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My question is why would you want to do that? You're just going to come against the same issues and problems that Reddit has, especially if you want to achieve

My question is why would you want to do that? You're just going to come against the same issues and problems that Reddit has, especially if you want to achieve anything close to Reddit's scale. You'll need staff, money, legal and tech folks (not cheap). And to get the funds, you'll prob have to make the same decisions about ads and API fees. You could pull off something smaller, maybe by being distributed or whatnot, but you'll probably never operate at the scale of Reddit. The killer feature of Reddit is that everyone goes to Reddit because Reddit is Reddit. Maybe my pessimistic brain can't see the opportunity. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

bigdict 3y ago
I think the answer in cases like that is there needs to be a public Reddit. We all benefit from it and we all want its operation to not be warped by profit-seeking… so we all should just pitch in a dollar a year (?) of our taxes.
- SkipperCat 3y ago
  You could make the argument that some web sites are part of the "public good" and could get funding from government. Think of NEA grants of PBS/NPR funding (small amount of their budget but not chump-change). Of course, it would be a pretty hard sell, and how the country would choose which web sites to fund would be a shit-show, but still, its an interesting idea.
- jjice 3y ago
  Moderation would become a nightmare since a private business's right to remove certain content wouldn't apply and now what do you do when a mod or /r/buyitforlife takes down a post that doesn't support the type of coffee maker that like, or whatever a shady reddit mod does these days. I also would rather not post or log into any government run social media, that's seems like a big no from me. I really don't know what a fix would be but I would be interested to see how a government ran social media would look, even if I wouldn't use it.
- smeej 3y ago
  "The government should do it" is (almost?) never the answer. If people are willing to pitch in a buck a year, just charge them for it. Either you can find enough people to support it voluntarily or you can't. If you can, you don't need government, and if you can't, it's not enough of a benefit to force people to pay for it.
- mdale 3y ago
  There are large scale "public" or non-profit web communities like Wikipedia. They come with a different set of challenges around governance.
- kredd 3y ago
  Reddit makes a lot of decisions that tax-payer funded entity would never be able to do. It’s one of the unfortunate circumstances where publicly owned social aggregator would be severely lacking. I’m not even talking about Reddit’s one of the most annoying current problems - AI bots disguised as real people. Make it publicly owned, people will have more skin in the game to make it worse. Sorry for the bot rant, but anything other than hyper-local subreddits are completely useless for getting any opinions at this point. The same points repeated every day to advance one or the other point of view, making it a hell hole. I feel bad for people who take in those opinions at face value thinking these are all real people.
- krapp 3y ago
  So you want a Reddit that gives intelligence agencies and law enforcement full access, is censored by the FCC or some similar three letter agency, and is infested with propaganda and psyops? Where you'll be required to present your real name and ID to have an account and you can be arrested by the mods? If you want a "free" Reddit look at federated and distributed solutions. But "public" means "controlled by a government." No thank you. I prefer a Reddit where even a sitting President can be banned for breaking the rules.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  > We all benefit from it The users do. That represents a small fraction of "we".
Maxion 3y ago
One big issue with Reddit is that it is mismanaged. With the revenue they are generating ($456 million USD), it should be more than enough to run a site like Reddit. Over the last few years they've invested heavily in things that are very unrelated to the core features of the site, such as NFTs and other odd things that are barely visible, while firing people (Victoria & the death of r/IAMA, and snackexchange) that brought a lot of traffic to the site. If a Reddit competitor were to surface that treated the company not as a facebook competitor // unicorn but rather than a company that is willing to reach a certain size and then stay there, none of this would be problems.
- that_guy_iain 3y ago
  > One big issue with Reddit is that it is mismanaged. With the revenue they are generating ($456 million USD), it should be more than enough to run a site like Reddit. So who gets fired? How many people are you willing to make unemployed? What services get removed? What improvements stop? Realistically, the reason they don't make a profit is they're aiming for growth and they're getting the growth.
  - luma 3y ago
    > So who gets fired? Everybody involved with the NFTs, with this API decision, with everything about New Reddit, the dumb crypto currencies, do we need to go on? It's a long list.
    - that_guy_iain 3y ago
      So basically you're firing everyone? I bet you called Musk stupid for firing so many people at Twitter too.
      - Capricorn2481 3y ago
        Firing people who manage the ethics and technical specs of your site is different from shutting down a superfluous NFT division. That is a gold rush for stupid people.
that_guy_iain 3y ago
I have the same thinking you do. I think it's extremely unlikely anyone would invest seriously in a Reddit competitor for one simple reason - Reddit users will try and flee at any attempt to make a profit. The fact everyone knows this means a competitor is unlike and fleeing is unlikely since there would be nowhere to flee to.
eugeniub 3y ago
Reddit used to have pretty low overhead. You couldn't upload/host videos directly on Reddit, you could only share links or create self-posts. They didn't have all these superfluous features that they have now like live chat, push notifications, cryptocurrency wallets, first-party mobile apps, etc. A "classical" version of Reddit would be a fraction of the development and hosting cost compared to modern Reddit, especially if you can continue to keep moderation the responsibility of individual subreddits.
- taylodl 3y ago
  Think this all the way through - why did Reddit do these things? To attract more users and to generate revenue. As the OP said, what are you going to do to solve Reddit's income problem? This isn't a technical issue, the technical piece is straightforward and well-known. They can't really push for advertising until they eliminate 3rd party API access to the content. That or they have to start charging a usage fee. Which is interesting. One option they do have is to charge the user for using Reddit via an API, not the apps using the API. If you want to access Reddit via a 3rd party app then you'll have to pay for it - say something on the order of $1.99 per month or $19.99 for the year. I imagine they must have explored that option, so it makes me wonder why they abandoned it.
  - Madmallard 3y ago
    "Think this all the way through - why did Reddit do these things? To attract more users and to generate revenue." I'd love to see the numbers of how these features actually amplified the experience. My gut tells me not much at all. Tech companies have huge misses all the time trying to make more money and often at the cost of the long-term success of the product.
    - taylodl 3y ago
      They're never satisfied with the status quo, are they? Always have to grow, grow, grow!
  - joenot443 3y ago
troyvit 3y ago
Maybe the scale is the problem. What if instead you built the infra and then snatched away the users of one of the less popular subreddits, then federated the code? You'd have the same problems as Mastodon and stuff, but that would allow the concept to scale (you just wouldn't become a millionaire). Leave giant subs like /r/funny and /r/pics alone and nibble around the edges?
ssag2 3y ago
>>The killer feature of Reddit is that everyone goes to Reddit because Reddit is Reddit. The killer feature of Digg is that everyone goes to Digg because Digg is Digg. FTFY

