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5x growth is great, but Reddit definitely has a "if it isn't broke don't fix it" mentality (probably a fear of "digging"). I struggle to attribute that growth t

5x growth is great, but Reddit definitely has a "if it isn't broke don't fix it" mentality (probably a fear of "digging"). I struggle to attribute that growth to one CEO's decisions, when it really seems more like inevitable growth due to the success of the product and community that was defined long before he took the helm. Arguably, by Alexis (community) & Steve (product).

debacle 12y ago
Reddit is a company with a huge user base and any investor willing to do his job (in spite of the moral or social implications) is going to want to squeeze that teat for every drop of ARPU he can get. Because where else are the users going to go? Digg? Slashdot? 4chan?
- atko 12y ago
  Where else are the users going to go? Try WhoaVerse.
  - ripb 12y ago
    WhoaVerse: A reddit clone where you can talk to Atko and 5 of his or her alt accounts. Become a partner today!
- chiph 12y ago
  Imgur, most likely
skizm 12y ago
> if it isn't broke don't fix it This is the kind of mentality more companies need. It is why craigslist is still running a site that looks like it is from 1999. The opposite thinking is why digg when down in flames.
- derefr 12y ago
  Have you done a search on Craigslist lately? They're still going for a basic-HTML4-user-agent "theme" (since that's basically their brand now), but the implementation is actually quite dynamic/AJAXified and CSS-heavy. (Also, apparently they use Redis everywhere on the backend for Matryoshka cashing, among other modern practices.) Also, Digg's failure had nothing to do with a visual refresh; it was that they changed the dynamics of the "social game" the site implemented to make previously "winning" users suddenly irrelevant in comparison to sponsored posts by companies. It'd be like Youtube doing DMCA takedowns on all the "celebrities" with million-subscriber channels.
  - skizm 12y ago
    My point was just that users want the same experience as they got when they started using the site for the most part. Too many changes and you risk driving away your user base. Changes being anything from visual components to mechanics of the site.
    - pcthrowaway 12y ago
      They have made a lot of user-facing changes though, verified phone number, map search and map views for listings, search by distance, and contact info masking are a few that come to mind.
  - hueving 12y ago
    The point is that the user experience for craigslist is the same to user.
- kansface 12y ago
  CL isn't successful because of its terrible UI- it is simply a social network that happened to have capture the largest slice of the market.
- billmalarky 12y ago
  I agree 100% that the correct course of action for Reddit is to remain the same so far as growth keeps moving forward and no alternative threats pop up. My point is that the growth credit should go to those who built the machine that is still being used almost exactly as they left it. What I can say is that Yishan was successful leading the reddit team in keeping up with reddit's growth from an infrastructure standpoint. No small task, especially since Reddit was crashing and burning all the time before he came on board but you don't see reddit go down due to load nearly as much these days (even at 5x usage). Bottom line, praise him for that -- keeping up with the growth, not driving growth that probably would have occurred regardless of who was in the captain's chair.
- ig1 12y ago
  Craigslist used to be... ...the largest real estate site in the world. ...the largest dating site in the world. ...one of the largest job sites in the world. It's now an also ran in everyone of those categories. They lost every single major market they were the dominant player in. This isn't Craiglist winning, it's Craiglist losing.
  - late2part 12y ago
    I don't share the same view you have. I believe CL is a significant player in each of the three categories you mention.
    - ig1 12y ago
      CL does around 300M revenue across all categories, that's less than what the larger players in each individual category makes.
      - flomo 12y ago
        By that logic, Craigslist was probably never the largest in those categories. Newspaper classifieds and old job sites like Monster and etc. got the revenue. CL's strategy was always to get the rest of it.

debacle 12y ago

Reddit is a company with a huge user base and any investor willing to do his job (in spite of the moral or social implications) is going to want to squeeze that teat for every drop of ARPU he can get. Because where else are the users going to go? Digg? Slashdot? 4chan?

atko 12y ago
Where else are the users going to go? Try WhoaVerse.
- ripb 12y ago
  WhoaVerse: A reddit clone where you can talk to Atko and 5 of his or her alt accounts. Become a partner today!
chiph 12y ago
Imgur, most likely

skizm 12y ago

> if it isn't broke don't fix it This is the kind of mentality more companies need. It is why craigslist is still running a site that looks like it is from 1999. The opposite thinking is why digg when down in flames.

derefr 12y ago
Have you done a search on Craigslist lately? They're still going for a basic-HTML4-user-agent "theme" (since that's basically their brand now), but the implementation is actually quite dynamic/AJAXified and CSS-heavy. (Also, apparently they use Redis everywhere on the backend for Matryoshka cashing, among other modern practices.) Also, Digg's failure had nothing to do with a visual refresh; it was that they changed the dynamics of the "social game" the site implemented to make previously "winning" users suddenly irrelevant in comparison to sponsored posts by companies. It'd be like Youtube doing DMCA takedowns on all the "celebrities" with million-subscriber channels.
- skizm 12y ago
  My point was just that users want the same experience as they got when they started using the site for the most part. Too many changes and you risk driving away your user base. Changes being anything from visual components to mechanics of the site.
  - pcthrowaway 12y ago
    They have made a lot of user-facing changes though, verified phone number, map search and map views for listings, search by distance, and contact info masking are a few that come to mind.
- hueving 12y ago
  The point is that the user experience for craigslist is the same to user.
kansface 12y ago
CL isn't successful because of its terrible UI- it is simply a social network that happened to have capture the largest slice of the market.
billmalarky 12y ago
I agree 100% that the correct course of action for Reddit is to remain the same so far as growth keeps moving forward and no alternative threats pop up. My point is that the growth credit should go to those who built the machine that is still being used almost exactly as they left it. What I can say is that Yishan was successful leading the reddit team in keeping up with reddit's growth from an infrastructure standpoint. No small task, especially since Reddit was crashing and burning all the time before he came on board but you don't see reddit go down due to load nearly as much these days (even at 5x usage). Bottom line, praise him for that -- keeping up with the growth, not driving growth that probably would have occurred regardless of who was in the captain's chair.
ig1 12y ago
Craigslist used to be... ...the largest real estate site in the world. ...the largest dating site in the world. ...one of the largest job sites in the world. It's now an also ran in everyone of those categories. They lost every single major market they were the dominant player in. This isn't Craiglist winning, it's Craiglist losing.
- late2part 12y ago
  I don't share the same view you have. I believe CL is a significant player in each of the three categories you mention.
  - ig1 12y ago
    CL does around 300M revenue across all categories, that's less than what the larger players in each individual category makes.
    - flomo 12y ago
      By that logic, Craigslist was probably never the largest in those categories. Newspaper classifieds and old job sites like Monster and etc. got the revenue. CL's strategy was always to get the rest of it.