Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
“We absolutely must ship what we said we would.”
Spez, and Reddit as a whole is basically counting on most subreddits opening back up tomorrow after the 48-hour period.
Really hope that mods can hold out for longer, make them really panic.
This just in from forbes.com:
"Investors are fed up. Fidelity, which led Reddit’s $700 million funding round in 2021 with a $10 billion valuation, has cut its Reddit company valuation by 41% since it invested. This could scupper Reddit’s plans to eventually go public with a reported valuation of $15 billion."
Who actually loses a game of chicken of this magnitude?!? u/spez, you listening?!?
The app owners will work with him to prevent AI training from taking data from the site for free. And any issues the third party apps have doing that will be shared by the official app. They're not special in that regard. You can't really have public secrets behind a paywall. It doesn't really work.
There are many, many options here that are only being held back by Huffman's ego. Imagine losing billions in valuation because of personal ego. I bet investors are thrilled.
It's not just his ego but also his incompetence which has been very apparent for his entire tenure. I really don't get how they've be never managed to find someone who's up to the job.
Maybe he’ll be eligible for beers with Elon now.
I’m not surprised that Fidelity is losing faith in Reddit. The way Steve completely alienated the whole community, well he's basically shooting himself in the foot.
Also he admitted they don't make money and said they need to be profit driven til they do.
To me that says he's not sure this will actually make Reddit profitable; so looking at it from a detached, "I just care about the money" perspective I'd be really nervous about investing in Reddit. Feels like Spez would just light it all on fire.
They really need someone competent at the helm.
u/spez, you listening?!?
Clearly he hasn't for even a brief moment.
Note that this cut in valuation has nothing to do with the blackout. It's actually old news. Forbes did mention it in their most recent article, but the majority of the drop in valuation was last year.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/01/fidelity-reddit-valuation/
Fidelity, the lead investor in Reddit’s most recent funding round in 2021, has slashed the estimated worth of its equity stake in the popular social media platform by 41% since the investment.
Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund’s stake in Reddit was valued at $16.6 million as of April 28, according to the fund’s monthly disclosure released over the weekend. That’s down 41.1% cumulatively since August 2021 when the asset manager spent $28.2 million to acquire the Reddit shares, according to disclosures the firm has made in its annual and semi-annual reports. […]
The substantial markdown of Reddit’s value by Fidelity predominantly occurred by the previous year. Nevertheless, it merits pointing out that Fidelity has persistently implemented minor reductions in the worth of Reddit’s shares in the ensuing months.
Quote is from today's piece here https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/06/13/redditors-go-to-war-with-the-company-as-it-enforces-eye-watering-prices-for-reddit-api/
It is ALL about the Blackout...
correct but the drop in valuation is what spurred the API fees and subsequent backlash. This will cause valuation to drop further.
Thank you for stressing this. It should be higher up.
The surefire way of getting your ass in trouble: Pissing off rich, powerful people.
That said, it would be such poetic justice if WSB somehow ate reddit's tail because of this.
Even if the subs come back online, I won't be back unless changes are made, which it appears there won't be. On to greener pastures (kbin)!
I am at the point where I think, Reddit may well bounce back in general, for there are lots of people whose only experience of the web is using huge corpo-sites, but I still won't be there except for the cases where I have to use it for some crazy reason. The Fediverse feels a lot more hopeful and open, like the web was in the early days, and I much prefer that to the monolithic corporate site system. So wherever possible, I will pass on that.
The Fediverse is far from flawless, but maybe it'll fix its issues over time. Let's find out.
The blackout may pass but the third-party developers and power users of the community have already been shown they're not valued. Not sure there's much Reddit can do to make those who left come back. Even if they give developers more time and a price reduction what's to say they won't go back on their word.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.” -George W. Bush
I don't even feel affected by the app changes. But I'm not comfortable in general staying there, seeing what they are doing and will keep doing to their people.
My two subs are both pretty small, but they're staying gone until/unless the API changes get reverted.
Fuck Spez.