bigdict 3y ago

I think the answer in cases like that is there needs to be a public Reddit. We all benefit from it and we all want its operation to not be warped by profit-seeking… so we all should just pitch in a dollar a year (?) of our taxes.

SkipperCat 3y ago
You could make the argument that some web sites are part of the "public good" and could get funding from government. Think of NEA grants of PBS/NPR funding (small amount of their budget but not chump-change). Of course, it would be a pretty hard sell, and how the country would choose which web sites to fund would be a shit-show, but still, its an interesting idea.
jjice 3y ago
Moderation would become a nightmare since a private business's right to remove certain content wouldn't apply and now what do you do when a mod or /r/buyitforlife takes down a post that doesn't support the type of coffee maker that like, or whatever a shady reddit mod does these days. I also would rather not post or log into any government run social media, that's seems like a big no from me. I really don't know what a fix would be but I would be interested to see how a government ran social media would look, even if I wouldn't use it.
smeej 3y ago
"The government should do it" is (almost?) never the answer. If people are willing to pitch in a buck a year, just charge them for it. Either you can find enough people to support it voluntarily or you can't. If you can, you don't need government, and if you can't, it's not enough of a benefit to force people to pay for it.
mdale 3y ago
There are large scale "public" or non-profit web communities like Wikipedia. They come with a different set of challenges around governance.
kredd 3y ago
Reddit makes a lot of decisions that tax-payer funded entity would never be able to do. It’s one of the unfortunate circumstances where publicly owned social aggregator would be severely lacking. I’m not even talking about Reddit’s one of the most annoying current problems - AI bots disguised as real people. Make it publicly owned, people will have more skin in the game to make it worse. Sorry for the bot rant, but anything other than hyper-local subreddits are completely useless for getting any opinions at this point. The same points repeated every day to advance one or the other point of view, making it a hell hole. I feel bad for people who take in those opinions at face value thinking these are all real people.
krapp 3y ago
So you want a Reddit that gives intelligence agencies and law enforcement full access, is censored by the FCC or some similar three letter agency, and is infested with propaganda and psyops? Where you'll be required to present your real name and ID to have an account and you can be arrested by the mods? If you want a "free" Reddit look at federated and distributed solutions. But "public" means "controlled by a government." No thank you. I prefer a Reddit where even a sitting President can be banned for breaking the rules.
slothtrop 3y ago
> We all benefit from it The users do. That represents a small fraction of "we".

