Casey NewtonJun 13, 2023
I wrote about how Reddit’s years of making users responsible for content creation, moderation, and product development came back to haunt it today. https://www.platformer.news/p/reddit-goes-dark
Reddit goes dark

As it moves to shut down third-party apps, the site’s self-governing ethos comes back to haunt it

Platformer
Show threadWill Clark

@caseynewton Any thoughts on the inconsistencies in what Huffman seems to say is the issue versus what they're actually implementing?

For example, there's zero chance that Apollo itself costs "tens of millions" to support, but Huffman seems to be maniacally focused on Apollo. He also seems to act like the $500k/yr Apollo makes is somehow a material amount to Reddit.

Jun 13, 2023 at 12:36amElk
Show threadWill ClarkJun 13, 2023

@caseynewton If you do end up actually getting someone at Reddit to talk, maybe ask them why Huffman's plan to double workforce 2 years ago culminated in this nonsensible product strategy.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/9/22274077/reddit-funding-round-250-million-double-employees-investment

Reddit to double employees after raising $250 million

Reddit will double the number of employees it has over the course of this year to around 1,400 after raising $250 million in a new funding round. The company currently has around 700 employees.

The Verge
Show threadWill ClarkJun 13, 2023
@caseynewton Maybe also ask why they weren't able to grow DAU after raising $250m. 👀
Show threadCasey NewtonJun 13, 2023
@robotdeathsquad I'm still trying to understand everything that has been said on the subject tbh ... a lot of digital ink has been spilled here by all parties
Show threadWill ClarkJun 13, 2023

@caseynewton I read all 13 of his AMA answers and... they're bullshit? None of it holds any water at all. How is setting a price so high that no one will pay it going to generate revenue? What happened to their live video streaming? What happened to their NFT wallet? Why do their ads suck so much?

Also, are you familiar with https://www.reddit.com/r/beta/ ? Good window into the actual problems people have.

Beta • r/beta

An official community of beta testers for reddit.com

reddit
Show threadacute_distressJun 13, 2023
@robotdeathsquad @caseynewton the only people who can afford it is OpenAI. I think they are the target.
Show threadWill ClarkJun 13, 2023

@caseynewton Apologies for spamming your mentions, but I found this quote from the leaked memo today particularly interesting:
"The only long term solution is improving our product”

I'd love to know how the API changes lead to that, in their mind, because that's the 3rd "strategy" we’ve heard in the last couple weeks.