vaguely entertained by awards, while acknowledging that they're pretty frivolous. But yeah, I would definitely expect it would be a whale market.
m463 6y ago
Most startups make their money selling stock.

Reddit Gold and Advertising

Ads and Reddit gold (its own currency). I think that various membership related monetization is the future of Reddit and far more stable than ads. Just look at what Twitch is doing with subscriptions, bits, emotes and donations.

Dracophoenix 6y ago

It used to be just Ads and Reddit Gold. Now it's mostly investment funding from China (via Tenecent) and the Middle East.

CallMeMarc 6y ago

Ads and reddit coins afaik. Coins can be used to buy either their premium subscription (no ads and a few other things) or can be used to "award" posts/comments. You can select which award you want to give, there are multiple that are by reddit and there are awards that are subreddit specific. An award can also give the awardee some coins (e.g. you pay 200 coins and the awardee gets 100).

nwotnagrom 6y ago
Would be interested to see the numbers. Assuming no one has ever seen these?
- CallMeMarc 6y ago
  Would definitely love to see the numbers, but I suspect Tencent is paying their bills mostly
  - Macha 6y ago
    Yeah, my understanding is they were pretty much breaking even after the original introduction of gold when they had a skeleton crew of ops people, a ceo and a couple of backroom staff. They've massively expanded and even yishan forced the company to SF since then, so I'm pretty sure there's no way the extra award types have kept up with that expenditure. Like I think Reddit of ~2015 was a relatively sustainable lifestyle business, but the traffic numbers were way higher than that so there's the big push to turn it into another facebook/twitter.
hilldude 6y ago
ouch, they'll probably have their pornhub moment at some point when credit card companies will notice that they have a lot of unmoderated adult UGC content. That's a massive risk for their business. My guess is that they are going to get rid of the nsfw subreddits like tumblr did.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

If they file to go public, they'll have to provide information on how and how much money they make. It'll be interesting to see, because on the one side the public opinion on the awards is pretty bad, but on the other they are being handed out left and right often enough. Maybe it's one of those whale markets like with in-app purchases, where <2% of the users are responsible for >80% of income. That said, Reddit has also been giving out free awards that users can hand out, probably to try and get them hooked into the award system.

ddingus 6y ago
I know some redditors who buy packs and hand them out fairly regularly.
virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
> public opinion on the awards is pretty bad Huh, I haven't seen that. Do you have any examples? Everything I've seen seems to indicate that most people are at least vaguely entertained by awards, while acknowledging that they're pretty frivolous. But yeah, I would definitely expect it would be a whale market.

m463 6y ago

Most startups make their money selling stock.