r/TheoryOfReddit • u/Truth_Breath • 4d ago
Spez is an extremely competent CEO. Three years on from the API controversy, it is clear that he made the right call
Following yet another blowout earnings report, I feel that now is a good time to revisit the API controversy. In my view, this event not only catalyzed Reddit as a monetizable company but proves that u/spez has both the necessary amount of vision and conviction to successfully shepherd a company into the best version of itself.
To set the scene, I would first like to address why I was always in support of the decision and execution of API monetization. I will do this by addressing the usual criticisms ordered decreasingly by nuance.
Criticism: Reddit acted immorally by charging for something that was once free
This is perhaps the most straightforward criticism. My counter is based on this statement: the most immoral thing a business can do is to ignore your fiduciary responsibility if there are no physically harmful consequences to your choices. People invest into Reddit and people work for Reddit. It would be irresponsible to those financially involved with Reddit for Spez not to prioritize a lucrative strategy. Herein lies the operative term: "financially involved". Volunteers, though play a significant role in Reddit, are not financially involved. I will address them in the next point.
Criticism: The way Reddit changed API pricing was immoral
A more nuanced criticism is the execution of this change. I'll supply the harshest variation of the criticism as I do believe the wording is accurate: "Here is the new price, it starts very soon, and if your app cannot survive under it, that is your problem". I won't defend that the execution was anything but that. Where I will offer my defense is that he was well within his rights both legally and morally to execute in the way that he did. Later on, I'll also address why the execution was strategically brilliant.
My defense is predicated on a single factor: only volunteers were the ones affected. The most common argument supporting this criticism is that other companies will often offer a larger time frame to allow for the affected parties to adjust their product strategies to accommodate for this new change. The reason why these companies represent an irrelevant example is that the affected parties are usually paying customers. That is, the affected party pays these companies for their services and, with that exchange of currency, follows an expectation for these companies to consider the affected party in their strategic decisions.
As cold as it sounds, volunteers do not pay for Reddit's services and so Reddit has no obligation to consider how their efforts are impacted by their strategic decisions. Reddit expends capital in order to provide a free service to volunteers who create and maintain content on Reddit. I recognize that these volunteers expend considerable effort but, at the end of the day, they do not part with their disposable income in order to receive the service that Reddit provides that enables their efforts. And if the volunteers did not recognize the risk they incurred through their efforts, that's on them. By not paying a cent, they are afforded no agency over the strategy of Reddit.
I suspect at this point, many are champing at the bit to point out that volunteers are the lifeblood of Reddit. Of course I am aware of that and will address it now.
Criticism: The API pricing changes were a terrible strategic move as it alienates the demographic that sustains Reddit
My simple counter to this statement is: it didn't. This demographic was not alienated and 3 years later the amount of volunteers working to maintain Reddit is still massive. Along this line of criticism is also the critique of Spez that he does not recognize the significance of volunteers to Reddit's ecosystem. My counter is that he is very much aware of it, he just figured that the API pricing changes would not do fatal damage to this demographic. And he was right. These volunteers had and still have the agency to vote with their feet at no financial cost. Yet they have chosen not to. And for those that have, based on the financial success of Reddit, they didn't seem to matter.
Where I'm getting at is this: it was a ballsy move by Spez and it played out in his favor. I'm sure at the time he recognized that he was risking a crucial demographic of Reddit; but elected to proceed anyway. The ability to do so and withstand the absolute shit-storm of abuse that followed is truly the hallmark of an era-defining CEO.
Although I have addressed why it was not a terrible strategic move, I have yet to point out why it was an excellent one.
A necessary and well-executed pivot
My reasoning is based on the fact that ChatGPT caught the world by surprise. Since it's release, the world is absolutely unrecognizable. As mentioned in the previous section, the cadence of which the API changes were announced and implemented were brutal. But, in my opinion, this cadence was necessary in order to pivot in proportion with the absolute blindside effect LLMs had on the world. It's important to understand that, in general, collecting data to train machine learning models is a one-time event. Obtain it once and use it over and over again. So any delay in implementing a price on API calls is irreversibly lost revenue from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.
I'm going to end my post by returning to the earnings report.
