Reddit to lay off about 5% of workforce
Reddit to lay off about 5% of workforce
Reddit is laying off 5% of its workforce and slowing hiring as part of company's restructuring efforts, the report said
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Some people have been saying a 2-day blackout isn't going to do much. But if they're struggling financially it will most likely really hurt them.
They're not doing this because they are struggling. Its a common tactic for shitty corporations to do so it looks like they made a shit ton more money and can claim losses on their taxes
Hopefully if the 2-day blackout is unsuccessful they'll extend it or plan more blackouts.
I'd imagine so... it makes sense to me to start with 2 days, and then go from there, rather than starting with the "nuclear" option.
Does Reddit have the power to un-blackout the subreddits? I.e. Overrule the mods and open things up? I feel like, as in most cases, there are a modest sized group of high caring individuals that will reject/boycott/cancel reddit, but the majority of users, casual and the ones that make reddit their life, will just continue on, only slightly inconvenienced.
Yes Reddit could do that... but mods are extremely valuable, and a lot of subs would stop working without them. Reddit has already been moving to big subs being moderated by Reddit employees, and it generally kills the sub.
Reddit is big enough that it probably won't die quickly (e.g. like Digg did), but my guess is that this kind of policy shows that the best days of Reddit are in the past.
Reddit is big enough that it probably won’t die quickly (e.g. like Digg did), but my guess is that this kind of policy shows that the best days of Reddit are in the past.
i think twitter is a good model for how we might expect this to go: a slow but undeniable decay into a worse, less functional, generally more miserable site to be on. when the decay will end? who knows. but there'll likely be an obvious before and after, and an equally obvious point where the site goes from a vanguard of influence online to a social media backwater.
in fact a good metric for this might be when reddit stops contributing anywhere near as many productive search results as it currently does. that's undeniably a big use of the site for people so it'd be noteworthy for that to disappear (and despite itself being a symptom of bad things it'd probably be quite bad overall, given the state of online generally right now.)
Agree, although it could happen even slower than Twitter. Musk taking over has been a huge shock to the community, and killing off third party apps is only one of the many changes he's made in a few months. Even if Reddit sticks of their guns on API charges (which they might not), I doubt they'll do anything as drastic again for a while.
True, they likely have smarter people at the helm than musk
While i basically never used twitter, i dont see it dying. Some sources post decresing userbase some are saying that after the big hit things started to go back to normal People forgets. Today they protest, tomorrow they bend.
@AnagrammadiCodeina @alyaza what is normal? Bird site lost people even before Musk.
Like they were already loosing users before musk? Do you have a source?
I saw somewhere (can't remember if it was here or not) that they think Reddit might not be too worried about the 3rd party apps because it makes up such a small user base. So it could potentially be a vocal minority who are actually being affected. Then again what do I know about running a website with millions of daily users, so it could be way off.
If that's true, it's even more asinine. A small number of users make numerous API calls from third-party apps, and in doing so, create all the content that the majority of users are perusing with ads? The quest for short-term gains so often harms long-term viability in corporate America, and I truly just don't understand how we keep hiring C-level people that keep making the same mistakes over and over
Because C-Level people are more about "how can this company make money" and less about "how can this company treat its workers/customers well" (unless the latter leads to the former).
They are told that increasing value for the investors is the thing that matters. If you have to make "tough choices" that abuse the workers or destroy the brand, oh well. It's worth it if that revenue number keeps going up. To them, it's an acceptable loss to keep the board happy.
Every company that has VC, investors, or stock is going to be like this at one point or another. It's just getting more blatant and obvious now. Disney, WB, Netflix, Twitter, Reddit...it's a list that just keeps growing.
Absolutely agree. Also this was just a comment I saw so who knows if it's actually true or not but it's something I could see happening unfortunately.
For sure it's unconfirmed. The only things we really know for sure are:
- Reddit wants money for API calls
- Their monetization structure is unreasonable
- The only possible outcome of their monetization structure is the death of third party apps
- Reddit is an American company and conducts itself with the same grace and farsightedness as most of them
Which leads be to the conclusion that the thing you've said is quite possible
I'm not American, but isn't it mandated by law over there to do stuff like this, to create the maximum profit for shareholders?
Forgive my ignorance of US laws!
@LoreleiSankTheShip @Cube6392 it is thought to be true, but it is not.
No such laws. The only laws for publicly traded companies are that they must be open and honest with shareholders about the financial status of their organization. You're very much allowed to run a business that stays small forever
I remember seeing someone say that it's possible they want to monetize using their APIs to train AI on user content. Currently it's basically free for someone like OpenAI to do it.