Reddit’s crisis is a warning for all social platforms: when you trade community for profits, everyone loses. Will Reddit fix its mes...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19466667

Money, Mods, and Mayhem

The Turning Point

In 2024, Reddit is a far cry from its scrappy startup roots. With over 430 million monthly active users and more than 100,000 active communities, it’s a social media giant. But with great power comes great responsibility, and Reddit is learning this lesson the hard way.

The turning point came in June 2023 when Reddit announced changes to its API pricing. For the uninitiated, API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it’s basically the secret sauce that allows third-party apps to interact with Reddit. The new pricing model threatened to kill off popular third-party apps like Apollo, whose developer Christian Selig didn’t mince words: “Reddit’s API changes are not just unfair, they’re unsustainable for third-party apps.”

Over 8,000 subreddits went dark in protest.

The blackout should have reminded Reddit’s overlords of a crucial fact: Reddit’s success was built on the backs of its users. The platform had cultivated a sense of ownership among its community, and now that community was biting back.

One moderator summed it up perfectly: “We’re the ones who keep this site running, and we’re being ignored.”

  • haunte@leminal.spaceEnglish
    2291·
    4 months ago

    Despite this seemingly rosy picture, Reddit is still bleeding money. In the quarter ending June 2024, the company reported revenue of $281.18 million - a 53.63% year-over-year increase - but still posted a net loss of $10.10 million.

    Most of the actual work on the site is done by unpaid moderators. Hosting bills are probably huge but not THAT huge. I’m sure they have a decent sized staff, but not THAT big. I wonder what’s going wrong…

    Reddit Files to Go Public, Reveals That It Paid CEO $193 Million Last Year

    Ohhh… Well, there’s your problem, dumbasses.

    • random8847@lemmy.world
      143·
      4 months ago

      Wow, out of a total revenue of $281 million $193 million goes to a single person? Holy shit. What a selfish asshole you have to be to disregard all of your employees and take such a huge cut for yourself.

      • Beaver@lemmy.caEnglish
        45·
        4 months ago

        Spez is the unnecessary overhead that creates extra work for the workers

      • sushibowl@feddit.nl
        29·
        4 months ago

        Nah, that’s mostly stock options, so it doesn’t come out of the revenue. His cash salary was only a couple hundred thousand.

        It’s probably better from a tax point of view. Plus he’s planning to cash out big on his own IPO, so he prefers the stock.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
        18·
        4 months ago

        You should look up the absurd pay structure of Musk at Tesla or how at Facebook, despite it being a publicly traded company, Zuckerberg literally cannot be fired.

        The reason tech tends to chase stupid trends like AI is that there really aren’t that many people in charge of the whole place. They all know each other; they’re all buddies. And they all chase the same stupid fads together.

      • Yambu@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        13·
        4 months ago

        It’s actually insane. I’m not built for corporate jobs but goddamn I have no idea how anyone would want to work for such a company.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
      53·
      4 months ago

      It’s a sign. Spez will now milk the company and make himself billionaires for the next few years, then sell the company for tens of billions, and new owner will run it into the ground, milking whatever left of it. Then it will become the blandest, soulless socmed.