Breakingviews - Reddit’s golden geese foul up its IPO plans
www.reuters.comThousands of moderators overseeing the site’s subreddits are on strike. It’s a wrinkle in Reddit’s plan to go public, and a sign that plan is premature, columnist Anita Ramaswamy writes.
Thousands of moderators overseeing the site’s subreddits are on strike. It’s a wrinkle in Reddit’s plan to go public, and a sign that plan is premature, columnist Anita Ramaswamy writes.
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Tracking the lastest news and numbers about the #RedditMigration to open, Fediverse-based alternatives, including #Kbin and #Lemmy To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/
- 0 users online
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- 102 users / month
- 3.27K users / 6 months
- 1 subscriber
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- Modlog
- mods:
The primary excuse for the API change, to charge AI companies for Reddit’s data, doesn’t hold water. After the change goes into effect, AI companies can just switch from the API to web scrapers for continued free access. It’ll require marginally more processing power, which AI companies already have in spades.
Not just charge fees… Exorbitant fees. Outrageous fees.
If Huffman wanted to target these much higher costs to LLMs, they could have instituted an approval process for 3PAs which got charged sane API fees while they charge much more for LLMs. I’m no dev but I think they could tell the difference between the two by just analyzing the API traffic.
But they aren’t doing that. Maybe LLMs were the primary target but they sure aren’t even trying to keep 3PAs around.
Maybe let them use the apps they want to use? Like we had before?
The only way to align the interests of mods with those of investors is to merge the two groups. Give the mods shares (preferably few enough that even if every invested mod bands together, they’re below 30% of the float), and allow outside investors to become mods on any subreddit they choose. That way, mods have a dog in the financial fight, which has not historically been the case.
I see this going very badly almost as soon as it’s implemented.
While I understand your concern, I’m not sure I agree. Investors have an incentive to make their investment profitable. Therefore, if they have to maintain a level of effort for an investment, they’ll do everything to make it grow. That means they’ll work to widen the community without making it too broad for advertising, work on building in organic advertising, etc… Having given it thought for six hours, I really do believe that keeping mods and investors in alignment will be important. It’s the reason why the fediverse tends to work; those who have the financial investment are the moderation team.
Keeping the interests of mods and investors in alignment is important. However, if people can buy their way into a moderator position, particularly if they get to choose the community they mod, it would be extremely easy for bad actors to take over communities, such as those that promote political activism, or offer support for marginalized groups.
A much better option would be to only offer investment to moderators who have been active for a period of time / gained a level of trust with their community.
Hahaha. Marvelous.
I hope the site never sees an IPO until it fades into obscurity.
I hope it does IPO… and wallstreetbets has a field day shorting it
Can you even short an IPO?
Wallstreetbets will find a way.