Reddit used to have pretty low overhead. You couldn't upload/host videos directly on Reddit, you could only share links or create self-posts. They didn't have all these superfluous features that they have now like live chat, push notifications, cryptocurrency wallets, first-party mobile apps, etc. A "classical" version of Reddit would be a fraction of the development and hosting cost compared to modern Reddit, especially if you can continue to keep moderation the responsibility of individual subreddits.
Think this all the way through - why did Reddit do these things? To attract more users and to generate revenue. As the OP said, what are you going to do to solve Reddit's income problem? This isn't a technical issue, the technical piece is straightforward and well-known.
They can't really push for advertising until they eliminate 3rd party API access to the content. That or they have to start charging a usage fee.
Which is interesting. One option they do have is to charge the user for using Reddit via an API, not the apps using the API. If you want to access Reddit via a 3rd party app then you'll have to pay for it - say something on the order of $1.99 per month or $19.99 for the year. I imagine they must have explored that option, so it makes me wonder why they abandoned it.
I’m pretty convinced that given the userbase, there exists a small team of exceptional marketers, engineers, and product designers who could come up with a “classic” reddit which could operate at a profit. A combination of ads, API limiting, and a monthly premium charge for some super turbo user features.
The product itself is _done_. The code has been _written_, one can host their own open source reddit this very moment. Image/video storage has long been a problem for reddit, so perhaps users will have to get used to YouTube and Imgur again.
I think people are making too many excuses for Reddit when they act as if the product itself is unmonetizable. It’s not, they largely just hired too aggressively and made some design decisions which have been broadly poorly received.
They’ve effectively owned the space since 2008. I think in another world with different leadership Reddit could be in a much healthier position than it is right now.
The replacement of external links with inferior in-house versions (the reddit video player is particularly egregious) makes sense if you're trying to maximize profit-per-user.
I think there's an alternate timeline where reddit just kept on being a low profit-per-user site, and didn't do the 'monetization-degradation-decline' cycle we've seen so often with other sites over the years. There's no reason why you have to make all the money at once, especially if it's a tried and true method of trashing your platform, just so whoever absorbs all your fleeing users can repeat your mistakes in a few years time.
"Think this all the way through - why did Reddit do these things? To attract more users and to generate revenue."
I'd love to see the numbers of how these features actually amplified the experience. My gut tells me not much at all. Tech companies have huge misses all the time trying to make more money and often at the cost of the long-term success of the product.
This is absolutely possible but your numbers are off by a factor of 10, which means it'll be prohibitively expensive for many folks. I worked in advertising once upon a time; do you know the demographic that advertisers are most interested in reaching? It's not women 35-60. It's not men 18-15. It's not college educated minorities in Alabama. It's not any of these. The folks advertisers are dying to reach -- the reason they spend all that sweet, sweet ad money in the first place is to reach people who have the discretionary income to throw away $5/mo on a free website. People who spend money on the internet -- for a site that is free no less -- are going to be a gold-mine. The average ad revenue per user of this demographic is easily 10x higher than the overall per-user ad revenue site-wide; and if you take away these users advertisers will pull back spending and you'll actually get a bigger loss. You need to charge way more in subscription fees to make up for this ad spend loss.
Because the suits want more money, while we just want a functional reddit alternative. I know this is difficult for you MBA types but not everything exists to maximize profits.
That version of reddit was created in 2005. The world has changed a lot since, and users are expecting certain features. If you don't have them, you are going to struggle to grow nowadays. For instance, the majority of users are on mobile now, so you need to offer them a proper UX.
It isn't that simple, for example I don't use old.reddit as a URL, but I use RES or another program to force it into the old configuration regardless of the URL.
The Play Store doesn't require a credit card, at least not in the U.S. I have a Google account that I use for testing on an Pixel phone. When I go to install a new (free) app, it nags me to add a payment method to my account. But I can skip the prompt and download the app.
if you've never bought an app on the App store, you're not really using your modern pocket computer to its fullest. Most of the good apps, and good games, cost money.
You m-u-s-t be a Steve Jobs fan, you even argue similarly ;) J/K.
But seriously, there is a question of whether Apple won the mobile device battle because they were brilliant and revolutionary, or whether Microsoft has lost the mobile device battle because they were dumb as a bag'o'hammers and quit improving their platform for entire years.
Which goes back to my initial suggestion that the general public might have reasons not to really consider Apple to be the most important technological company of our time.
> But seriously, there is a question of whether Apple won the mobile device battle because they were brilliant and revolutionary, or whether Microsoft has lost the mobile device battle because they were dumb as a bag'o'hammers and quit improving their platform for entire years.
There was more at the time than just Apple and Microsoft. iPhone also quickly supplanted Palm and Blackberry and assorted feature phones. Android was not yet out, but after seeing iPhone Google completely redesigned Android to be much more iPhone-like.
So it seems it either has to be Apple really did do something brilliant and revolutionary, or everyoneelse was dumb as a bag'o'hammers.
I definitely see your point: Android re-designed and stayed in the game against Apple, while Palm, Blackberry, Nokia, etc. did not re-design immediately - just like Windows Mobile - and failed.
But that does not automatically mean that Apple was (literally) brilliant and (genuinely) revolutionary, it only means that Apple was right in their decision to obsessively prioritize "simplified, polished and packaged" over everything else. Being excellent at product development, manufacturing and marketing does not automatically make a company brilliant and revolutionary. I guess it depends on how you define "brilliant" and "revolutionary", but as far as I can tell Apple rather rarely invented something truly "never seen before". (The only iPhone innovation that really made me go "WOW!" was the dot-less, curve-ful retina display. Now THAT was an idea, indeed, "never seen before".)
It seems to me that while Apple of course did do something right (although not necessarily brilliant and revolutionary), everyone else (except Android) was indeed dumb as a bag'o'hammers. For years they failed to significantly improve their platforms to remain competitive and that was all it took for Apple to win.
Disagree. 2016 15" MBP was 4.0 pounds. 2019 16" MBP was 4.3 pounds. New 16" MBP is 4.5 pounds. Apple simply decided in 2016 to shrink the size and weight by removing ports and other things, and then to increase the size and weight by bringing them back.
Personally I'm surprised they didn't decide to keep the same weight by shrinking the battery. Not that many people absolutely need a 21 hour battery life, though it is nice.
Dell XPS webcams are generally really inferior to MacBook Pro webcams. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgFd_w2n1es&t=193s shows a good comparison between the M1 MacBook Pro from last year and the 13" Dell XPS. The difference is night and day, even though the M1 MacBook Pro has a 720p resolution. I imagine the difference is similar with the larger 1080p webcam on the new MacBook Pros that, as mentioned in the announcement, has a larger aperture to let in more light and a larger image sensor.
Same. I am impressed with M1 Pro and M1 Max performance numbers. I ordered the new MBP to replace my 2020 M1 MBP, but I bought it with the base M1 Pro and I'm personally way more excited about 32gb, 1000 nits brightness, function row keys, etc.
