2 ms·

The moderators and users of Reddit aren’t the people paying for the hosting and development of the service - a service which has never turned a profit. I think

by dangus 3y ago

The moderators and users of Reddit aren’t the people paying for the hosting and development of the service - a service which has never turned a profit. I think this idea that “moderators should be paid” or that users of Reddit deserve shares of the company just because the website wouldn’t be very useful without the users is such a stretch. That would be like saying that people who post classified ads in the newspaper should own the newspaper. After all, the newspaper would have far less revenue and value without classifieds.

iamthirsty 3y ago
> The moderators and users of Reddit aren’t the people paying for the hosting and development of the service - a service which has never turned a profit. Seems like Reddit not turning a profit is strictly Reddit's problem — not users or even really basic business model, but spending.
- dangus 3y ago
  I agree with you, but the point stands that if Reddit can’t turn a profit their users aren’t really generating any lasting value. If I juice 20 oranges per hour and sell that orange juice for $5, you might say that I created $5 in value, but if minimum wage is $20 all I accomplished was losing $15. Similarly, Reddit moderators only generate business value if you assume the website costs less to maintain than it does in real life. If Reddit users and moderators would like to start a non-profit alternative they can go ahead and try that. It’s not like Reddit has been an especially spendy tech company, either, they’ve had well under 1000 employees until very recently. They’re the 15th most popular website in the world and their headcount is not particularly extreme.
  - Ferret7446 3y ago
    Tangentially, this is a decent example for why minimum wage is actually a bad thing. There can be useful work available that is eliminated by the artificial price fixing.
    - gopher_space 3y ago
      Aren’t you describing crime in general?
      - Ferret7446 3y ago
        I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say, but I don't think so. If I'd like to, say, fold custom envelopes for less than minimum wage while I'm watching TV, no crime is being committed, and society is not being harmed. There are certain social restrictions that are set to prevent social harm, and then there are those that are set because some people thought it would prevent social harm but in fact does the opposite; minimum wage falls into the latter.
ornornor 3y ago
> That would be like saying that people who post classified ads in the newspaper should own the newspaper. I don’t think this is fair. When you publish an ad in the paper you’re not also responsible for the moderation, ensuring the newspaper content is appealing, interesting, well organized, or building your own tools to make it so. But on Reddit, prolific users and mods did all that only to get a gigantic finger that led to the blackout and the killing of all third party apps only to leave the dumpster fire of a client that the official one is.

by dangus 3y ago

iamthirsty 3y ago

> The moderators and users of Reddit aren’t the people paying for the hosting and development of the service - a service which has never turned a profit. Seems like Reddit not turning a profit is strictly Reddit's problem — not users or even really basic business model, but spending.

dangus 3y ago
I agree with you, but the point stands that if Reddit can’t turn a profit their users aren’t really generating any lasting value. If I juice 20 oranges per hour and sell that orange juice for $5, you might say that I created $5 in value, but if minimum wage is $20 all I accomplished was losing $15. Similarly, Reddit moderators only generate business value if you assume the website costs less to maintain than it does in real life. If Reddit users and moderators would like to start a non-profit alternative they can go ahead and try that. It’s not like Reddit has been an especially spendy tech company, either, they’ve had well under 1000 employees until very recently. They’re the 15th most popular website in the world and their headcount is not particularly extreme.
- Ferret7446 3y ago
  Tangentially, this is a decent example for why minimum wage is actually a bad thing. There can be useful work available that is eliminated by the artificial price fixing.
  - gopher_space 3y ago
    Aren’t you describing crime in general?
    - Ferret7446 3y ago
      I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say, but I don't think so. If I'd like to, say, fold custom envelopes for less than minimum wage while I'm watching TV, no crime is being committed, and society is not being harmed. There are certain social restrictions that are set to prevent social harm, and then there are those that are set because some people thought it would prevent social harm but in fact does the opposite; minimum wage falls into the latter.

ornornor 3y ago

> That would be like saying that people who post classified ads in the newspaper should own the newspaper. I don’t think this is fair. When you publish an ad in the paper you’re not also responsible for the moderation, ensuring the newspaper content is appealing, interesting, well organized, or building your own tools to make it so. But on Reddit, prolific users and mods did all that only to get a gigantic finger that led to the blackout and the killing of all third party apps only to leave the dumpster fire of a client that the official one is.