Reddit has been killing it as a business ever since 2023-2024. Even more impressive than 69% (nice) revenue increase is that net income went from $26m in Q1 2025 to $204m in Q1 2026. That's a 10x...
Reddit has been killing it as a business ever since 2023-2024. Even more impressive than 69% (nice) revenue increase is that net income went from $26m in Q1 2025 to $204m in Q1 2026. That's a 10x increase in profitability.
I seriously had my doubts Reddit would ever get to this point as a business - it was definitely possible, likely even, that like Snapchat or Twitter it will never reach profitability, and more or less floated off of low interest capital in the 2010s.
But no, they really turned it around, and are a serious business. If you asked me 5-10 years ago, I would have predicted that they they would either have collapsed or been bought out by a bigger company.
No, I've been seeing people say they're alienating their core users and will crash and burn any day now for 10+ years. Are you saying terminally online Americans don't bring in as much profit...
No, I've been seeing people say they're alienating their core users and will crash and burn any day now for 10+ years. Are you saying terminally online Americans don't bring in as much profit as...every demographic across the whole world?
It probably doesn't, but did the world need yet another social media site in the vein of Facebook, Instagram or Twitter? Because that's essentially what the pivot has turned the site into.
Are you saying terminally online Americans don't bring in as much profit as...every demographic across the whole world?
It probably doesn't, but did the world need yet another social media site in the vein of Facebook, Instagram or Twitter? Because that's essentially what the pivot has turned the site into.
I think a major part of Reddits success has been doing that transition better than others. By not completing fucking up while Meta withers and Twitter splinters they’re probably gaining by...
I think a major part of Reddits success has been doing that transition better than others. By not completing fucking up while Meta withers and Twitter splinters they’re probably gaining by default.
The fact old Reddit exists is likely a very smart, if possibly accidental, move on their part
spez and co all use old Reddit. I really get the sense that they’re keeping old Reddit for the smart people and then sh/mobile for regular people to generate income, have the crazy patterns, etc...
spez and co all use old Reddit. I really get the sense that they’re keeping old Reddit for the smart people and then sh/mobile for regular people to generate income, have the crazy patterns, etc that the investors love.
What is Reddit is doing differently? Meta's problem seems to be the AI side of their business, and I'm not sure that Twitter has a failure state so long as Elon wants to throw money at it.
What is Reddit is doing differently?
Meta's problem seems to be the AI side of their business, and I'm not sure that Twitter has a failure state so long as Elon wants to throw money at it.
The major thing that still makes Reddit somewhat useful for me, is that you have much greater control of your feeds. Facebook or Twitter has no option for basic filtering of newest, rising, most...
What is Reddit is doing differently?
The major thing that still makes Reddit somewhat useful for me, is that you have much greater control of your feeds. Facebook or Twitter has no option for basic filtering of newest, rising, most voted in the last (day, week, month), or any sort of coherent topic filtering. Everything is controlled by "the algorithm". Of course that exists on Reddit too, but you still have a great deal more control of what you want to see.
Funny how letting people keep what they like about your site is a solid business plan. If Facebook let us keep the chronological news feed and not separated messenger, wonder if things would have...
Funny how letting people keep what they like about your site is a solid business plan.
If Facebook let us keep the chronological news feed and not separated messenger, wonder if things would have gone differently for them.
To be fair, though, Tumblr offers you even more control over your feeds (its default is still only people you follow), and it's still definitely not profitable. Then again, it was run by people...
To be fair, though, Tumblr offers you even more control over your feeds (its default is still only people you follow), and it's still definitely not profitable.
Then again, it was run by people who wanted to make it "the next pdf" for a while and is now run by infamously unstable Matt Mullenweg so. Not exactly an example of stellar management.
Failing slower. When your competition is fucking up, and you're fucking up less, you're still winning. I really think that's what a more complex breakdown would boil down to.
What is Reddit is doing differently?
Failing slower. When your competition is fucking up, and you're fucking up less, you're still winning. I really think that's what a more complex breakdown would boil down to.
Of course it has done that. But predicting doom because a company is switching their target demographic from one that forces you to run at a loss to being more user friendly with, frankly, less...
Of course it has done that. But predicting doom because a company is switching their target demographic from one that forces you to run at a loss to being more user friendly with, frankly, less enshittification than other sites, was obviously the right financial decision (even if I hated it as much or more than anyone else).
The way that the doomsayers were actually wrong was in thinking that Huffman didn't have the acumen to actually turn the business around. Frankly, I also think it was far from a forgone conclusion...
The way that the doomsayers were actually wrong was in thinking that Huffman didn't have the acumen to actually turn the business around.
Frankly, I also think it was far from a forgone conclusion that it would be successful.
I still don't really see why it's more successful, though. The model hasn't fundamentally changed in a decade, but the only unique quality from other sites (the forum focused discussion) has...