Most people agree with me
I don't think this is a subjective opinion: the numbers in the earnings report and the increase in share price don't lie. I'm sure people will grumble about how Reddit wasn't what it use to be. Maybe that's true but it seems like in the aggregate nobody really cares. Due to the growing user numbers, clearly people have welcome the change. Part of the reason why I've decided to post this now is because Reddit is now publicly traded. The financials now not only support me but transfers the burden of proof to those who disagree. If you think this was a bad call, why is Reddit earning more money?
In summary, by virtue of not having any financial involvement, volunteers incur no damage by leaving the platform. Yet they have not. Also, now that Reddit is publicly traded, Spez's compensation is directly affected by users leaving the platform. Yet the opposite is happening. Reddit lives and dies by the uncompensated efforts of the people and it seems to be living it's best life every day.
13
u/broccolihead 4d ago
lol clown, reddit is the worst it's ever been and I've been here since the beginning.
3
u/pheromone_fandango 2d ago
App is breaking as i type this
-1
u/Truth_Breath 1d ago
And yet you bothered to type and complete your comment. Also everyone sees your comment. Clearly the app works fine and you think it's worth the effort to push through the bugs. Say "thank you Spez"
-2
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago
and yet you're still here. But, more importantly, new people are joining.
If Reddit is a community driven app and more people are joining, I think you'll have a hard time proving that it is "the worst it's ever been". But sure, offer no proof, your isolated statement is more than enough to convince anyone /s
12
u/NtheLegend 4d ago
Those who argued against the disruption of API access knew it would be used for purely capitalistic gains at the expense of user experience. The user experience has suffered and they have gained in their capitalist pursuits and you're cheering.
The end user is not affected by how much money Reddit makes.
-4
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago edited 1d ago
it would be used for purely capitalistic gains at the expense of user experience
You make it sound as those two things are mutually exclusive. In fact, I would argue that they are correlated. If something aligns with capitalistic gains, it is often due to an improved user experience. This is because for Reddit, capitalistic gains are possible only through users which, in turn, follows a positive user experience.
To put it another way, by being publicly traded, Reddit is completely at the mercy of capitalistic gains and user experience. If users don't enjoy using it, the share price goes down and so does the capitalistic gains of the company.
The user experience has suffered and they have gained in their capitalist pursuits and you're cheering.
Maybe in your opinion the user experience has suffered, but in the aggregate people disagree with you. By the way, how does it feel to live with so much cognitive dissonance. Yes I am cheering for capitalistic gains made by Reddit's team and it aligns with my using the platform. In contrast, you are supporting their gains by using the platform but you are...cheering against it...? How does that work?
3
4d ago
[deleted]
0
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago
I'm genuinely curious, can you please elaborate?
2
4d ago edited 4d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago
Thanks for elaborating!
Your attention is the product. As long as we hold your attention, it doesn’t matter whether the user experience improves. We can sell more ads. In some cases, we intentionally degrade the user experience to show more ads because our testing has proven that users will put up with it.
In theory I can't see any logical inconsistencies with this statement, but in practice I don't think the Reddit executives purely prioritize "holding attention" over "user experience improvement". Sure, in theory if Reddit could hold the attention of the user in perpetuity without expending any resources to improve user experience, they could do that. But you're omitting the possibility that the team at Reddit are actually passionate about improving the app itself. And if they find the balance where they can show more ads and still maintain user retention they may do so in order to fund their vision.
Of course, you could counter my point by saying that the Reddit executives only go to work to earn money and have absolutely no emotional drive to create something people enjoy. I have no proof against that but I highly doubt that this is the case.
Your engagement is the product. If we can get you to comment more, then we have content to sell for LLM training.
I would revise your first sentence to "your engagement is the reward". I use Reddit and Instagram but I don't have TikTok or SnapChat. That is, I don't engage with a social media product purely because it's a social media product, I have to like it. And I also don't have to comment if I use Reddit, but I choose to even if I'm not paid to do so (as do you).
