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Reddit is operating on the shakiest house of cards, and their investors are being swindled, along with their advertisers. For one of many examples, they're gros

by bryans 5y ago

Reddit is operating on the shakiest house of cards, and their investors are being swindled, along with their advertisers. For one of many examples, they're grossly inflating viewership numbers on Reddit Live by injecting the top broadcast into the front page of 25,000 users every ~30 seconds -- largely against their will[1] or without knowledge[2] -- and then selling those as "video views" to record labels, Adobe, League Of Legends and others. The administrators and moderators have repeatedly lied about this to the community, going as far as claiming they "don't even have the ability to manipulate the top broadcast mechanism," and yet they have a list of streamers who receive special treatment, along with the paid ads (which are not marked as ads, and instead offered as "user content.") A year ago, they even implemented a follow mechanism so that streamers' fans could get push notifications when they went live. But when the admins decided to make manual manipulation of the top broadcast mechanism a priority, they removed the notifications for Reddit Live altogether because it was too easy for the Reddit community to upvote "riff raff" into the top spot. They changed their story about why bringing back notifications "was impossible, but we're working on it" a dozen times or more. In reality, they just need certain broadcasts to receive the most views to generate the most money through their awarding system. On top of hundreds of lies at this point, they've been actively banning anyone who discusses this. They ban streamers who ask questions about how the ranking mechanism works, including an autistic streamer with a large following on the site, simply for making note of how certain streamers get special treatment. They even banned a user for making a notifications replacement and discussing why they made it. In fact, if you get banned from the r/pan subreddit for asking any of these questions (which happens often), you have to be careful about the content you interact with on Reddit as a whole. Since they forcefully inject the Reddit Live top broadcast into every desktop page view (and most mobile ones) without actually labeling it as r/pan content, if you click on that broadcast and vote or make a comment, they ban you from the site. It's completely out of control, and that's how every level of the site operates these days. The influxes of cash and IPO hyping paint a rosy picture, but peeling back just one layer of the Reddit onion quickly reveals a company which is flailing, and desperately grasping at anything that will help maintain the charade until crossing the IPO finish line. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pan/comments/rejfsa/what_in_the_f_is_rpan_and_why_does_it_say_its_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pan/comments/rejfsa/what_in_the_f_i... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/pan/comments/rcvi52/according_to_the_reddit_recap_ive_contributed_15k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pan/comments/rcvi52/according_to_th...

zaptrem 5y ago
People actually use PAN? As a heavy Reddit user (and mod in large community) this is news to me.
- bryans 5y ago
  Despite the fake viewership numbers, RPAN is actually the best marketing tool on the internet for content creators. It's the only site that gives you a built-in audience without any effort, and musicians in particular have used it to build massive followings outside of Reddit, on the order of tens (and even hundreds) of thousands of followers. There's honestly no better way to find an initial fanbase -- even if you never get top broadcast.
john_moscow 5y ago
You have just described the state of a massive chunk of the U.S. economy after 2008 when printing money to paper things over has become a norm.
na85 5y ago
>On top of hundreds of lies at this point, they've been actively banning anyone who discusses this. Reddit's been like that for at least a decade. I remember arguing with Huffman and later Pao about their awful corporate newspeak ("enabling authentic conversations") and how reddit is being actively gamed by advertisers and has been for years. The same goes for every user-hostile change they've made (and there have been many). It's always under some noble pretense but really it's about making reddit more palatable to advertisers. When confronted, the admins either avoid responding or else claim Big Tobacco-levels of ignorance. It's all so patently obvious to anyone who chooses to look, and I think the blatant contempt the admins display towards their users (without whom, let's not forget, reddit would never have taken off) contributes to the toxicity on reddit, or at least it did years ago when reddit was smaller and the toxic culture is now self-perpetuating.
waffle_maniac 5y ago
The mods have really taken over. If you post this link on reddit you will be banned immediately. If you file an appeal it will be denied on the spot. https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/theres-another-abusive-male-at-reddit https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/theres-another-abusive-... I wonder how investors will react to having horrible people moderating their investment.

by bryans 5y ago

zaptrem 5y ago

People actually use PAN? As a heavy Reddit user (and mod in large community) this is news to me.

bryans 5y ago
Despite the fake viewership numbers, RPAN is actually the best marketing tool on the internet for content creators. It's the only site that gives you a built-in audience without any effort, and musicians in particular have used it to build massive followings outside of Reddit, on the order of tens (and even hundreds) of thousands of followers. There's honestly no better way to find an initial fanbase -- even if you never get top broadcast.

john_moscow 5y ago

You have just described the state of a massive chunk of the U.S. economy after 2008 when printing money to paper things over has become a norm.

na85 5y ago

>On top of hundreds of lies at this point, they've been actively banning anyone who discusses this. Reddit's been like that for at least a decade. I remember arguing with Huffman and later Pao about their awful corporate newspeak ("enabling authentic conversations") and how reddit is being actively gamed by advertisers and has been for years. The same goes for every user-hostile change they've made (and there have been many). It's always under some noble pretense but really it's about making reddit more palatable to advertisers. When confronted, the admins either avoid responding or else claim Big Tobacco-levels of ignorance. It's all so patently obvious to anyone who chooses to look, and I think the blatant contempt the admins display towards their users (without whom, let's not forget, reddit would never have taken off) contributes to the toxicity on reddit, or at least it did years ago when reddit was smaller and the toxic culture is now self-perpetuating.

waffle_maniac 5y ago

The mods have really taken over. If you post this link on reddit you will be banned immediately. If you file an appeal it will be denied on the spot. https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/theres-another-abusive-male-at-reddit https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/theres-another-abusive-... I wonder how investors will react to having horrible people moderating their investment.