I still don't really see why it's more successful, though. The model hasn't fundamentally changed in a decade, but the only unique quality from other sites (the forum focused discussion) has gotten much worse. Bots everywhere, same content being reposted from Tiktok, Instagram, and Reddit itself, and any queries I use from searching ends up with much older posts than newer ones.
But I guess I'm the exact kind of user who Reddit wanted to turn away from
I use adblock
I only use Old reddit
I never switched to the apps after third party accounts shut down. I just use old reddit on the browser (which also has adblock)
I don't have an account. RES is pretty much the only reason I can stay sane despite this.
Still: I don't see what attracts those to reddit who may be used to Tiktok and Co. That's the confusing part.
Reddit has everything. I found out my boomer mom has the app because she thinks it's the only way she can view stuff. I didn't think she would even know what it was. There's a way to make it...
Reddit has everything. I found out my boomer mom has the app because she thinks it's the only way she can view stuff. I didn't think she would even know what it was. There's a way to make it appeal to everyone.
It certainly did not happen in a monetary sense. But they have driven of large parts their original core users and community. Specifically the communities centered around discourse and...
No, I've been seeing people say they're alienating their core users and will crash and burn any day now for 10+ years.
It certainly did not happen in a monetary sense. But they have driven of large parts their original core users and community. Specifically the communities centered around discourse and information. Which is a large part of the value they have been parading with, which I firmly believe they have lost and will make the whole google search term with site:reddit thing less and less used over time.
So yeah, they have successfully pivoted towards being a profitable business. That doesn't mean they did not lose other things along the way. If you purely care about corporate success and profit then by all means, celebrate that. But from other perspectives they did throw away a lot of what made them unique.
I can confirm that they completely pushed me away with their shitty changes and I will never go back. I had hoped that enough people would have left to force their hand and get them to "be...
I can confirm that they completely pushed me away with their shitty changes and I will never go back. I had hoped that enough people would have left to force their hand and get them to "be better", but nope, their enshittification has apparently been very good for profits. Oh well, at least it's not my circus anymore.
I guess it depends on where that revenue is coming from. Is it all from ad revenue, or is it being propped up by selling user data to AI companies still? I don't know if the bubble hypothesis is...
I guess it depends on where that revenue is coming from. Is it all from ad revenue, or is it being propped up by selling user data to AI companies still?
I don't know if the bubble hypothesis is real, but it certainly feels like AI spending can't keep growing.
The social media company’s “Other revenue” category, which includes its data licensing business, jumped 15% year-over-year to $39 million. Google and OpenAI are two of Reddit’s biggest data licensing partners.
Yes, and in this instance our data is more than just things like computer fingerprints, browsing history, voting history, etc. They literally are selling the entirety of reddit content to AI...
Yes, and in this instance our data is more than just things like computer fingerprints, browsing history, voting history, etc.
They literally are selling the entirety of reddit content to AI companies to use to train their models. All of your posts and comments on every single subreddit on the site (except maybe NSFW subreddits.)
I don't think any other platform has sold out that much when it comes to selling data.
The vibe has definitely gone downhill for a long time now, but when you look other mainstream social media sites its still a million times better than everything else out there. As time has gone...
No, I've been seeing people say they're alienating their core users and will crash and burn any day now for 10+ years.
The vibe has definitely gone downhill for a long time now, but when you look other mainstream social media sites its still a million times better than everything else out there. As time has gone on Reddit has become less and less niche and more and more mainstream.
Being the slowest in the race to the bottom seems to be working out for them, even if we’d all prefer they’d have not joined the race. I do check out Reddit still, probably once a day or so. It’s...
Being the slowest in the race to the bottom seems to be working out for them, even if we’d all prefer they’d have not joined the race.
I do check out Reddit still, probably once a day or so. It’s really meh now honestly, there’s very little that’s interesting and a ton of slop (both AI and human generated). It feels more like Threads than anything.
Browsing /r/all is pretty much useless to me now and actually I've noticed its worse now than the start of the year for example. Also the level of moderation/censorship has started to become...
Browsing /r/all is pretty much useless to me now and actually I've noticed its worse now than the start of the year for example. Also the level of moderation/censorship has started to become noticable.
I know many of us are former Reddit users, but I think they definitely switched over from our style of terminally online (whatever that entails) to a much more general idea. I know a lot of people...
I know many of us are former Reddit users, but I think they definitely switched over from our style of terminally online (whatever that entails) to a much more general idea. I know a lot of people who use Reddit now who aren't the type of people that would have used Reddit when I was using it through the 2010's.
A lot of stock prices drop from the IPO price. Going by this site (I don't know how complete or accurate this information is), 160 companies are down from their 2025 IPO price, and 123 are up....
A lot of stock prices drop from the IPO price. Going by this site (I don't know how complete or accurate this information is), 160 companies are down from their 2025 IPO price, and 123 are up. With some rough calculations, if you invested the same amount in each company's IPO and held through today, you'd have a total ~8% return, which isn't awful, but it's slightly below average, and a lot below the actual returns from the past year. You're also taking a huge risk to do this, since many of these companies have seen huge swings in price.