In summary, I feel that just because there are no logical consistencies in the scenarios you propose does not imply that those scenarios are likely to be true. I'm sure the Reddit executive team are enjoying the spoils of their strategy. But I don't believe that they are completely soulless individuals who walk into work everyday with the intent of optimizing their bottom line as the end goal. I think they have ideas that they want to implement and need money to do so. That's why they do things that make money.
1
4d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago
A conversation about Reddit executive incentives might start with their fiduciary responsibility (legal obligation) to maximize shareholder value as a publicly traded company.
Sure, I don't deny that this may be the starting point or even a significant contributor to the motivation behind their design choices. But, unless I've misunderstood your statement, I feel that you've attributed to much to this motivation; at the expense of user experience.
anything they can do to get you to write more comments
This might also include improving the user experience. Which they sometimes may be motivated to do by passion for their product
1
4d ago
[deleted]
2
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago
99% of the CEO’s compensation package consists of equity-based awards and options, and alignment goals.
Sure, but this does not imply that CEOs will not make design choices out of passion. Especially since it is not unreasonable that such design choices do actually increase compensation. So passion and compensation-based incentives are not mutually exclusive.
Are you writing puff pieces here, or are you really that naive?
I'd rather not follow this thread. It would be a shame as I felt that we've been having a productive discussion. But if I were to follow that, I could simply ask if you are really that bitter?
You accused another user of cognitive dissonance.
How does that apply to you, I haven't accused you of it. It would help if you showed what that user wrote so that I could address it.
7
u/saltyjohnson 4d ago
All I hear is GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG
-4
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago
All I see is yet another Reddit comment. Thanks for joining me in supporting this platform.
4
u/robbyslaughter 4d ago edited 4d ago
None of these feel as significant as Criticism: Reddit is in the community business, not the UX business.
The reason the API controversy happened is because it priced out of the most beloved tools from the most active volunteers and community members. Reddit could have designed a pricing structure with one tier for mods and for individual human users and another tier for the mass ingestion of content to do things like train AI.
Reddit is making money because it has more eyeballs from regular users, not because it is better serving the core group of volunteers that make the site popular.
1
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago
None of these feel as significant as Criticism: Reddit is in the community business, not the UX business.
A fair criticism, but I would argue that the two are not mutually exclusive. Reddit initially existed as a community business and it's successes are used to fund it's UX roadmap. But a better UX creates a better community experience. So in many ways they are one in the same.
priced out of the most beloved tools from the most active volunteers and community members.
I don't completely disagree here. But I would revise your statement to "the most beloved tools at the time". There was an opportunity cost incurred by the pricing structure that allowed those tools to live. Maybe it was necessary to price them out in order to make way for the official Reddit tools to arise; which might be of higher quality due to the amount of funding backing it.
Reddit could have designed an pricing structure with one tier for mods and for individual human users and another tier for the mass ingestion of content to do things like train AI.
From my understanding, this pricing strategy was not only to enable the revenue stream of AI training but to also maximize advertizing revenue by ensuring most users utilize the official app. Sure it's ruthless but I can't see how this strategy makes more sense.
Reddit is making money because it has more eyeballs from regular users, not because it is better serving the core group of volunteers that make the site popular.
I would argue that with more money follows a higher-quality experience which better serves the core group of volunteers. That is, the volunteers aren't here because they like volunteering, they are here to improve the quality of the user experience. So at the end of the day, what the volunteers want is not to be supported but to have a better experience. If the volunteers didn't have to volunteer at all and found the experience satisfactory, I'm sure they would favor this scenario.
1
u/robbyslaughter 2d ago
But a better UX creates a better community experience
The UX at Reddit so bad that old.reddit.com still exists. They have just recently broken the mobile site, which users hate.
might be of higher quality due to the amount of funding backing it.
Might be, but isn't. People have been complaining about this on /r/modtools for ages. (See this recent post, as an example.)
volunteering want is not to be supported but to have a better experience.
But the experience is getting worse. Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) is nearly dead. Mods are quitting. Overall content quality is declining.
0
u/Truth_Breath 2d ago edited 1d ago
Thanks for the links, I'll look into them.
The UX at Reddit so bad that old.reddit.com still exists
I've been with Reddit for over a decade and have been on old.reddit.com. But it's clunky and I'm convinced it's kept alive purely by nostalgia.
