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I think what you're pointing out is systematic risk for all social media or companies driven by online advertising. You can think Reddit is a good play relative
by bko 3y ago
I think what you're pointing out is systematic risk for all social media or companies driven by online advertising. You can think Reddit is a good play relative to those companies. Just buy reddit and short snap for instance
For instance, reddit has these things going for it:
Data - sure bots will influence Reddit but there are still a lot of users today. Sophisticated anti bot technology could help keep that somewhat down. Besides if gen ai becomes so good such that it can generate high signal training data for itself, presumably the bots could benefit Reddit. Sometimes I just want information or discussion, and I don't care if I'm talking to a dog on the other end
Low RPU relative to competitors - the demon is different than Facebook or Instagram but the rev per user is absurdly low and can probably grow somewhat
What twitter pulled off - twitter ditched something like 80% of it's staff and is pushing out product faster than ever. Think about how much it changed in the last two years. Editable comments, subscriptions, revenue sharing, blue checkmark for sale, alternative check marks for govts and org, culling of old accounts, API restrictions, forcing people to put parody in acct, xAI, long form video, prob more things I'm forgetting. If the right person decides to cut out all the bullshit and prioritize things like making the website not a flaming dumpster fire, no reason that couldn't dramatically impact usage
- SilverBirch 3y agoIt's uniquely bad for Reddit for a few reasons - more pseudonymous users, less 1:1 direct communication, and far more text based than competitors like Insta. Twitter is also a good point - Reddit looked a hell of a lot more valuable when it was sitting next to a $44Bn Twitter. Now it's sitting next to a steaming pile of far-right rubble that might not even have equity value.
- sigmoid10 3y ago>If the right person decides to cut out all the bullshit and prioritize things How can that be an argument in favor? If the right management team magically came around, you could also buy Boeing based on that hope. But I don't think any sane investor would do that.
- bko 3y agoJust start firing people. Meta learned the same thing and cut something like 25% of the workforce. It's organizational debt, start removing layers. Because so many of the people are doing destructive make work things, throwing darts to lay off entire teams would even prob even be net positive, but ideally it would be more thoughtful. There's no reason the app sucks so bad. Seems like this would be a priority?
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoSnap is an odd example to bring up, since they seem the most well guarded against becoming dominated by bots. It's primarily a private messaging platform, with a couple of broadcast social media features. I'd assume the vast majority of Snapchat's traffic is between people who have met each other in real life.