No worries! IPO means Initial Public Offering and it's when a private company goes public, meaning you can now buy and sell shares of them on the stock exchange. When you trade stocks as a private...
No worries!
IPO means Initial Public Offering and it's when a private company goes public, meaning you can now buy and sell shares of them on the stock exchange.
When you trade stocks as a private individual, the general advice is to ignore IPOs, because usually the stock is hyped and starts high and then drops in value in the short term, which means you lose money. If we take reddit as an example, you can see that they had their IPO on 22nd of March 2024 and it took ~5 weeks till the stock was in the green compared to the IPO price of 50 USD. Most individuals are on a hype train caused by social media, hoping for a quick profit and sell by then, with a loss.
A lot of individuals who trade stocks have generally no fucking idea what they are doing and IPOs is when a stock is very volatile, meaning it can go up a lot, or down a lot. It can be difficult to predict what will happen because the company is being publically traded for the first time and you can't rely on old market behavior to predict if the stock price will go up or down.
Negative attitudes about having missed profits because you meant to buy some stock are very common, and it can lead to emotional actions involving money which is usually a bad idea. I was just trying to affirm a stranger's bad feelings because while they might have missed out on profits this time, it also could've gone the other way as well. That's what I meant when I said that IPOs are a bad idea.
Thanks, you explanation is superb, now it's clear for me. Thanks for detailed answer, and sorry for bothering ) Now I understand it a bit better. Thanks!
Thanks, you explanation is superb, now it's clear for me. Thanks for detailed answer, and sorry for bothering )
Now I understand it a bit better. Thanks!
They also just started testing making their mobile site completely unusable except through the app via a popup. Yay data harvesting… I really only use reddit for sports/news/sports news, and the...
They also just started testing making their mobile site completely unusable except through the app via a popup. Yay data harvesting…
I really only use reddit for sports/news/sports news, and the /r/HFY subreddit. This is likely going to push me more towards Instagram for that, or I’ll have to see if there are similar things on Mastodon/Bluesky I can follow.
(I’ve found a work around for now with safari’s “hide distracting element”, but who knows how long that will last.)
I simply won’t ever download their app. I formerly enjoyed browsing Reddit for a few minutes here and there, but I suspect I will have mostly forgotten about it within a week or two. Oh, well. I’m...
I simply won’t ever download their app. I formerly enjoyed browsing Reddit for a few minutes here and there, but I suspect I will have mostly forgotten about it within a week or two. Oh, well. I’m not sure why they made such a user- hostile move.
I used to use the Apollo app. Once they ruined that by making their API expensive, and I realized they were using the user data to train AI, I deleted all my comments and posts and haven't posted,...
I used to use the Apollo app. Once they ruined that by making their API expensive, and I realized they were using the user data to train AI, I deleted all my comments and posts and haven't posted, commented, or upvoted since. I still read some of the niche subreddits but I don't contribute in any way.
I used RIF (formerly Reddit Is Fun) and actually still have it installed on my phone. It's not even available in the app store anymore, but I guess an apk is stored somewhere because it's on my...
I used RIF (formerly Reddit Is Fun) and actually still have it installed on my phone. It's not even available in the app store anymore, but I guess an apk is stored somewhere because it's on my new phone.
I've been pretty happy with the web experience so far, it kind of feels nice to just use my browser instead of a dedicated app. If that changes, then Three Cheers is the first one I'll try!
I've been pretty happy with the web experience so far, it kind of feels nice to just use my browser instead of a dedicated app. If that changes, then Three Cheers is the first one I'll try!
I think both Apple and Google still store delisted apps on their servers. Not too familiar with how the Play Store does it but I know that on the iOS App Store, you can go into your Apple...
I think both Apple and Google still store delisted apps on their servers. Not too familiar with how the Play Store does it but I know that on the iOS App Store, you can go into your Apple Account's purchases list and delisted apps will still be there for you. I wonder if your new phone just downloaded it from the App Store when restoring your info.
Redreader still works. My understanding is that it was spared to provide access to low vision people but I could be mistaken. I use Redreader on mobile and old.reddit.com on desktop.
Redreader still works. My understanding is that it was spared to provide access to low vision people but I could be mistaken.
I use Redreader on mobile and old.reddit.com on desktop.
I still use Reddit to access some communities that don't seem to exist in any meaningful size outside of Facebook, and I refuse to use the latter. I hate being forced to use the app just to have a...
I still use Reddit to access some communities that don't seem to exist in any meaningful size outside of Facebook, and I refuse to use the latter.
I hate being forced to use the app just to have a decent mobile experience. Fortunately, on android, Morphe exists. It's made by the old ReVanced team, and it transforms the official Reddit app from something hideous, into something not terrible.
I was wondering if it's just me. On desktop I have a redlib redirect but on mobile I mostly get in threads from a websearch, so it's annoying having to change the url. That safari trick also only...