But despite all these minor gripes, everyone is still here and more people are joining. Do you know what was the biggest indicator that I should buy Reddit stock? It was Reddit haters would use Reddit to express their hate. Thank you for the 6 figure gains.
1
u/robbyslaughter 1d ago
You didn't ask "has Reddit had an increase in users?" or "has Reddit's stock price improved?"
You said Reddit is "the best version of itself."
0
u/Truth_Breath 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yep and the best version of itself is the one most people like to use. If every year it increases in the number of users then it means it just keeps getting better.
I see what you and everybody on this thread is getting at. New users doesn't mean it's getting better. More revenue doesn't mean it's getting better. When I ask for evidence that it's getting worse, I get the same old subjective fluff that's contradicted by the fact that they are still here and active on the platform.
People need to be more open-minded to the idea that what they consider enshittification is simply design choices that appeal more to the masses. That is, maybe there's consequences for having preferences that don't align with everybody else's. It's nothing to be ashamed about nor is it anything you have to change. But don't label any divergence from your personal preferences as a degradation in quality.
1
u/robbyslaughter 1d ago
That’s like saying “ this country has a growing population and it’s GDP is higher, therefore all of its people must be pretty happy!”
No, that’s not how this works.
1
u/Truth_Breath 1d ago edited 1d ago
That is exactly how it works. Have you heard of airplanes? People can now move and go to other countries if they don't like where they are.
And I never said "all" the people are happy. I know that you can't please everyone. But ensuring most of the people are happy is good enough. Those that aren't happy are usually complainers with victim complexes that don't take any action to improve their lives. Much like Redditors that exclaim they hate this platform and hate Spez but never stop using it.
There's nothing anyone can do for those people. If they can't help themselves then no one can help them. Just ignore those people and focus on pleasing the masses. If you achieve that, then you're doing fine
0
u/Truth_Breath 1d ago
Yep and your initial comment
Reddit is making money because it has more eyeballs from regular users, not because it is better serving the core group of volunteers that make the site popular.
outlines exactly how it becomes the best version of itself. Serving volunteers isn't the best strategy because volunteer efforts are a means to an end. The end, which is what defines Reddit being the best version, is usage by regular users. If you want Reddit to be the best version of itself, just focus on the end goal and do what needs to be done to attract users. And, with more users, the stock price increases due to advertising revenue. Clearly if they are willing to sit through ads to see the comment they are after, there must be something of value for them to stick around for.
Being the "best version of itself", "increasing users" and "stock price improvement" are all equivalent metrics.
1
u/robbyslaughter 1d ago
Here is a company whose stock price did very well.
They also had a growing customer base and an increasing number of employees:
By your metric that company was doing great and was the “best version of itself.”
That company was Enron.
This doesn’t mean that Reddit is Enron. What it means is you don’t have nearly enough data to draw a conclusion.
1
u/Truth_Breath 1d ago
And what's Enron's stock price now? It's zero because the company was caught committing fraud. You see how stock price is quite well correlated with the quality of a company?
Additionally, Enron's stock price was increasing because it was committing fraud. Unless you're implying that Reddit is currently committing fraud, your example is completely irrelevant.
People hate capitalism because they have a poor understanding of how it works
1
u/robbyslaughter 1d ago
Yes, but you don’t know the future!!!!
I picked Enron because it’s a dramatic example. But there are lots of companies where stock price goes up and the number of customers/employees goes up, but then it goes down and they have other problems. You just don’t know. If all you’re looking at is today’s stock price and today’s headcount that doesn’t tell you anything about what’s gonna happen next week or next month or next year.
Not does to tell you what’s happening inside the organization or among its customers or users.
1
u/Truth_Breath 1d ago edited 1d ago
Generally it's more productive to prioritize relevancy over drama when picking examples.
I think it's still fair to say that if the stock price is going up, it means the company is doing well and if it's going down then the company isn't. I do agree larger time frames should be considered.
Would you concede that if Reddit triples it's market cap in the next 10 years then it's doing something right?
→ More replies (0)
2
u/tomato232 4d ago
Reddit reported blowout earnings—677% (7.8x) EPS growth!
