4 ms·

Reddit is worth 27 billion right now. What could have been.

by returnInfinity 2y ago

wewewedxfgdf 2y ago
The founders sold Reddit for how much was it $10M or $20M?
- throwaway984393 2y ago
  [dead]
- Macha 2y ago
  To be fair, that was followed by like 5-6 years being a thing that Conde Nast had probably forgotten they owned and going between making a loss and barely breaking even with a skeleton crew. Now it's got a very large team, all the investor pandering and user hostile activity, and instead it's making a large loss, which of course for investors means it's more valuable.
  - conradfr 2y ago
    I still don't understand how one of the most popular website with free content and moderation and extremely cacheable content was never profitable. Unrelated but they removed the <subreddit>.reddit.com shortcut some months ago.
    - dehrmann 2y ago
      Most people aren't willing to pay for content, and it's harder to target ads, or you're not showing ads at the right time.
  - dehrmann 2y ago
    Condé practically forgetting about reddit was one of the best things that happened to it. There was pressure to scale the side up, but they didn't have time to chase engagement metrics to the detriment of the experience. It's probably the only $10B+ tech company I can think of that ran so lean for so long.
DeathArrow 2y ago
It might get acquired by Elon. :)
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  *quietly checks the status of phpBB
  - nedrylandJP 2y ago
    A decent number of redditors moved to Lemmy instances after reddit pulled that move with the API/unofficial apps a few summers ago
    - Macha 2y ago
      It felt like the Lemmy instances really died off in a month or two.
      - baggachipz 2y ago
        Some did, others are thriving. Still a small community though.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    I've moved our forums to Xenforo a few years ago, by the creators of vBulletin. It's alright if you liked vB but it doesn't seem to get much updates, but that might be because it's "finished" software. I also tried some years ago to install Discourse but you need all kinds of server setup for that, too complicated to be an alternative to "old fashioned" PHP forum software. And that's before going into the UX, which is more webapp than old fashioned forums. I'm glad I didn't push through with that migration.
    - pavel_lishin 2y ago
      > it doesn't seem to get much updates, but that might be because it's "finished" software. Thank the gods.

Reddit is worth 27 billion right now. What could have been.

wewewedxfgdf 2y ago

The founders sold Reddit for how much was it $10M or $20M?

throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
Macha 2y ago
To be fair, that was followed by like 5-6 years being a thing that Conde Nast had probably forgotten they owned and going between making a loss and barely breaking even with a skeleton crew. Now it's got a very large team, all the investor pandering and user hostile activity, and instead it's making a large loss, which of course for investors means it's more valuable.
- conradfr 2y ago
  I still don't understand how one of the most popular website with free content and moderation and extremely cacheable content was never profitable. Unrelated but they removed the <subreddit>.reddit.com shortcut some months ago.
  - dehrmann 2y ago
    Most people aren't willing to pay for content, and it's harder to target ads, or you're not showing ads at the right time.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  Condé practically forgetting about reddit was one of the best things that happened to it. There was pressure to scale the side up, but they didn't have time to chase engagement metrics to the detriment of the experience. It's probably the only $10B+ tech company I can think of that ran so lean for so long.

DeathArrow 2y ago

It might get acquired by Elon. :)

forgetfreeman 2y ago
*quietly checks the status of phpBB
- nedrylandJP 2y ago
  A decent number of redditors moved to Lemmy instances after reddit pulled that move with the API/unofficial apps a few summers ago
  - Macha 2y ago
    It felt like the Lemmy instances really died off in a month or two.
    - baggachipz 2y ago
      Some did, others are thriving. Still a small community though.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  I've moved our forums to Xenforo a few years ago, by the creators of vBulletin. It's alright if you liked vB but it doesn't seem to get much updates, but that might be because it's "finished" software. I also tried some years ago to install Discourse but you need all kinds of server setup for that, too complicated to be an alternative to "old fashioned" PHP forum software. And that's before going into the UX, which is more webapp than old fashioned forums. I'm glad I didn't push through with that migration.
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    > it doesn't seem to get much updates, but that might be because it's "finished" software. Thank the gods.