When they talk about being profitable what they mean is that the CEO needs to be paid some stupid wage like 10.000.000 a month, then being able to cover employees salaries and then costs of hosting and so on, and then, still being able to accumulate at last the double of the money per month so that they can see "growth". Basically it all comes down allowing a parasite to live for free off the backs of the working class. If CEO or shareholders would earna normal wage, I bet your ass Reddit would be profitable as hell if what you care about is building an awesome tool.
Reddit in its early days was based around free speech absolutism, and it had subs like /r/CreepShots, /r/WatchPeopleDie, /r/CoonTown and so on. But the current CEO being once the moderator of THAT sub in question.... that I didn't know!
Alright I'm going to go out on a limb and say that /r/WatchPeopleDie shouldn't be lumped in with that other human trash.
Every month or so I would get morbidly curious and scroll that sub for ten or fifteen minutes. Firstly, the comments and posts never seemed... I don't know I have the right word... sociopathic? gleeful? cruel?
The tone of the whole sub was much more somber. I always came away from that sub with a stark reminder that we are so so fragile, and our future can get snuffed out by the universe -- sheer random chance -- at any moment.
To me it was a reminder to live more in the present. Don't take tomorrow for granted, and I saw a lot of the sort of thing in the comments.
A lot of the videos were just random shit, like pedestrians getting hit stuck by a rogue tire flung from a car crash 500 feet away. Just totally senseless and sad... but in a way that helps put what's important in perspective.
i mean aren't most social media platforms(or just tech services in general) unprofitable? like wasn't twitter losing millions of dollars even though it was really popular?