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I don't understand why there isn't talk and action to attack Reddit's owner and funding itself--Condé Nast. Like organizing to target advetisers pulling their

I don't understand why there isn't talk and action to attack Reddit's owner and funding itself--Condé Nast. Like organizing to target advetisers pulling their spends off CN's publications, or people canceling their CN owned magazines and services, etc. That kind of action would materially affect Reddit's parent and get immediate attention. I kind of wonder if CN and Reddit insiders have co-opted the anger and discussion against the API changes to direct action towards purely symbolic things like the current protest/blackout vs. going after Condé Nast.

kotaKat 3y ago
IIRC with additional rounds of funding Conde Nast/et al are no longer majority shareholders and have lost some control of the org.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Reddit's owner and funding itself--Condé Nast Condé Naste is a minority investor in Reddit. They have one Board member, as many as Y Combinator.
- qbasic_forever 3y ago
  CN's parent company owns Reddit, it's a fuzzy distinction that doesn't matter. Hurting CN publications hurts reddit's owner all the same.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > CN's parent company owns Reddit, it's a fuzzy distinction that doesn't matter No, it doesn’t. It owns stock in Reddit. After multiple rounds it has influence—it still has a Board member— but it’s far from that of an owner. Hitting Condé Naste makes sense. But it should be part of a broader campaign to pressure the Board. That means J.D. Power (David Habiger), Joy (Porter Gale) and Y Combinator (Mike Seibel). It might cause someone to notice were, say, an entire subreddit to call their investor relations lines… (Joy is privately backed by Avalon Ventures. Their LPs include Calpers, Harvard, Michigan State, Rutgers, Washington State and the State of Wisconsin.)
    - qbasic_forever 3y ago
      The board and shareholders don't matter one bit, Reddit is an entirely private company now owned by Advance Publications (which Condé Nast is a subsidiary of). AP could defund and dissolve the board entirely and decide only people with a birthday ending in 1 and who live in blue houses control Reddit--they're private and have complete control over the company, nothing else matters. Hitting them where their money is made (CN) will have an impact. Going after board members is wasting time or just a diversion to make people not go after the money.
      - Macha 3y ago
        No, Advance Publications entirely owned Reddit in 2017, and have since sold shares in it in a number of investment waves, and as such no longer have the 51% of shares required to take actions unilaterally.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > they're private and have complete control over the company, nothing else matters Not sure where you're getting your information. This is incorrect. Private company shareholders, particularly when they collectively own a majority of the company, have significant rights. In Reddit's case, these are shareholders with preferred shares, Board seats and votes. > AP could defund and dissolve the board If you sell a company to someone else, you don't get to dissolve its Board because you once controlled it. > where their money is made (CN) Again, Condé Naste's entire leverage is their one Board vote. Nothing more. Reddit is a Delaware corporation with a publicly-filed COI.
slothtrop 3y ago
I don't think there's reason for CN to feel threatened beyond reddit. The public at large does not, would not, care. Power users might try boycotting for whatever that's worth. This was really the only viable vector for redditors who care about the changes.
chx 3y ago
I never understood what CN wanted from Reddit. How big is the overlap between Vogue and Reddit audiences? What's the synergy they wanted to leverage?
- delecti 3y ago
  CN isn't "the Vogue publisher", they're a media company. They also own Wired and Ars Technica, as examples of something more closely aligned with Reddit's image, plus dozens of others.
  - chx 3y ago
    I still don't understand the synergies here... to be fair: I don't understand the synergy between holding Vogue and Wired at the same time either but what do I know.
    - delecti 3y ago
      Not least of the reasons is market segmentation. They want their marketing to be able to easily target narrow segments of consumers, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to make sure the consumers are already segmented. If Google comes to them and says "we want to run ads for our phones", CN puts the resulting ads in Wired. If Google later comes back and says "we want a piece about the menstrual tracking on our Fitbits", CN can say "no problem, let us put an ad in Vogue". It also lets them optimize the shared infrastructure. The content in Wired and Vogue isn't all that similar, but the basic printing of magazines doesn't change enormously depending on what's printed on the pages. And I can't find anything specific, but I'd be surprised if Wired and Vogue didn't go to print at different times of the month.
    - evanelias 3y ago
      Advance Publications (CN's parent company) owns a few dozen popular local news sites, and also has large stakes in Charter Communications (very large US telecom) and Warner Bros Discovery, among other things. They owned Random House (publisher) from 1980-1998, and they owned a bunch of television stations until 1980. Basically they're a major media company across the board, so a stake in Reddit doesn't really seem out of place.
andsoitis 3y ago
> I don't understand why there isn't talk and action to attack Reddit's owner and funding itself--Condé Nast. Like organizing to target advetisers pulling their spends off CN's publications, or people canceling their CN owned magazines and services, etc. Why don't you take the initiative?