I was wondering if it's just me. On desktop I have a redlib redirect but on mobile I mostly get in threads from a websearch, so it's annoying having to change the url. That safari trick also only seems to work for that specific page and then you have to do it again even if you just reload.
The unique value proposition of the site used to be knowledge exchange on niche topics someone cared enough about, all concentrated in one place. It is a question whether the balance would have...
The unique value proposition of the site used to be knowledge exchange on niche topics someone cared enough about, all concentrated in one place. It is a question whether the balance would have ultimately been better or worse than traditional forums if the site remained usable for this purpose. Currently it is simply sad that it dealt such a blow to them.
The company was and is also benefiting from enormous amounts of volunteer labor.
Their not so recent by now moves are specifically alienating these groups of users. So far their pivoting into more or less generic valueless social media site is working for them in monetary sense. And unlike individuals companies are not punished for antisocial behavior.
It is also a question whether it will work for them long term as while they have still not completely destroyed their previous value and user base it is probably only by inertia and lack of better options by this point.
I think it will. For every power user Reddit pisses off and alienates, there are about 1000 other active users that will happily take on their moderator responsibilities
I think it will. For every power user Reddit pisses off and alienates, there are about 1000 other active users that will happily take on their moderator responsibilities
Personally I've seen a huge drop in response quality and a massive increase in low-quality meme responses on the site in the last few years. Even on serious subs, somehow image-only top-level...
Personally I've seen a huge drop in response quality and a massive increase in low-quality meme responses on the site in the last few years. Even on serious subs, somehow image-only top-level comments routinely get upvoted to the top. That's fine for social subreddits, but pretty cancerous any place where you want answers or a nuanced discussion.
I suppose we'll see how it pans out in the next 5-10 years. I think the fact that we're having this conversation here (and not on reddit) is a telling sign that the best discussions are slowly migrating away from reddit. And not just because of one issue, it's death by a thousand cuts: neutering the API and custom apps, selling user submissions to AI companies for training, mistreating longtime moderators, disguising ads as posts and comments.
Reddit gives me the same "dead internet" vibes that other major social media sites do, and most of the communities I actually cared about moved elsewhere.
Reddit gives me the same "dead internet" vibes that other major social media sites do, and most of the communities I actually cared about moved elsewhere.
many of mine (in games, the industry and the enthusiasts) moved to Discord. Some to Bluesky. Others still simply petered out entirely. ofc some larger communities never moved. The quality...
many of mine (in games, the industry and the enthusiasts) moved to Discord. Some to Bluesky. Others still simply petered out entirely.
ofc some larger communities never moved. The quality difference from 5+ years ago is stark, though.
The kind of discussions that we have here are entirely gone from Reddit over the past few years. Just stupid memes or politics with exactly the same comments every thread. Then we have all the...
The kind of discussions that we have here are entirely gone from Reddit over the past few years. Just stupid memes or politics with exactly the same comments every thread. Then we have all the signs of dead internet in the many many "am I the jerk" style storytelling subs, just bots writing to fellow bots .....
I can say with absolute confidence that this is not the case. Simply based on the amount of response for mod applications we get when I was still active on reddit a few years ago. From what I have...
I can say with absolute confidence that this is not the case. Simply based on the amount of response for mod applications we get when I was still active on reddit a few years ago. From what I have heard from people who are still trying to keep subreddits going application numbers only have gone down further.
Combined with the fact that a large part of the people who become a mod quickly stop actively moderating as they greatly underestimated the amount of work involved.
To take that 1000 users. If you can even find a group that large, I'd say that at least 900 of them are actually only saying they'd take on the responsibilities. Which is a low estimation. Of the 100 left 90 don't have the slightest clue what it involves and will not step up once they realize the work involved. Of the 10 left 9 will quickly burn out leaving maybe one.
I'd also say that a lot of mods that left over the years are likely not the power users you are putting them under. They were people moderating at most a handful of related subreddits. Subreddits they put a lot of time and effort in and build a lot domain specific knowledge around. Knowledge that isn't easily replaced by a fresh badge of newly minted mods. Certainly when there is nobody left to share that knowledge.
It is also a question what motivates someone to go on and do the thankless job of moderating a forum for no pay. For the old moderators a would say it was mostly interest in the communities but...
It is also a question what motivates someone to go on and do the thankless job of moderating a forum for no pay. For the old moderators a would say it was mostly interest in the communities but the site just abandoned the old social contract and the main value of the site.
There is absolutely someone that will step in and ai moderation may even do "good enough" job for that matter.
The site may very well go on but see my line about pivoting into more or less generic valueless social media site.
Reddit is a textbook example of how dystopian our society is becoming. It's genuinely the only social media platform where I have to adopt a form of Newspeak just to avoid a bot swooping in and...
Reddit is a textbook example of how dystopian our society is becoming. It's genuinely the only social media platform where I have to adopt a form of Newspeak just to avoid a bot swooping in and silently nuking my comment from orbit.
And it annoys me that they're profiteering from their Orwellian bullshit.
