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Customers pay for services. Advertisers are customers. The only sense in which most redditors are customers is that they pay for internet access. So (assumin

Customers pay for services. Advertisers are customers. The only sense in which most redditors are customers is that they pay for internet access. So (assuming you watch TV), just as you as a TV watcher are a client of your TV company and the TV advertisers are clients of the TV networks you watch, you as an internet user are a client of your ISP and internet advertisers are clients of the websites you visit. There are exceptions, when users end up paying websites directly for services or products, but this is usually how the "free to visit" internet manages to sustain itself. I wish it wasn't like that, I want to search for ads not have them delivered to me. https://www.reddit.com/advertising https://www.reddit.com/advertising

pixl97 11y ago
Repeat after me: Reddit is not a content provider. Your Cable/TV company buys content and resales it to you. Reddit does not buy content. The content of Reddit is provided by, moderated by, and upvoted by the users. You can treat them like a consumer, but it is at your own peril as they quickly wander off to other sites. Social sites like Reddit do not fit nicely in to the little boxes businesses like to make when predicting profits.
- ectoplasm 11y ago
  Oh, I think I must have miscommunicated something. I was comparing Cable/TV companies to ISPs and TV networks to websites. I agree that Reddit is not comparable to a Cable/TV company. As in, end users are customers/clients of Cable/TV companies and ISPs because they pay them money, but they do not pay TV networks and websites. Further, advertisers are customers/clients of TV networks and websites but they are not clients of Cable/TV companies and ISPs (generally speaking). The only significant claim I'm making is that social media users are not customers/clients unless they are giving money to the websites. Mostly it's advertisers giving the money. Also, I know that the content of social media websites is both created and consumed by users, but nevertheless the social media companies operate those websites, store and process the content, and provide the content created by everyone to everyone. This doesn't make the users into customers however, because they still aren't giving money to website. An analogy would be a TV show where the creators just gave the show to the network for free, and then watched it at home. Or maybe, a news station that films people's real lives and then uses that to sell ads. As for Hacker News, we are also not the customers. Maybe you could argue that investors are customers, since HN is a promotional vehicle for YC. But, that's kind of murky.

pixl97 11y ago

Repeat after me: Reddit is not a content provider. Your Cable/TV company buys content and resales it to you. Reddit does not buy content. The content of Reddit is provided by, moderated by, and upvoted by the users. You can treat them like a consumer, but it is at your own peril as they quickly wander off to other sites. Social sites like Reddit do not fit nicely in to the little boxes businesses like to make when predicting profits.

ectoplasm 11y ago
Oh, I think I must have miscommunicated something. I was comparing Cable/TV companies to ISPs and TV networks to websites. I agree that Reddit is not comparable to a Cable/TV company. As in, end users are customers/clients of Cable/TV companies and ISPs because they pay them money, but they do not pay TV networks and websites. Further, advertisers are customers/clients of TV networks and websites but they are not clients of Cable/TV companies and ISPs (generally speaking). The only significant claim I'm making is that social media users are not customers/clients unless they are giving money to the websites. Mostly it's advertisers giving the money. Also, I know that the content of social media websites is both created and consumed by users, but nevertheless the social media companies operate those websites, store and process the content, and provide the content created by everyone to everyone. This doesn't make the users into customers however, because they still aren't giving money to website. An analogy would be a TV show where the creators just gave the show to the network for free, and then watched it at home. Or maybe, a news station that films people's real lives and then uses that to sell ads. As for Hacker News, we are also not the customers. Maybe you could argue that investors are customers, since HN is a promotional vehicle for YC. But, that's kind of murky.