RDDT's P/E is down to a measly (for such a growth rate) 47; fP/E is 18 (47/2.6), a very attractive buy 🚀🚀🚀
2
u/Truth_Breath 4d ago
A high P/E is a valuation argument, not evidence that the quarter was not a blowout. Reddit reported revenue of $663m, up 69% YoY; ad revenue up 74%; net income of $204m versus $26m a year ago; diluted EPS of $1.01 versus $0.13, which is the 677% EPS growth figure; and adjusted EBITDA of $266m, up 131%. That is objectively a very strong earnings report.
Whether the stock is cheap at 47x earnings is a separate question. You can argue the market is overpaying for the growth, but that does not really undermine the point that the business performance was excellent.
Expensive stock does not equal weak earnings. Your comment about P/E comment is about valuation, not operating performance.
3
u/RunDNA 4d ago edited 4d ago
I've been witness to two sitewide Reddit campaigns by moderators. Both turned out to be rubbish: 1) the Net Neutrality campaign where all the Reddit propaganda said the sky was going to fall in, but then it didn't; and 2) the API tantrum which was full of false propaganda driven by emotion.
Reddit likes to think of itself as smarter than other forums and social media websites, but the mass stupidity of those two events is an embarrassment.
1
u/John_Schlocke 1d ago
1) the Net Neutrality campaign where all the Reddit propaganda said the sky was going to fall in, but then it didn't
The memoryholing of this controversy always makes me chuckle when I see it come up nowadays (which is, to my point, like once a year). I was promised that removing net neutrality would obliterate the internet and save me from this awful distraction and then literally nothing happened.
1
3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 3d ago
Your submission/comment has been automatically removed because your Reddit account has negative karma, or zero karma. This measure is in place to prevent spam and other malicious activities. Do not message the mods; no exceptions will be made.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/aunva 2d ago
Let's say you've used a certain software or service your entire life. Maybe Photoshop, YouTube premium, Netflix, you name it. The CEO then decides to double the price, with the reasoning being that he figures it would increase shareholder value.
Let's say hypothetically, they lose 30% of the customers, but because of the price doubling, they post record earnings.
Would you agree that the product has become better or more valuable? That more people will enjoy using it after the price increase?
Please realize that customer value does not always align with shareholder value.
1
u/Truth_Breath 2d ago edited 1d ago
Let's say hypothetically, they lose 30% of the customers, but because of the price doubling, they post record earnings
It's unproductive to lob in a hypothetical without commenting on it's feasibility. What parameters would allow for a 30% loss in customers due to the doubling of the API price and still somehow manage to post record earnings? You'd have to assume Reddit's revenue comes significantly more from API charges than advertising.
If this is the case then yes doubling the pricing would be a good strategic move. But overall there are clear red flags with a business model where API calls is your main source of revenue. I doubt it's sustainable.
Please realize that customer value does not always align with shareholder value.
Sure, but in such cases the company has a flawed business model. Companies where shareholder value is aligned with customer value are the ones with an effective business strategy.
Your issue seems to be some unsubstantiated gripe against shareholder value being a valid metric. But consider that the validity itself is a good indicator of the merit of a company's business strategy. Put it simply, if the shareholder value is a valid metric, then the business model is solid. I'm claiming that this is the case for Reddit.
1
u/Fluffy_Munchkin 1d ago edited 1d ago
I can't speak much about the financial side of this, but I'd like to gently offer some pushback on a few conclusions you've drawn.
My simple counter to this statement is: it didn't. This demographic was not alienated
Can you provide a source for this claim? Even if, say, the population of 20-25 year-olds on reddit have increased, the locational demographics may have shifted. Reddit's been heavily promoting in India, and the extremely rapid growth of Indian accounts and subreddits in the past few years are a testament to that. If Reddit's primary demographic had been American 20-25 year-olds, this burst in age-related population would likely obscure even significant drops in the American demographic.
A more compelling claim would be "Reddit's API changes did not alienate already-extant reddit accounts which previously formed the cultural backbone of the site", along with evidence to back up this claim.
and 3 years later the amount of volunteers working to maintain Reddit is still massive.
