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Reddit to me is the kind of thing where monetization methods feel like they run counter to what I consider the main value of the website is. People visit becaus
by ayngg 5y ago
Reddit to me is the kind of thing where monetization methods feel like they run counter to what I consider the main value of the website is. People visit because of the communities, but advertisements and astroturfing erodes that by making the communities more and more inauthentic. The problem is that advertising is where the money is, they aren't going to survive on reddit golds. So it seems like the path they have been on for the past decade has been to both grow enough and change their demographics such that the majority of their demographic is less discerning to advertisements and astroturfing, and to generate engagement through communities that enable that sort of advertisement.
Now I suspect they are trying to transition towards somehow deriving value as a hub for what are now cult like communities that stan and provide PR for powerful groups like various corporations, media conglomerates, sporting leagues and franchises, political ideologies and so on. Those are the communities that feed off drama and hype that social media has learned will drive the most engagement. They sprinkle it in with other innocuous things like cute pets or viral tik tok reposts (and the other subreddits that are actually very good) to make it not seem as egregious as it really is and hope that most people continue to believe that it is the same organic "front page of the internet" that it had become ever since Digg decided to kill itself many years ago.
Much like almost everything else from that time, they simply just outgrew and replaced their core demographic with a group that are much easier to exploit.
- pea 5y agoI agree with you in the context of ads, but I do wonder if they could monetise these communities in a more high-value way which plays into their primary purpose. For instance, I am a member of /r/synthesizers, but all trading/buying happens on eBay or reverb.com. Can reddit provide the way for this community to transact in a more high-value/trusted way? Maybe I'm missing something and that is a terrible business.
- Nasrudith 5y agoMain downside is this they already have you as a customer. A lot of these efforts are buffoonish and try to sell you shoes/eyeglasses/appliances after you just bought what you wanted from them. High value honest and transparent ads can work, like say "Will it blend" or providing field related instructions good enough to essentially be the canon to say synthesier configuration and maintenance. That is hard and bespoke. Meanwhile crap ads are very easy and adaptable. So long as there is a positive return being a menace or nuisance to the commons can pay. As spam infamously shows.
- nebula8804 5y ago>Much like almost everything else from that time, they simply just outgrew and replaced their core demographic with a group that are much easier to exploit. Where did the core demographic go?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ayngg 5y agoI assume they found much more insular communities either in the form of obscure subreddits or other communities (like here for example). It might not be the case of them actually leaving, it is just that for every user like that, there are 10000 new users who came from some place like facebook.