It did a lot of things already. Their valuation was halved (maybe not that bad, but it’s wasn’t good) after it was already not that great.

It made the “important” people take a step back and question whether they should spend their advertising dollars on Reddit. At least a handful of the bigger advertising companies paused their ads on Reddit.

It put a bug in investors ears. The last thing you want, from a newly acquired asset, is shit tons of bad press and drama, along with a public devaluation.

Google publicly commenting on Reddit protests screwing up search results got into the minds of people that may have never even paid attention.

During the blackouts user time spent on Reddit decreased, and overall traffic decreased slightly. The first matters more. If less people are engaging with the site, for less time each use, that’s less ads they will see. I haven’t seen too many stats about usage a month later.

The user side is what will take time to see what happens. As content quality goes down, some people will be less interested. Then again, look at the rest of social media. Most people don’t really seem to care much about actual content, so maybe I’m wrong on that one.

Oh, that last bit about volunteers not being beholden to shareholders is not something that had occurred to me before. That definitely raises the risk of this asset.

The Reddit IPO will be an amazing short opportunity.