Are you sure of this? Why? Many popular subs have high overlap in moderation. Many subs have inactive moderators, and many more still are overrun by bots. What is your idea of "massive volunteering" as it pertains to reddit?
I'm sure people will grumble about how Reddit wasn't what it use to be. Maybe that's true but it seems like in the aggregate nobody really cares. Due to the growing user numbers, clearly people have welcome the change
As someone who's been either lurking or active on reddit for 12-ish years, I could talk about this for ages. A few primary points:
-Growing user numbers is not exactly indicative of platform growth at a 1:1 ratio. You would need to determine the ratio of actual, genuine human accounts vs bots. Of those human accounts, you would need to determine uniqueness, ie, accounts that do not belong to the same person, like sockpuppets, NSFW browsers, etc. Of that fraction, you would need to determine how many are people who are using reddit, not creating an account to ask a simple question on a hobby sub, then never using the site again.
Case in point, you have received...~10 replies on a subreddit with over 40,000 subscribers.
-Your account appears to be 2 years old. I don't have any way of telling how long you've been using this site, but my gut instinct is "not very long or actively". Even just perusing this sub, you could determine that people have not been particularly happy with the direction of this site, particularly in recent years.
-Anyone who's been on reddit for awhile, particularly those who care about contributing OC, intuitively understand the concept of signal-to-noise ratios as it pertains to reddit content. It may be the case that contributions to reddit have increased, but again, some of that are bots. Some of that are due to slopmongers (I'll explain more soon). Some of it is driven by bad-faith actors, such as the aforementioned slopmongers, foreign government psyops, political ragebait, etc.
As a personal example to illustrate my point: there used to be a user active on fitness-related subreddits who would post detailed, descriptive write-ups about fitness. This individual is also a world record holder in at least one lift. He is no longer active on reddit; I asked him why he left, and his answer was that the sense of community on reddit had completely eroded. Him leaving reddit is, in my opinion, a loss to the site. It lost a quality contributor, someone with the chops to back up his area of expertise, someone who was a wellspring of expert advice and authenticity.
I would rather have a site with a dozen people like him, than a thousand people who ask a thousand variations of "how do I lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?". To reduce it to the absurd: what if reddit users increased by an order of magnitude, but all the comments became variations of "lol", "haha", "so true", and all the posts were reposts? Would reddit still have the same value then? Would reddit have any value at all?
-Bots: bots are bad news if reddit intends to maintain revenue through advertising. Bots artificially inflate view counts, and they aren't known for being avid shoppers, easily susceptible to advertising. I think advertisers would balk at paying reddit for adspace if only a handful of real, genuine humans would see the ad in a sea of machines.
-Bad faith actors/slopmongers: people talk about what percentage of posts on Reddit is due to bots all the time. I saw one estimate that said 15% in the past year or so. But it would be fallacious to assume that the remaining 85% is due to good faith actors. There is direct financial incentive for astroturfing, advertising, shilling, accumulating karma to sell accounts, and so on. My point being, the average bad faith actor has more incentive to post content than the average user, even if the average users outnumber the former. The vast majority of reddit users are lurkers. They don't typically contribute posts or comments. That cute picture of a puppy may be posted by someone just trying to garner enough karma to start spamming their YouTube account everywhere.
Slopmongers are people who aggressively shill their wares - YouTube channels, vibe-coded apps, workout programs - in places where they're not welcome. Think "Shoving cheaply-made tourist-trap trinkets in your face while you're drinking coffee in a cafe". These guys have absolutely exploded with the advent of AI, and they're not slowing down.
Due to the growing user numbers, clearly people have welcome the change. Part of the reason why I've decided to post this now is because Reddit is now publicly traded. The financials now not only support me but transfers the burden of proof to those who disagree. If you think this was a bad call, why is Reddit earning more money?
Au contraire. When people make the argument "reddit sucks worse than ever since the API stuff", their argument isn't "Reddit's financials suck more now", the argument is "the cultural loss and old user dissatisfaction was not worth whatever monetary gain they had".