Reminds me of this time 3 years ago that I was banned by a sub I didn't even know existed. I was posting against a conspiracy on r/conspiracy (it's fun to disprove them) and r/justiceserved set...
Reminds me of this time 3 years ago that I was banned by a sub I didn't even know existed. I was posting against a conspiracy on r/conspiracy (it's fun to disprove them) and r/justiceserved set their bot to permanently ban anyone who participated in the sub. I got a good laugh out of that one at least.
That's good to hear. I can imagine it getting out of hand rather easily, like someone posting somewhere like r/nazis getting banned from most of reddit despite popping in just to troll them.
That's good to hear. I can imagine it getting out of hand rather easily, like someone posting somewhere like r/nazis getting banned from most of reddit despite popping in just to troll them.
Source? I haven't seen any official posts on this change, and their moderator code of conduct says nothing about this. It used to allude to it a few years back, but I have never seen an admin...
Do you have some examples? Those bots are almost certainly set up by the moderators of the particular sub. If anything other social media platforms are much worse at this. TikTok famously will...
Do you have some examples? Those bots are almost certainly set up by the moderators of the particular sub.
If anything other social media platforms are much worse at this. TikTok famously will penalize you algorithmically if you say suicide, or murder, causing people to use euphemisms like unalive. Reddit discovery is fundamentally still based on upvotes and downvotes, so this does not apply.
I presume that automoderator has some kind of shadowban or shadow-removal functionality that's active in certain subreddits. I've definitely had comments containing words like "Trump", "incel",...
I presume that automoderator has some kind of shadowban or shadow-removal functionality that's active in certain subreddits.
I've definitely had comments containing words like "Trump", "incel", "suicide", etc end up with zero views and no engagement.
Reddit is almost reaching the point of TikTok's and YouTube's Newspeak...
The automoderator is a tool that has most of its functions and rules set up by the moderators of individual subreddits (and afaik "shadowbanning" and "shadow-removal" aren't among them -- at least...
I presume that automoderator has some kind of shadowban or shadow-removal functionality that's active in certain subreddits.
The automoderator is a tool that has most of its functions and rules set up by the moderators of individual subreddits (and afaik "shadowbanning" and "shadow-removal" aren't among them -- at least when I was a mod, it was just normal banning and removal). This is exactly what the person you were replying to was talking about.
I don't understand this comment. Could you please elaborate? You have to use a certain writing style or word choice or something? What subreddits does this apply to?
I don't understand this comment. Could you please elaborate? You have to use a certain writing style or word choice or something? What subreddits does this apply to?
For those interested in only reading Reddit posts and loathe the official website, I can't recommend lurker enough. It's fast, no-JavaScript, and very readable. Runs nicely on Docker. Great stuff.
For those interested in only reading Reddit posts and loathe the official website, I can't recommend lurker enough. It's fast, no-JavaScript, and very readable. Runs nicely on Docker. Great stuff.
Reddit has been killing it as a business ever since 2023-2024. Even more impressive than 69% (nice) revenue increase is that net income went from $26m in Q1 2025 to $204m in Q1 2026. That's a 10x increase in profitability.
I seriously had my doubts Reddit would ever get to this point as a business - it was definitely possible, likely even, that like Snapchat or Twitter it will never reach profitability, and more or less floated off of low interest capital in the 2010s.
But no, they really turned it around, and are a serious business. If you asked me 5-10 years ago, I would have predicted that they they would either have collapsed or been bought out by a bigger company.
No, I've been seeing people say they're alienating their core users and will crash and burn any day now for 10+ years. Are you saying terminally online Americans don't bring in as much profit as...every demographic across the whole world?
It probably doesn't, but did the world need yet another social media site in the vein of Facebook, Instagram or Twitter? Because that's essentially what the pivot has turned the site into.
I think a major part of Reddits success has been doing that transition better than others. By not completing fucking up while Meta withers and Twitter splinters they’re probably gaining by default.
The fact old Reddit exists is likely a very smart, if possibly accidental, move on their part
spez and co all use old Reddit. I really get the sense that they’re keeping old Reddit for the smart people and then sh/mobile for regular people to generate income, have the crazy patterns, etc that the investors love.
Agreed. It keeps a certain kind of content on the site that would otherwise be driven away (even though they ARE driving it away).
What is Reddit is doing differently?
Meta's problem seems to be the AI side of their business, and I'm not sure that Twitter has a failure state so long as Elon wants to throw money at it.
The major thing that still makes Reddit somewhat useful for me, is that you have much greater control of your feeds. Facebook or Twitter has no option for basic filtering of newest, rising, most voted in the last (day, week, month), or any sort of coherent topic filtering. Everything is controlled by "the algorithm". Of course that exists on Reddit too, but you still have a great deal more control of what you want to see.
Reddit allows you to disable suggestions. It's the reason I still use it. My feed is my subscribed subreddits only.
Funny how letting people keep what they like about your site is a solid business plan.
If Facebook let us keep the chronological news feed and not separated messenger, wonder if things would have gone differently for them.