If the blackout does not continue I think spez will think he's won. But I think the real pain will be when third party apps shut down. There will be a loss of users, but that won't hurt too much. If moderators don't want to use the official app or desktop site to moderate or decide to leave entirely then reddit could get out of hand. Just look at Twitter - with a relaxing of moderation there has been more trolls, spam, and hate. That type of change may lead to losing the more mainstream, casual user.
The issue has always been that there was no ready made alternative to migrate to in the past. But it's happening now. places like this one are ramping up. Every time shit like this happens, it'll drain a few more users away. Eventually reddit will be mainly bots, if they do not change course and alternatives become viable and well populated.
Eventually reddit will be mainly bots
I feel like it is already there. Once, you only had to block user's like GallowBoob; but now days it's an endless supply of repost bots. I've had to block so many subs from r/all even to look at that. Then you have all the news skewing by mods and other bs stuff going on. I really stick to my home page a lot these days. I remember when r/all would constantly change and now it stagnates with the same 10 posts that bots put on 50 different pages that all came to be when they opened up sub creation to anyone. Just a giant bot circle jerk.
I guess this is the new Reddit! Time to kick our feet up.
I expected as much. 2 days is a pitiful protest length. I will not be using Reddit any longer whilst keeping an eye on updates from here and other news sites. I'm hoping this memo encourages all subreddits to protest idnefinitely until this assclown of a CEO is willing to negotiate lower API prices. And if he's not, onto greener pastures. And watching /r/wallstreetbets figure out a way to destroy their IPO when it eventually launches.
I agree i'm in no hurry to use Reddit. I'll be satisfied if enough people stick around and keep the place interesting. In fact i would say sticking around the fediverse is the only answer to dystopic corporate domination. Those who return, enjoy your exploitation, lol.
Subreddits have to prove him wrong or there will be no change.
Reddit relies on moderators to mod the subs free of charge. Mods use API powered bots to help make life easier.
If mods are dumb enough to open up after two days and continue moderating subs, they're going to learn real hard on July 1st how much more difficult it is to manage a sub without all those automod bots.
We'll see what happens next month when the brown stuff hits the fan.
yeah, if they can keep the protest up they will win. They may already have. As soon as users take the trouble to create new accounts on things like Kbin, the less likely they'll retreat back to reddit. Honestly for being in its infancy I think this has been a good platform.
Reddit ought to know first hand to never underestimate a bunch of apes with a purpose and access to a computer
I was there for the migration from kbin to reddit and I'm here for the migration from reddit to kbin. There's no need to prove anything to spez. Reddit is already in the past.
I think you meant "from digg to reddit"?
I dunno about you, but I rather like it here - it's a bit more old school on KBin and reminds me of my youth. Maybe this will be the renaissance of the BBS and forum, but now federated across the internet in beautiful FOSS and distributed networks.
I'm really enjoying Kbin as well. Ironically the people left on reddit are saying they're enjoying reddit more too with the blackout, as they're seeing smaller subreddits they used to not see, and the large subs filled with spam and reposts are mostly dark.
I think the lesson here is that reddit got too big for quality, which is ultimately what the admins want. Quantity over quality, more users to sell advertising too, and more users to sell their analytics.
Exactly. The 48 hour black out won't change a thing. The only way anything could change is if the black out is indefinite. Personally, I feel like wiping my account and moving on is the best course of action.
I'm planning to begin to wipe my old account once the blackout ends, starting phase two of our protest, the dismantling of Reddit. They should not be allowed to profit from our content in perpetuity. I will delete what I've contributed.
The longer I go without Reddit, the more I realize I don't need it. Let it burn
Without Apollo, I don’t care what Reddit does.
Oh, it'll pass, all right. Like a kidney stone.
A few days of ache, an hour of sharp pain, and then business as usual? That's exactly what spez wants.
I really need to stress that it’s so important that the subs on Reddit remain private until action is taken, I’m still not sure why the 2 day blackout was chosen in favour of an all out black out.
They probably weren't sure at the start of how much support they'd get so they decided to have a set date just so people could unite easier and would be more likely to take action. I'm sure they'd have suggested a longer period if they knew they'd get this much support. They probably also hoped Spez would've backed off by now.