Maxion 3y ago

One big issue with Reddit is that it is mismanaged. With the revenue they are generating ($456 million USD), it should be more than enough to run a site like Reddit. Over the last few years they've invested heavily in things that are very unrelated to the core features of the site, such as NFTs and other odd things that are barely visible, while firing people (Victoria & the death of r/IAMA, and snackexchange) that brought a lot of traffic to the site. If a Reddit competitor were to surface that treated the company not as a facebook competitor // unicorn but rather than a company that is willing to reach a certain size and then stay there, none of this would be problems.

that_guy_iain 3y ago
> One big issue with Reddit is that it is mismanaged. With the revenue they are generating ($456 million USD), it should be more than enough to run a site like Reddit. So who gets fired? How many people are you willing to make unemployed? What services get removed? What improvements stop? Realistically, the reason they don't make a profit is they're aiming for growth and they're getting the growth.
- luma 3y ago
  > So who gets fired? Everybody involved with the NFTs, with this API decision, with everything about New Reddit, the dumb crypto currencies, do we need to go on? It's a long list.
  - that_guy_iain 3y ago
    So basically you're firing everyone? I bet you called Musk stupid for firing so many people at Twitter too.
    - Capricorn2481 3y ago
      Firing people who manage the ethics and technical specs of your site is different from shutting down a superfluous NFT division. That is a gold rush for stupid people.

that_guy_iain 3y ago

I have the same thinking you do. I think it's extremely unlikely anyone would invest seriously in a Reddit competitor for one simple reason - Reddit users will try and flee at any attempt to make a profit. The fact everyone knows this means a competitor is unlike and fleeing is unlikely since there would be nowhere to flee to.

eugeniub 3y ago

Reddit used to have pretty low overhead. You couldn't upload/host videos directly on Reddit, you could only share links or create self-posts. They didn't have all these superfluous features that they have now like live chat, push notifications, cryptocurrency wallets, first-party mobile apps, etc. A "classical" version of Reddit would be a fraction of the development and hosting cost compared to modern Reddit, especially if you can continue to keep moderation the responsibility of individual subreddits.

taylodl 3y ago
Think this all the way through - why did Reddit do these things? To attract more users and to generate revenue. As the OP said, what are you going to do to solve Reddit's income problem? This isn't a technical issue, the technical piece is straightforward and well-known. They can't really push for advertising until they eliminate 3rd party API access to the content. That or they have to start charging a usage fee. Which is interesting. One option they do have is to charge the user for using Reddit via an API, not the apps using the API. If you want to access Reddit via a 3rd party app then you'll have to pay for it - say something on the order of $1.99 per month or $19.99 for the year. I imagine they must have explored that option, so it makes me wonder why they abandoned it.
- Madmallard 3y ago
  "Think this all the way through - why did Reddit do these things? To attract more users and to generate revenue." I'd love to see the numbers of how these features actually amplified the experience. My gut tells me not much at all. Tech companies have huge misses all the time trying to make more money and often at the cost of the long-term success of the product.
  - taylodl 3y ago
    They're never satisfied with the status quo, are they? Always have to grow, grow, grow!
- joenot443 3y ago

troyvit 3y ago

Maybe the scale is the problem. What if instead you built the infra and then snatched away the users of one of the less popular subreddits, then federated the code? You'd have the same problems as Mastodon and stuff, but that would allow the concept to scale (you just wouldn't become a millionaire). Leave giant subs like /r/funny and /r/pics alone and nibble around the edges?

ssag2 3y ago

>>The killer feature of Reddit is that everyone goes to Reddit because Reddit is Reddit. The killer feature of Digg is that everyone goes to Digg because Digg is Digg. FTFY