• Rediphile@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    130
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Well yeah, I’m probably not the only daily active user who stopped visiting all together… after 10+ years of daily active use. They brought this on themselves.

    • Shou@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Same, but only a few years user. Sync for lemmy is so much better.

      • Rediphile@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        23
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I loved Sync for Reddit as an app. But I already was seeing Reddit go downhill even before they killed the apps, that just sealed the deal for me. I was a digg refugee so sadly I’ve been through this before already.

  • TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    121
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Came from using it daily to only going there only when google forces me to use it

    Many of such cases I assume

  • mechoman444@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    102
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Let’s for a second take stock of what’s happening here.

    The ad revenue is falling short of the projected prediction of what it was supposed to be. As in the profit from ad revenue did not reach that arbitrary number.

    Reddit is still grossly profitable.

    This is the same kind of headline that says Facebook lost 11 bagillion dollars but in reality they didn’t lose a dime they just didn’t make as much as they wanted to.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      33
      ·
      1 year ago

      The difference with Facebook is that it is a public company, so it does have to grow every year to have value for investors.

      Reddit doesn’t. It’s existing private investors can splot the profit and be just fine. They just want a huge payout that will only come from an IPO.

      • mechoman444@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        And the issue with consistent growth in billion dollar companies is that it’s not sustainable. We can’t just keep pilling on profits on top of profits to sate investors insecurities.

        • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          1 year ago

          These morons will try though, their strategy invariably seems to be building the Jenga tower as high as possible, thinking they’ll be “quick” or “smart” enough to sell their shares before it tumbles.

          It’s gambling, but with people’s livelihoods.

          • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            I can’t wait for all the news articles about the massive layoffs at Reddit, though it will be sad to see the massive droves of employees shuffling out the door with their personal effects like they did when the Enron scandal broke.

          • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I can’t wait for all the news articles about the massive layoffs at Reddit, though it will be sad to see the massive droves of employees shuffling out the door with their personal effects like they did when the Enron scandal broke.

      • wicked@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        Are you not aware that public companies split the profits too? They do not need to grow to have value for investors.

        • Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          1 year ago

          Not all of them do that. There are growth stocks and dividend stocks. Growth stocks typically don’t pay dividends, but instead reinvest the dividend back into the company. Amazon, Alphabet and Berkshire Hathaway don’t pay dividends.

          • wicked@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Of course not. But they can, whenever they choose to. Parent comment said they have to grow since they are public, unlike private companies like Reddit.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        so it does have to grow every year to have value for investors

        This gets said a lot but it is not true for a couple reasons.

        1: With an IPO you’re not as dependent upon individual investors, and as your value grows - which often has nothing to do with your company’s performance, you obtain additional funding.

        2: private or large-scale investors will literally have you sign contracts stating X% return on investment is what you owe them - once you surpass your return on investment, unless you seek additional funding, significant growth pressure is gone. Most companies immediately seek additional funding, which is how this gets interpreted as “requires perpetual growth.”

        If this includes % of revenue, then yeah, your investor will want you to make wise choices, but they own that percentage in perpetuity, so there is generally not the pressure related to seeking new investment - they’re already priced in and getting their returns.

        You can literally find examples of these contracts online by searching for “investor agreement sample.”

        People usually only care about your growth as a function of how it correlates to a rise in your value. Most stock growth is entirely based on feels - it’s closer to social media than it is to any sort of accounting.

  • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    92
    ·
    1 year ago

    Remember, the reason I ditched Reddit wasn’t the ads per se, it was the constant data selling, and the official app just getting worse and worse with unwanted “features” pushed on everyone. They kept getting greedier and greedier so when they disabled 3rd party apps I ditched Reddit.

    • StarsWebWine@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      It seems they also recently started requiring you to login if it notices you are on VPN. At least for me it’s being doing that recently. And it seems they use browser fingerprinting, which tracks with the data selling.

      • VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yep. I tried to lookup something on it yesterday and I had my VPN on. Wouldn’t let me onto the site unless I logged in, when I turned the VPN off it let me onto the site ok. So glad I don’t use it often. The only times I check Reddit is for info for Kodi add-ons and old stuff, in the case of yesterday it was about a TV.

    • Pengilly@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I mainly lurked on the art and fanfic forums, and considered getting an account when I had the time/had created something worth sharing on there. But when I learned about the disabling of apps to improve accessibility…I started looking for alternatives.

      Plus, I don’t like the idea of the karma system on there. Supposedly, it reduces the number of trolls and low effort posts, but I’ve seen it cause people to post ragebait to karma farm on subreddits that reward you with upvotes for making up outrageous stories. I’ve also seen “debate” subreddits where people downvote people who make good points, but disagree with. Then those people leave, not wanting to be punished on other subreddits that require a high amount of karma to post, leading to “debate” subreddits that are laughably one-sided.

      • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I actively participated in Reddit before the killing of the Third Party Apps, because I really liked the content and the platform was a superb experience on a third party app.

  • whiskybourbon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    61
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    The last time I have logged in to Reddit was the day they ended the apps, July 1 I think it was. I haven’t been back since. I thought I would miss it more than I do but honestly I never even think about it anymore and am much happier with my new Lemmy life.