To be fair, though, Tumblr offers you even more control over your feeds (its default is still only people you follow), and it's still definitely not profitable.
Then again, it was run by people who wanted to make it "the next pdf" for a while and is now run by infamously unstable Matt Mullenweg so. Not exactly an example of stellar management.
Failing slower. When your competition is fucking up, and you're fucking up less, you're still winning. I really think that's what a more complex breakdown would boil down to.
Of course it has done that. But predicting doom because a company is switching their target demographic from one that forces you to run at a loss to being more user friendly with, frankly, less enshittification than other sites, was obviously the right financial decision (even if I hated it as much or more than anyone else).
The way that the doomsayers were actually wrong was in thinking that Huffman didn't have the acumen to actually turn the business around.
Frankly, I also think it was far from a forgone conclusion that it would be successful.
That's true, but it was a forgone conclusion that it would never be profitable the way it was a decade ago.
I still don't really see why it's more successful, though. The model hasn't fundamentally changed in a decade, but the only unique quality from other sites (the forum focused discussion) has gotten much worse. Bots everywhere, same content being reposted from Tiktok, Instagram, and Reddit itself, and any queries I use from searching ends up with much older posts than newer ones.
But I guess I'm the exact kind of user who Reddit wanted to turn away from
Still: I don't see what attracts those to reddit who may be used to Tiktok and Co. That's the confusing part.
Reddit has everything. I found out my boomer mom has the app because she thinks it's the only way she can view stuff. I didn't think she would even know what it was. There's a way to make it appeal to everyone.
It certainly did not happen in a monetary sense. But they have driven of large parts their original core users and community. Specifically the communities centered around discourse and information. Which is a large part of the value they have been parading with, which I firmly believe they have lost and will make the whole google search term with
site:redditthing less and less used over time.So yeah, they have successfully pivoted towards being a profitable business. That doesn't mean they did not lose other things along the way. If you purely care about corporate success and profit then by all means, celebrate that. But from other perspectives they did throw away a lot of what made them unique.
I can confirm that they completely pushed me away with their shitty changes and I will never go back. I had hoped that enough people would have left to force their hand and get them to "be better", but nope, their enshittification has apparently been very good for profits. Oh well, at least it's not my circus anymore.
I guess it depends on where that revenue is coming from. Is it all from ad revenue, or is it being propped up by selling user data to AI companies still?
I don't know if the bubble hypothesis is real, but it certainly feels like AI spending can't keep growing.
So they’re just selling our data to AI companies?
I mean almost all free sites are selling your data to ANY company willing to buy. The AI market just made a massive boon of that kind of dataset
Yes, and in this instance our data is more than just things like computer fingerprints, browsing history, voting history, etc.
They literally are selling the entirety of reddit content to AI companies to use to train their models. All of your posts and comments on every single subreddit on the site (except maybe NSFW subreddits.)
I don't think any other platform has sold out that much when it comes to selling data.
I think it's bold to imply that "terminally online Americans" are the only people they're alienating.
Well, that's not what I said. But it was like 70% of their user base a decade ago when they started slowly making these changes.
The vibe has definitely gone downhill for a long time now, but when you look other mainstream social media sites its still a million times better than everything else out there. As time has gone on Reddit has become less and less niche and more and more mainstream.
Being the slowest in the race to the bottom seems to be working out for them, even if we’d all prefer they’d have not joined the race.
I do check out Reddit still, probably once a day or so. It’s really meh now honestly, there’s very little that’s interesting and a ton of slop (both AI and human generated). It feels more like Threads than anything.
Browsing /r/all is pretty much useless to me now and actually I've noticed its worse now than the start of the year for example. Also the level of moderation/censorship has started to become noticable.
That said, the super niche subs are still decent.
I know many of us are former Reddit users, but I think they definitely switched over from our style of terminally online (whatever that entails) to a much more general idea. I know a lot of people who use Reddit now who aren't the type of people that would have used Reddit when I was using it through the 2010's.
This reminds me that I should have bought in the IPO when I had the chance. Oh well...
I wouldn't worry about it. Might as well have put it all on red at a roulette wheel.
Getting in on most IPOs is dumb. Don't get FOMO'd into making a mistake in the future.
Non american here, can you please elaborate?
Why getting on most IPO is dumb, and why it's dumb for a Reddit too?
A lot of stock prices drop from the IPO price. Going by this site (I don't know how complete or accurate this information is), 160 companies are down from their 2025 IPO price, and 123 are up. With some rough calculations, if you invested the same amount in each company's IPO and held through today, you'd have a total ~8% return, which isn't awful, but it's slightly below average, and a lot below the actual returns from the past year. You're also taking a huge risk to do this, since many of these companies have seen huge swings in price.
Thanks! Make sense, definitely.
No worries!
IPO means Initial Public Offering and it's when a private company goes public, meaning you can now buy and sell shares of them on the stock exchange.
