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From the outside it looked more like Ellen was focused on improving the monetization prospects rather than focusing on growth. In particular, placing limits on

From the outside it looked more like Ellen was focused on improving the monetization prospects rather than focusing on growth. In particular, placing limits on abusive content and users would make the site more attractive to advertisers. Firing Victoria fit the same motive -- monetize the most popular product (AMAs). Reddit leadership wanted to explore ways to monetize that feature, and for some undisclosed reason Victoria didn't fit with that plan. The return of Huffman signals a shift back to the Cult of Growth, in the hopes that investors won't worry as much about monetization so long as the site is growing. One thing the board won't settle for is neither growth nor profitability.

tvon 11y ago
Not that I disagree, but it's worth mentioning (for anyone who doesn't frequent reddit) that firing Victoria was apparently Alexis Ohanian's decision, and not Pao's[1][2], which suggests that the pressure is coming from the board and not an endeavor specific to Pao. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3d6asv/former_reddit_ceo_alleges_cofounder_alexis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3d6asv/former_r... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/ct1fsoi?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t...
- smrtinsert 11y ago
  I find it extremely rare that the board is not involved directly in every hiring/firing for startups under some sort of business duress. Total tangent: I did not understand the outrage at reddit. The management clearly let her be thrown under the bus by the conspiracy wackos.
  - kedean 11y ago
    I don't know if reddit can still be called a startup. It's a decade old content aggregator business. That's like calling Facebook a startup in social media.
    - smrtinsert 11y ago
      I thought they were still not profitable, which makes me use the term startup. I could be wrong though.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>In particular, placing limits on abusive content and users would make the site more attractive to advertisers. I see no problem with this. I purposely avoid recommending or even mentioning reddit to the people in my life because of all the horrible content on the site. I won't promote these subs, but there are many, many popular racist subs and subs that promote violence against women and, hell, one that is dedicated to showing photos of dead women who were attractive in life. There's a creeper sub that shows candid photos of women on the street that pathetically skirts the rules by pretending its about "fashion." My god, reddit is a mess. I can't ever imagine recommending advertising there. I can imagine videos games, e-cigs, energy drinks, etc advertising there as these things already have a lousy reputation, but reddit is not on the path of being this broad forum with lots of members with disposable income. Growth isn't impressive when its just more of the same, largely unprofitable, "manboy" demographic. This is why USENET lasted so long and was so prolific amongst techies. It never had to make a profit. You could trivially start new "communities", etc. Reddit is pretty much USENET as web, but the problem is, someone has to pay for all those servers and staff. No one is donating or proving access as part of your shell account like they did back in the USENET days. I find it questionable that such forums would ever be profitable. I suspect the next gen reddit will be something that has more in common with torrent-like tech than old school client-server web tech.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  > I can imagine videos games, e-cigs, energy drinks, etc advertising there as these things already have a lousy reputation Holy hell, you need to walk outside your bubble a bit.
- cgearhart 11y ago
  I tried not to make any judgement about the changes, just to analyze the motive. It has always been a Sisyphean struggle to sell ads on Reddit -- in large part because the content is so unpredictable. Whatever access they can provide for a brand to connect with a target demographic has to be weighed against the cost of being embroiled in controversy for advertising alongside the content that shows up on Reddit.
jackgavigan 11y ago
What I find intriguing is that fact that they have 160m unique visitors and over 7 billion page views each month, yet they generated less than $8.3m in ad revenue last year. That just feels wrong, somehow...
- jedberg 11y ago
  People have been saying that about reddit for years. They overestimate "average" CPM by about 100x. People don't pay a lot for ads, and when they do, it's only on a fraction of the page views. Display advertising will not be reddit's "cash cow", it will be one pillar of many sources of revenue. The good news is, Steve and Alexis both know this.
  - nzealand 11y ago
    Those figures always sounded surprising high to me. The initial reddit page has one ad above the fold, but most detail pages have the ad placed way below the fold.
  - jackgavigan 11y ago
    Whether or not everything you say is true, they should be generating more than $8.3m in ad revenue.
    - jedberg 11y ago
      I should clarify that I worked at reddit and speak from experience and not conjecture. Selling ads on reddit is hard, I'm actually impressed that they made that much from display ads last year.