kotaKat 3y ago

IIRC with additional rounds of funding Conde Nast/et al are no longer majority shareholders and have lost some control of the org.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Reddit's owner and funding itself--Condé Nast Condé Naste is a minority investor in Reddit. They have one Board member, as many as Y Combinator.

qbasic_forever 3y ago
CN's parent company owns Reddit, it's a fuzzy distinction that doesn't matter. Hurting CN publications hurts reddit's owner all the same.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > CN's parent company owns Reddit, it's a fuzzy distinction that doesn't matter No, it doesn’t. It owns stock in Reddit. After multiple rounds it has influence—it still has a Board member— but it’s far from that of an owner. Hitting Condé Naste makes sense. But it should be part of a broader campaign to pressure the Board. That means J.D. Power (David Habiger), Joy (Porter Gale) and Y Combinator (Mike Seibel). It might cause someone to notice were, say, an entire subreddit to call their investor relations lines… (Joy is privately backed by Avalon Ventures. Their LPs include Calpers, Harvard, Michigan State, Rutgers, Washington State and the State of Wisconsin.)
  - qbasic_forever 3y ago
    The board and shareholders don't matter one bit, Reddit is an entirely private company now owned by Advance Publications (which Condé Nast is a subsidiary of). AP could defund and dissolve the board entirely and decide only people with a birthday ending in 1 and who live in blue houses control Reddit--they're private and have complete control over the company, nothing else matters. Hitting them where their money is made (CN) will have an impact. Going after board members is wasting time or just a diversion to make people not go after the money.
    - Macha 3y ago
      No, Advance Publications entirely owned Reddit in 2017, and have since sold shares in it in a number of investment waves, and as such no longer have the 51% of shares required to take actions unilaterally.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > they're private and have complete control over the company, nothing else matters Not sure where you're getting your information. This is incorrect. Private company shareholders, particularly when they collectively own a majority of the company, have significant rights. In Reddit's case, these are shareholders with preferred shares, Board seats and votes. > AP could defund and dissolve the board If you sell a company to someone else, you don't get to dissolve its Board because you once controlled it. > where their money is made (CN) Again, Condé Naste's entire leverage is their one Board vote. Nothing more. Reddit is a Delaware corporation with a publicly-filed COI.

slothtrop 3y ago

I don't think there's reason for CN to feel threatened beyond reddit. The public at large does not, would not, care. Power users might try boycotting for whatever that's worth. This was really the only viable vector for redditors who care about the changes.

chx 3y ago

I never understood what CN wanted from Reddit. How big is the overlap between Vogue and Reddit audiences? What's the synergy they wanted to leverage?

delecti 3y ago
CN isn't "the Vogue publisher", they're a media company. They also own Wired and Ars Technica, as examples of something more closely aligned with Reddit's image, plus dozens of others.
- chx 3y ago
  I still don't understand the synergies here... to be fair: I don't understand the synergy between holding Vogue and Wired at the same time either but what do I know.
  - delecti 3y ago
    Not least of the reasons is market segmentation. They want their marketing to be able to easily target narrow segments of consumers, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to make sure the consumers are already segmented. If Google comes to them and says "we want to run ads for our phones", CN puts the resulting ads in Wired. If Google later comes back and says "we want a piece about the menstrual tracking on our Fitbits", CN can say "no problem, let us put an ad in Vogue". It also lets them optimize the shared infrastructure. The content in Wired and Vogue isn't all that similar, but the basic printing of magazines doesn't change enormously depending on what's printed on the pages. And I can't find anything specific, but I'd be surprised if Wired and Vogue didn't go to print at different times of the month.
  - evanelias 3y ago
    Advance Publications (CN's parent company) owns a few dozen popular local news sites, and also has large stakes in Charter Communications (very large US telecom) and Warner Bros Discovery, among other things. They owned Random House (publisher) from 1980-1998, and they owned a bunch of television stations until 1980. Basically they're a major media company across the board, so a stake in Reddit doesn't really seem out of place.

andsoitis 3y ago

> I don't understand why there isn't talk and action to attack Reddit's owner and funding itself--Condé Nast. Like organizing to target advetisers pulling their spends off CN's publications, or people canceling their CN owned magazines and services, etc. Why don't you take the initiative?