When you trade stocks as a private individual, the general advice is to ignore IPOs, because usually the stock is hyped and starts high and then drops in value in the short term, which means you lose money. If we take reddit as an example, you can see that they had their IPO on 22nd of March 2024 and it took ~5 weeks till the stock was in the green compared to the IPO price of 50 USD. Most individuals are on a hype train caused by social media, hoping for a quick profit and sell by then, with a loss.
A lot of individuals who trade stocks have generally no fucking idea what they are doing and IPOs is when a stock is very volatile, meaning it can go up a lot, or down a lot. It can be difficult to predict what will happen because the company is being publically traded for the first time and you can't rely on old market behavior to predict if the stock price will go up or down.
Negative attitudes about having missed profits because you meant to buy some stock are very common, and it can lead to emotional actions involving money which is usually a bad idea. I was just trying to affirm a stranger's bad feelings because while they might have missed out on profits this time, it also could've gone the other way as well. That's what I meant when I said that IPOs are a bad idea.
Am I explaining myself better?
Thanks, you explanation is superb, now it's clear for me. Thanks for detailed answer, and sorry for bothering )
Now I understand it a bit better. Thanks!
You're totally fine and any time!
They also just started testing making their mobile site completely unusable except through the app via a popup. Yay data harvesting…
I really only use reddit for sports/news/sports news, and the /r/HFY subreddit. This is likely going to push me more towards Instagram for that, or I’ll have to see if there are similar things on Mastodon/Bluesky I can follow.
(I’ve found a work around for now with safari’s “hide distracting element”, but who knows how long that will last.)
I simply won’t ever download their app. I formerly enjoyed browsing Reddit for a few minutes here and there, but I suspect I will have mostly forgotten about it within a week or two. Oh, well. I’m not sure why they made such a user- hostile move.
Because they can collect so much more data about people through the app, and thus profit more per user.
I used to use the Apollo app. Once they ruined that by making their API expensive, and I realized they were using the user data to train AI, I deleted all my comments and posts and haven't posted, commented, or upvoted since. I still read some of the niche subreddits but I don't contribute in any way.
I used RIF (formerly Reddit Is Fun) and actually still have it installed on my phone. It's not even available in the app store anymore, but I guess an apk is stored somewhere because it's on my new phone.
If you're not using it already, the Tildes app Three Cheers is made by the same creator as RIF @Talklittle
It's rather reminiscent of RIF.
I've been pretty happy with the web experience so far, it kind of feels nice to just use my browser instead of a dedicated app. If that changes, then Three Cheers is the first one I'll try!
I think both Apple and Google still store delisted apps on their servers. Not too familiar with how the Play Store does it but I know that on the iOS App Store, you can go into your Apple Account's purchases list and delisted apps will still be there for you. I wonder if your new phone just downloaded it from the App Store when restoring your info.
old dot reddit does not have the annoying popup. Who knows how long thats going to last though
I think if they finally dump old Reddit will be the day I stop using the site. The new design is terrible.
Yeah, but on mobile it sucks. And a lot of the time i'm opening a thread through a search and it's annoying having to change the url on mobile.
I use an extension for firefox mobile called Old Reddit Redirect (and one called Oldlander for some mobile focused UI tweaks)
Unfortunately there’s no way to get extensions on iOS.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but here is the official iPhone User Guide Get extensions to customize Safari on iPhone
Sorry I meant Firefox specifically.
Some people online are saying Safari, Orion, and Edge can get extensions on iOS. Maybe something has changed?
Sorry I meant Firefox specifically.
Redreader still works. My understanding is that it was spared to provide access to low vision people but I could be mistaken.
I use Redreader on mobile and old.reddit.com on desktop.
Seems to be only for Android.
I use android so I didn't think to check re ios.
Redreader for Android and Dystopia for iOS are still active mobile options if you have a list of subreddits you want to keep up with.
I still use Reddit to access some communities that don't seem to exist in any meaningful size outside of Facebook, and I refuse to use the latter.
I hate being forced to use the app just to have a decent mobile experience. Fortunately, on android, Morphe exists. It's made by the old ReVanced team, and it transforms the official Reddit app from something hideous, into something not terrible.
Still nothing on Sync, RiF or Apollo, of course.
I was wondering if it's just me. On desktop I have a redlib redirect but on mobile I mostly get in threads from a websearch, so it's annoying having to change the url. That safari trick also only seems to work for that specific page and then you have to do it again even if you just reload.
The unique value proposition of the site used to be knowledge exchange on niche topics someone cared enough about, all concentrated in one place. It is a question whether the balance would have ultimately been better or worse than traditional forums if the site remained usable for this purpose. Currently it is simply sad that it dealt such a blow to them.
The company was and is also benefiting from enormous amounts of volunteer labor.
Their not so recent by now moves are specifically alienating these groups of users. So far their pivoting into more or less generic valueless social media site is working for them in monetary sense. And unlike individuals companies are not punished for antisocial behavior.