    • timetravel@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah I just moved over this week because a recent change started shoveling recommend stuff that just cluttered the feed and broke my browsing setup with ad block and no script. This feels nicer, definitely a cleaner ui. They are just trashing the experience over there

    • Sawzall@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Me too! It’s bizzare how big it was in my life and now nothing. I miss the old reddit, but it hasn’t been that for a long time.

  • scarabic@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    50
    ·
    1 year ago

    So they did $800M when they wanted to do $1B. Okay that’s disappointing.

    But the eye opener for me in this article is that they did $800M in 2023 up from $350M in 2021. That’s insane revenue growth. This is the first time I’ve seen any inkling that their IPO might have some chance.

    Still, you’d have to believe they can get to multiple billions. I think it’s much more likely that they will fall flat and actually help kill whatever optimism there might be about IPOs in the market.

  • nucleative@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    50
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t know if reddit ads provide a good roas. We tried a few campaigns and gave up because it was so far off what we see on other platforms. The community is super anti-advertising, the targeting is really limited by community and geo.

    People go to reddit to veg out, not to shop. I think the only times I’ve made purchases based on things I’ve seen are when there’s a discussion and numerous people make a recommendation for the same thing, or maybe a few cases when the op is showcasing something they had a personal part in creating.

    • tias@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      58
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Back when Reddit was good the ads used to be like regular posts with a comment section, so you could actually talk about the product and exchange experiences, and the advertiser would sometimes respond. I found it to be a transparent and valuable way of advertising, and I actually liked the ads back then because there was a social and learning aspect to them. But of course they got rid of that, supposedly because what if somebody says something bad. They don’t understand that the lack of honesty and dialogue is what makes people loathe ads.

      • nucleative@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        From my most recent memory, advertisers can still enable the option to allow comments. It was an interesting idea, and I too appreciate it when advertisers went in there to communicate about valid questions and concerns with their product.

        My suspicion is that the big advertisers are using marketing agencies who don’t have the time or budget to go and moderate inauthentic conversations in those comment threads however.

      • vraton.dev@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Sad but its true, also mqrketing ppl seens dont undestards diff between have buyers from ads to have buyers with engage other ppl to buy the product

    • TicaVerde@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree and I also think companies will (or are) going to try more “organic” marketing by going into comments and pretending to be customers and recommend their products.

      I thought about that when I went to a new hair salon and in their new customer form one of the questions was “how did you hear about us” and one of the options was Reddit.

      I kind of would rather have ads if I had to because they are easier to identify. Now I can’t trust people in the Reddit comments.

      • nucleative@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        If an advertiser figured out how to orchestrate that swarm of comments getting behind a recommendation that all seem very natural it would be difficult to tell that it’s an ad and not just organic feedback.

        I share your worry as well that it may already be happening.

    • sndrtj@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Reddit doesn’t allow targeting by community?! To me that seems like the most obvious feature.

  • ugjka@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    1 year ago

    Deleted Reddit because they blocked me from fetching subreddit RSS feeds which was the only reasonable interface left

  • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The users, and only users, need to be the shareholders. A bunch of useless venture capitalist parasites should never again be allowed to own and destroy our public spaces.

    • Mango@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      “public”

      If y’all stop investing your time and energy into private companies as if they’re the public interest, we wouldn’t have these issues.

      • JGrffn@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        The problem is the content being uploaded to these platforms serves a real and meaningful public, community purpose. Reddit has always been a knowledge base for a plethora of different subjects, YouTube has all sorts of content that has historical importance to the internet, as well as a trove of educational content that is unparalleled in size and quality.

        I take issue with that, because it’s not the company’s content, it’s just their platform. The content is vastly more important than the platform, but the companies act as if it’s theirs. They do everything based off what the community has built on their platforms, it’s their true essence and what actually attracts people.

        In the specific case of YouTube, I’d say that content is irreplaceable and indispensable. While it’s true that it is a privately owned platform and we don’t have much of a say on its direction, I truly believe the content is so important that the only viable path forward to prevent its loss, is to take said platform off private hands. I don’t believe it’ll ever happen, but it is what should happen, as it’s literally impossible to back up YouTube, just like it’s currently impossible to compete with YouTube.

        • Mango@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          It IS theirs. We straight gave it to them. We’re idiots. So start making it elsewhere.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            Idk why anyone would downvote this. This is literally what happened.

            If it just like, makes you mad, cool - this dude’s mad too. You agree with each other.

    • tb_@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Because 2023 wasn’t?

      To elaborate: what Reddit did this year wasn’t enough for a (major) mass migration. I very much doubt even more ads will deter those that have stuck around so far. Perhaps there’ll be a trickle, but I don’t see anything happening like what was the case for Digg back in the day.

      • spudwart@spudwart.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        34
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        This will trigger an enshittification cycle.

          1. Underperformance per-quarter resulting in anti-user actions to increase profits.
          1. Users leave because of anti-user actions.
          1. Profits will decrease as users leave until the end of quarter.
          1. Return to Step 1.
        • Mango@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          This sounds like accelerationism. 🤣

          The thing is, I’m pretty sure you nailed it.

          • spudwart@spudwart.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            1 year ago

            I mean it will help Lemmy. But It certainly will result in more EEE attempts on the fediverse.

            • Mango@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              We just gotta make like Naruto when he’s learning to hijack the kyuubi chakra for himself!

              • Ahri Boy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Smaller instance admins are ready for defederating big websites in the event of adopting ActivityPub. Bluesky server owners should have the power to filter out content and defederate from other servers.