The RedditIPO is the final nail in the coffin, or how reddit went public after a decade of development and user frustration

Well, many of those users don’t seem very happy about the IPO and are expecting Huffman to run the site into the ground. “I don’t really see any good that can come from Reddit going public,” Dan M. told me. Not to sound dramatic. but it kinda feels like the final nail in Reddit’s coffin after years of degrading quality.”

“Reddit has a very rocky history,” says Alex Cook, a volunteer moderator (or “mod” in the community’s lingo) for several gaming subreddits. “I see it as a very risky investment at best.”

Some users are angry that the company decided to charge for access to the API, a tool that developers use to draw on user posts. The fees led to the closure of several popular independent mobile apps and the suspension of some forums on the service in an effort to pressure the company into reversing course.

IPO shares won’t soothe frustration: A user who goes by Rat, mods Stardew Valley video game community, says Rat is a user at the ‘pizza party’

IPO shares won’t soothe lingering frustration, says a user who goes by Rat and volunteers as a mod for the r/StardewValley video game community. “I guess this could be their attempt at the ‘pizza party,’” A conciliatory gesture commonly offered to children is what rat refers to.

A document called the S-1 is filed with the SEC before a company goes public. It discloses all sorts of things: revenue figures, risk factors, key data about the business. And it sends certain signals. In this case, I see a meme stock shit.

There was this person who said Loads puts into the put-cannon with malicious intent. They are intending to bet the stock will go down. I assume that they are gambling a lot because of the use of put-cannon. I am trying to imagine a situation where one loads the put-cannon without malicious intent, but it hasn’t sprung to mind.)

Source: A lot of Redditors hate the Reddit IPO

How Do Reddits Have a Directive User? The Case of Reddit Shares in the Presence of Insurrections

There are various insurrections on reddit that have made it clear that the site is more vulnerable to its users. 60,000 people are more familiar with the community than contractors, according to the model of community moderation. They will have a harder time controlling them because they do not get paid by Reddit.

There is a chance that you can see how the risk is being mitigated by offering shares to power users. Because they’re shareholders, they’ll want to keep their own shares valuable. That means they’d be less likely to do things that would cut off advertising revenue, like abruptly shutting down a subreddit in protest.

Reddit’s directed shares program works like this: Qualified users — people with enough karma or who have spent enough time working as mods, basically — received an email from the company that asks them to provide certain personal information to pre-register for the program. After three weeks, everyone who signed up will get an email that says if they qualified. (Depending on how many people sign up, there may be a waitlist.) The people who did qualify will get “further instructions,” though Reddit’s FAQ is not clear about what those instructions will entail.

Source: A lot of Redditors hate the Reddit IPO

How do you spend your life in the Reddit community? The case of an invite to learn how to become a part of the S-1 community

You can look at it, as Kevon does, as a nice thank you to people who’ve meaningfully contributed. But let’s say you’ve sunk hours of your life into being a Reddit mod, and you’ve bought shares. There’s a possibility you’ll lose money — and effectively pay for the privilege of content moderation. Fun!

The share program “seems like a gimmick to me honestly,” says Dan M., who also received the offer. He says that the shares are not being given away for free.

All of the Redditors I spoke to for this story enthused about Reddit as a community. In an internet era of SEO garbage and social media engagement bait, it’s one of the bright spots. It’s a place where there are still enthusiasts and experts, where people can still learn things, says Dan. In an email, the person who received an invite and is considering buying into the share program says that he feels like he is in a place where he can learn and have fun.

But a good community isn’t quite the same thing as a viable business. Despite having been founded in 2005, the S-1 notes that Reddit is “in the early stages of monetizing our business and there is no assurance we will be able to scale our business for future growth.” Most of Reddit’s revenue comes from advertising, but it hasn’t been very good at making money. That might be because of its laissez-faire approach to moderation; hate speech wasn’t banned from the site until 2020.

Plus, user engagement isn’t regular. Events such as the war in Ukraine and the release of the video game Elden Ring — these are Reddit’s own examples — lead to spikes in user engagement. A lot of users are not even using the internet. So targeting is a little trickier than it might be on, say, Instagram.

Sure, Reddit’s trying to diversify its revenue by selling its data to help train AI; I don’t think the timing of that Google deal, just days before the S-1 became public, was a coincidence.

The forays into web3 — beyond the Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings, the value of which Reddit did not disclose in its S-1 — make me a little suspicious about the shares being offered to users. The Community Points were a gimmick; are the shares a gimmick, too?

Steve “u/spez” Huffman is the person that should be held responsible for these tricks. They aren’t the only bizarre decisions he’s made. He said that it was because ofElon Musk that the price increase of the tool was partly to blame. What is X doing with advertisers, spez? His PR tour during the rebellion was a disaster.

In the S-1, Huffman is listed as a risk factor, but perhaps not properly. It’s difficult to replace Huffman, who’s crucial to the management of our company and instrumental in the development of our technology and our strategic direction. The risk of the CEO is that his job depends on the number of people who think he uses a great phrase.

According to Kevon, who said he was thinking of investing, he thinks that Huffman was overpaid. In the filing, he is listed as making $193 million in five years. He was surprised Huffman made so much while the company was operating at a loss.