this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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So this was 10 years ago, lol. How the tables have turned

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1onx27/comment/cctw6ea

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[–] Andreas@feddit.dk 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They used to display a bar in the top right of the screen that was "percentage of daily server costs that are covered by Reddit Gold purchases today" and I remember them always hitting the goal. What other costs (besides staff) were they losing so much money on?

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago

It's not enough to cover all expenses and maybe a bit extra for growth forever. You must extract all possible value and give it to the shareholders. If the business doesn't suffer over time then you didn't extract hard enough and are depriving the poor shareholders. Concentrate the wealth. Suck it dry. Go until nothing is left and move on to the next one. Numbers must always go up.

[–] nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Crazy to think that reddit gold has been around for ten years

[–] eclipse@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

And yet they didn't manage to turn a profit...

[–] Starmina@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Guessing they realized how hard it is to keep tracks of bots that fake clicks on ads, can't think of another reason they didn't do it back then.

[–] polaroid@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

The cycle of tech life and death continues... How innocent we were then.

[–] Harpuajim@lemmy.fmhy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think they ever expected to get IPO status. That's the only reason why they're moving forward with this new API policy.

[–] greenskye@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

My understanding is that the recent interest rate hikes are causing the VC purse strings to tighten. Pretty sure Reddit is being told to start turning a profit or be cut off from their funding.

[–] Cylinsier@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

Wow I actually completely forgot about the original official reddit app. I remember the only reason I switched to Bacon Reader in the first place was because they stopped supporting it, then eventually switched to Relay.

[–] magmaus3@szmer.info 7 points 1 year ago
[–] arcrust@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

They should go non profit. Sure there are memes and stuff. But I'd be willing to bet the main reason people use the site is for hobbies and asking questions.

If reddit crashes, no one is gonna give a fuck about the lost memes. We will care about not getting an answer to a question that can't be found on Wikipedia or a manufacturers site.

If they did a banner like Wikipedia and just asked for donations to keep the servers up. I'd pay. Plus, they are literally using volunteers (mods) to run the site. Reddit is already set up to be a non-profit.

[–] KingCyrus20@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shu also tells me that RIF was paying a “sizable revenue share” to Reddit beginning in 2012, which was during Yishan Wong’s tenure as CEO. Shu says he says initiated the talks with Reddit to create the agreement, which allowed for the licensed use of Reddit’s trademarks. (At the time, the app was called “reddit is fun.”) Shu says Reddit terminated the agreement in 2016 — which was the year after Huffman took over as CEO.

Source

It's a shame that Reddit's greed has even prevented them from considering reasonable options like revenue sharing.

Does anybody else remember when they were really pissed off at the old CEO and people rejoiced when u/spez was made CEO?