3 ms·

Reddit is raising up to $700M in Series F funding

20 points by doppp 5y ago

lvxferre 5y ago
>The company says funding will go toward building out community and advertising efforts and increasing headcount. "Increasing headcount" by alienating the older userbase, and "advertising efforts" by making the advertisement more and more obnoxious, and less distinct from actual content? >more empowering for communities Correction: more empowering for a small set of "powermods". The moderators of smaller communities may eat dirt, for all Reddit cares. (Or be victims of constant harassment, even if the case Aimée Challenor shows that Reddit does have the technology to prevent it.) And, given who pays the dinner chooses the dish, who will fund Reddit is also a concern. I do not think, for example, that instances of criticism against the Chinese government being labelled "racism against Asians" is just the product of the local morons, but the product of the local morons being led by Reddit Inc. It makes sense when you remember TenCent invested on the place.
- dc-programmer 5y ago
  I think headcount refers to staffing not the user base. As long as part of the increased headcount is allocated to engineering I’m all for that. Reddit goes down more than any other large site I frequent. Edit: ironically it took a couple of submits for my post to go through lol
  - lvxferre 5y ago
    Ah, got it. I agree with you - more staff might be actually good for the site. Although I'm not sure if it'll be for the sake of a better site, or a more profitable site.
    - dc-programmer 5y ago
      Yeah if they just hire a bunch of growth hackers - RIP
dghlsakjg 5y ago
Why? They have a mature product with a userbase that tends to spend an absurd amount of time on the site, that SELF-SORTS into advertising categories. There is no reason that they shouldn't be able to pay their own way. Even more, if I was an early investor I would be annoyed at the more recent changes, and the amount of user unfriendliness that is in the site now. There are very few other sites that purposely make it impossible to continue casually browsing like reddit does.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  I just use https://ew.reddit.com https://ew.reddit.com as a form of protest.
- 41209 5y ago
  How much is a mobile app user worth compared to a mobile web user?
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    Probably worth more, but I would argue that its more of a case of how much is a mobile web user worth over a user who gets driven away.
    - 41209 5y ago
      If Reddit didn't nag mobile web users no one would download the app. Such a bad ux isn't an accident
randompwd 5y ago
Who the hell is investing in this? When/what's the return going to be? An entire site that depends on mostly reposting someone elses copyrighted material. Reddit's funding (for what it is), is something out of the dotcom era.

20 points by doppp 5y ago

>The company says funding will go toward building out community and advertising efforts and increasing headcount. "Increasing headcount" by alienating the older userbase, and "advertising efforts" by making the advertisement more and more obnoxious, and less distinct from actual content? >more empowering for communities Correction: more empowering for a small set of "powermods". The moderators of smaller communities may eat dirt, for all Reddit cares. (Or be victims of constant harassment, even if the case Aimée Challenor shows that Reddit does have the technology to prevent it.) And, given who pays the dinner chooses the dish, who will fund Reddit is also a concern. I do not think, for example, that instances of criticism against the Chinese government being labelled "racism against Asians" is just the product of the local morons, but the product of the local morons being led by Reddit Inc. It makes sense when you remember TenCent invested on the place.

dc-programmer 5y ago
I think headcount refers to staffing not the user base. As long as part of the increased headcount is allocated to engineering I’m all for that. Reddit goes down more than any other large site I frequent. Edit: ironically it took a couple of submits for my post to go through lol
- lvxferre 5y ago
  Ah, got it. I agree with you - more staff might be actually good for the site. Although I'm not sure if it'll be for the sake of a better site, or a more profitable site.
  - dc-programmer 5y ago
    Yeah if they just hire a bunch of growth hackers - RIP

dghlsakjg 5y ago

Why? They have a mature product with a userbase that tends to spend an absurd amount of time on the site, that SELF-SORTS into advertising categories. There is no reason that they shouldn't be able to pay their own way. Even more, if I was an early investor I would be annoyed at the more recent changes, and the amount of user unfriendliness that is in the site now. There are very few other sites that purposely make it impossible to continue casually browsing like reddit does.

sombremesa 5y ago
I just use https://ew.reddit.com https://ew.reddit.com as a form of protest.
41209 5y ago
How much is a mobile app user worth compared to a mobile web user?
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  Probably worth more, but I would argue that its more of a case of how much is a mobile web user worth over a user who gets driven away.
  - 41209 5y ago
    If Reddit didn't nag mobile web users no one would download the app. Such a bad ux isn't an accident

randompwd 5y ago

Who the hell is investing in this? When/what's the return going to be? An entire site that depends on mostly reposting someone elses copyrighted material. Reddit's funding (for what it is), is something out of the dotcom era.