It is also a question whether it will work for them long term as while they have still not completely destroyed their previous value and user base it is probably only by inertia and lack of better options by this point.
I think it will. For every power user Reddit pisses off and alienates, there are about 1000 other active users that will happily take on their moderator responsibilities
Personally I've seen a huge drop in response quality and a massive increase in low-quality meme responses on the site in the last few years. Even on serious subs, somehow image-only top-level comments routinely get upvoted to the top. That's fine for social subreddits, but pretty cancerous any place where you want answers or a nuanced discussion.
I suppose we'll see how it pans out in the next 5-10 years. I think the fact that we're having this conversation here (and not on reddit) is a telling sign that the best discussions are slowly migrating away from reddit. And not just because of one issue, it's death by a thousand cuts: neutering the API and custom apps, selling user submissions to AI companies for training, mistreating longtime moderators, disguising ads as posts and comments.
Reddit gives me the same "dead internet" vibes that other major social media sites do, and most of the communities I actually cared about moved elsewhere.
Where did they move to?
many of mine (in games, the industry and the enthusiasts) moved to Discord. Some to Bluesky. Others still simply petered out entirely.
ofc some larger communities never moved. The quality difference from 5+ years ago is stark, though.
The kind of discussions that we have here are entirely gone from Reddit over the past few years. Just stupid memes or politics with exactly the same comments every thread. Then we have all the signs of dead internet in the many many "am I the jerk" style storytelling subs, just bots writing to fellow bots .....
I can say with absolute confidence that this is not the case. Simply based on the amount of response for mod applications we get when I was still active on reddit a few years ago. From what I have heard from people who are still trying to keep subreddits going application numbers only have gone down further.
Combined with the fact that a large part of the people who become a mod quickly stop actively moderating as they greatly underestimated the amount of work involved.
To take that 1000 users. If you can even find a group that large, I'd say that at least 900 of them are actually only saying they'd take on the responsibilities. Which is a low estimation. Of the 100 left 90 don't have the slightest clue what it involves and will not step up once they realize the work involved. Of the 10 left 9 will quickly burn out leaving maybe one.
I'd also say that a lot of mods that left over the years are likely not the power users you are putting them under. They were people moderating at most a handful of related subreddits. Subreddits they put a lot of time and effort in and build a lot domain specific knowledge around. Knowledge that isn't easily replaced by a fresh badge of newly minted mods. Certainly when there is nobody left to share that knowledge.
It is also a question what motivates someone to go on and do the thankless job of moderating a forum for no pay. For the old moderators a would say it was mostly interest in the communities but the site just abandoned the old social contract and the main value of the site.
There is absolutely someone that will step in and ai moderation may even do "good enough" job for that matter.
The site may very well go on but see my line about pivoting into more or less generic valueless social media site.
Reddit is a textbook example of how dystopian our society is becoming. It's genuinely the only social media platform where I have to adopt a form of Newspeak just to avoid a bot swooping in and silently nuking my comment from orbit.
And it annoys me that they're profiteering from their Orwellian bullshit.
Reminds me of this time 3 years ago that I was banned by a sub I didn't even know existed. I was posting against a conspiracy on r/conspiracy (it's fun to disprove them) and r/justiceserved set their bot to permanently ban anyone who participated in the sub. I got a good laugh out of that one at least.
Reddit just recently put an end to this; you can no longer ban users based on their participation in other subreddits.
That's good to hear. I can imagine it getting out of hand rather easily, like someone posting somewhere like r/nazis getting banned from most of reddit despite popping in just to troll them.
Source? I haven't seen any official posts on this change, and their moderator code of conduct says nothing about this. It used to allude to it a few years back, but I have never seen an admin enforce this rule.
From /r/modnews ~1 month ago: Ban bot policy update: removing automated bans based on community association
I was banned from r/justiceserved a few years back because they deemed SubredditCancer to be a hate-subreddit.
Do you have some examples? Those bots are almost certainly set up by the moderators of the particular sub.
If anything other social media platforms are much worse at this. TikTok famously will penalize you algorithmically if you say suicide, or murder, causing people to use euphemisms like unalive. Reddit discovery is fundamentally still based on upvotes and downvotes, so this does not apply.
I presume that automoderator has some kind of shadowban or shadow-removal functionality that's active in certain subreddits.
I've definitely had comments containing words like "Trump", "incel", "suicide", etc end up with zero views and no engagement.
Reddit is almost reaching the point of TikTok's and YouTube's Newspeak...
The automoderator is a tool that has most of its functions and rules set up by the moderators of individual subreddits (and afaik "shadowbanning" and "shadow-removal" aren't among them -- at least when I was a mod, it was just normal banning and removal). This is exactly what the person you were replying to was talking about.
I don't understand this comment. Could you please elaborate? You have to use a certain writing style or word choice or something? What subreddits does this apply to?
For those interested in only reading Reddit posts and loathe the official website, I can't recommend lurker enough. It's fast, no-JavaScript, and very readable. Runs nicely on Docker. Great stuff.