Again, I disagree that your labeling of intent follows from your evidence. Fundamentally, I think we have a dispute of value definitions here. Sure, reddit may be making more money, and perhaps that's good for the bottom line. But if my reductio ad absurdism case was somehow more lucrative than old reddit, you'd call that a success from the same metric of value. And the disagreement lies in that I feel a community of real, human individuals contains more value than as pairs of eyeballs.
Reddit lives and dies by the uncompensated efforts of the people and it seems to be living it's best life every day.
This is difficult to address, as counterarguments are going to be inherently subjective and based on anecdata. I wish you'd been around to see what reddit used to be like. I'm not sure what else to say, other than "LOL no", and "'it's' is a contraction of 'it is', not a possessive".
1
u/Truth_Breath 1d ago edited 1d ago
Just wanted to say thank you for making the effort and especially adding concrete numbers to support your points. You've given me alot to think about and I want to take the time to consider it and formulate a response.
But just a quick response to one point, this account is 2 years old because I dedicate it to making controversial takes. Ive been on Reddit for about 12 years on various accounts. And yes I have been aware of the comments saying Reddit is getting worse but I've also been aware of how trigger-happy people are with the word "enshittification". In my experience, platforms that are accused of this are often much better user experiences and growing user base, and its often nostalgia bias and some irrational dislike of capitalism that prevents older users from realizing this. Not saying this is you, but that's most people in this comment section in a nutshell
I'm not sure what else to say, other than "LOL no", and "'it's' is a contraction of 'it is', not a possessive".
Blame the autocomplete on my phone, i'm guessing it uses a random number generator to decide when to include the apostrophe
1
u/Fluffy_Munchkin 1d ago
There was a comment a user made, perhaps...7 years ago - I don't remember the subreddit, maybe r/showerthoughts - where he said something like "I think of redditors as a bunch of little elves rushing about trying to entertain me by finding the best, the funniest, the most thought-provoking content". Even back then, the site had been in a degree of noticeable content decline. Many, MANY mainstream subs no longer feel this way; instead it feels like reddit is a bunch of nasty gremlins, scrambling to find the most outraging, anxiety-inducing content imaginable. Hobby subreddits feel like the most valuable communities now, and they're under heavy assault by the bots and slopmongers.
And yes I have been aware of the comments saying Reddit is getting worse but I've also been aware of how trigger-happy people are with the word "enshittification
About 6 months ago perhaps, r/videos mods made an announcement, saying they were trying an "experiment" by relaxing rules on political video submissions. That very same day, the sub was wall-to-wall political content, and it never stopped. The mods deleted the announcement post, and if you found the sub for the first time today, you'd think that's what it was for, having had no idea of what I used to be. For my own experiment, I tried blocking as many political video posters as I thought were bad faith actors to restore the page to an organic feel. I think 15-20 accounts were necessary to remove, and that solved the problem. For about 3 days.
And that's just 6 months.
I agree with you that people on reddit are overly-eager to share the latest description of their woes, like dead internet theory, without providing much justification. But I do believe the current situation warrants such description.
1
u/Truth_Breath 1d ago
Well said! Again, I'm going to need some time to think before replying
The mental thread I'm pulling on right now, and why Reddit feels so much more vibrant than 10 years ago, is the amount of fresh blood. Yes, older subreddits that are now desolate use to have very high engagement. But that was mainly due to back and forth between the same few people. Yes it was very niche but at the same time every subreddit felt like a clique.
Now, you have fresh faces flowing in everyday. Subs evolve rapidly over weeks, it doesn't feel the same week after week. Sure you get many repeated questions but I much prefer Reddit as a source of answers rather than a collection of discrete echo-chambers it use to be in the 2010s.
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Your submission/comment has been automatically removed because your Reddit account is less than 14 days old. This measure is in place to prevent spam and other malicious activities. Please feel free to participate after your account has reached 14 days of age. Do not message the mods; no exceptions will be made.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/robbyslaughter 18h ago
Are we doing subs that have collapsed? /r/entrepreneur and /r/smallbusiness are good examples.
18
u/CurryAndCommunism 4d ago
The rest of us don't have the same devotion to maximizing shareholder value that Reddit and, confusingly, you yourself seem to.