tvon 11y ago

Not that I disagree, but it's worth mentioning (for anyone who doesn't frequent reddit) that firing Victoria was apparently Alexis Ohanian's decision, and not Pao's[1][2], which suggests that the pressure is coming from the board and not an endeavor specific to Pao. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3d6asv/former_reddit_ceo_alleges_cofounder_alexis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3d6asv/former_r... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/ct1fsoi?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t...

smrtinsert 11y ago
I find it extremely rare that the board is not involved directly in every hiring/firing for startups under some sort of business duress. Total tangent: I did not understand the outrage at reddit. The management clearly let her be thrown under the bus by the conspiracy wackos.
- kedean 11y ago
  I don't know if reddit can still be called a startup. It's a decade old content aggregator business. That's like calling Facebook a startup in social media.
  - smrtinsert 11y ago
    I thought they were still not profitable, which makes me use the term startup. I could be wrong though.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

>In particular, placing limits on abusive content and users would make the site more attractive to advertisers. I see no problem with this. I purposely avoid recommending or even mentioning reddit to the people in my life because of all the horrible content on the site. I won't promote these subs, but there are many, many popular racist subs and subs that promote violence against women and, hell, one that is dedicated to showing photos of dead women who were attractive in life. There's a creeper sub that shows candid photos of women on the street that pathetically skirts the rules by pretending its about "fashion." My god, reddit is a mess. I can't ever imagine recommending advertising there. I can imagine videos games, e-cigs, energy drinks, etc advertising there as these things already have a lousy reputation, but reddit is not on the path of being this broad forum with lots of members with disposable income. Growth isn't impressive when its just more of the same, largely unprofitable, "manboy" demographic. This is why USENET lasted so long and was so prolific amongst techies. It never had to make a profit. You could trivially start new "communities", etc. Reddit is pretty much USENET as web, but the problem is, someone has to pay for all those servers and staff. No one is donating or proving access as part of your shell account like they did back in the USENET days. I find it questionable that such forums would ever be profitable. I suspect the next gen reddit will be something that has more in common with torrent-like tech than old school client-server web tech.

scrollaway 11y ago
> I can imagine videos games, e-cigs, energy drinks, etc advertising there as these things already have a lousy reputation Holy hell, you need to walk outside your bubble a bit.
cgearhart 11y ago
I tried not to make any judgement about the changes, just to analyze the motive. It has always been a Sisyphean struggle to sell ads on Reddit -- in large part because the content is so unpredictable. Whatever access they can provide for a brand to connect with a target demographic has to be weighed against the cost of being embroiled in controversy for advertising alongside the content that shows up on Reddit.

jackgavigan 11y ago

What I find intriguing is that fact that they have 160m unique visitors and over 7 billion page views each month, yet they generated less than $8.3m in ad revenue last year. That just feels wrong, somehow...

jedberg 11y ago
People have been saying that about reddit for years. They overestimate "average" CPM by about 100x. People don't pay a lot for ads, and when they do, it's only on a fraction of the page views. Display advertising will not be reddit's "cash cow", it will be one pillar of many sources of revenue. The good news is, Steve and Alexis both know this.
- nzealand 11y ago
  Those figures always sounded surprising high to me. The initial reddit page has one ad above the fold, but most detail pages have the ad placed way below the fold.
- jackgavigan 11y ago
  Whether or not everything you say is true, they should be generating more than $8.3m in ad revenue.
  - jedberg 11y ago
    I should clarify that I worked at reddit and speak from experience and not conjecture. Selling ads on reddit is hard, I'm actually impressed that they made that much from display ads last year.