NEW YORK, Feb 7 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Social media platform Reddit, which helps its users “dive into anything,” may finally plunge into the public markets. The 19-year-old company made over $800 million in sales last year, at least 20% more than in 2022, according to Bloomberg. But a dearth of profit this late into its existence portends the lack of a real business model, suggesting it’s still not ready for public company life.

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/investors-will-say-ok-boomer-aging-reddit-2024-02-07/

Original link: https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/investors-will-say-ok-boomer-aging-reddit-2024-02-07/

  • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
    991·
    4 months ago

    A cool thing I learned from their public filing is that Spez makes 192M in total compensation, and the company has been running around 150M deficit.

    That’s the makings of a very profitable investment, you know 🙄

      • Thoth19@lemmy.world
        4·
        4 months ago

        Isn’t his comp mostly in stock? So if they cut his salary it wouldn’t really affect the profit margin so much as the valuation of his salary

        • OpenStars@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
          2·
          4 months ago

          As Wolf of Wall Street explains, at some level it isn’t even “money” anymore, it’s rather numbers like in a game - the goal being to “win”, e.g. Huffman competing against Musk.

          No matter how many salaries of irl people are being affected by their childish tantrums:-(.

    • OpenStars@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
      16·
      4 months ago

      Yeah but also, he’d rather make 400M in total compensation, so like… if you could just see your way clear to helping out that poor, poor, POOR man, that would be great! :-P

      image

  • Jackcooper@lemmy.world
    70·
    4 months ago

    I really wonder if they stayed community friendly… Would enough actual redditors be interested in owning a piece of the site they enjoyed spending time on?

    I think I would’ve liked to own reddit stock when I was on it 20-50 hours a week. Now I just root for spez to fail.

    • OpenStars@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
      26·
      4 months ago

      I am not sure if I ever want to own stock but… yeah I get what you mean. It was “ours”, at one point. Then he made it clear that it is “his”. Okay, lol, have fun with that. Spez, the canonical power-tripping Reddit mod.

      I wonder what else he ruined too - like are people never going to wear Fedoras again, as a result? (although it was kinda on the way out regardless I suppose)

      And btw, I am having fun - I must admit that I enjoy the Fediverse far more than I ever did Reddit. Lemmy is now to me what I imagine Reddit used to be, in its early days. I don’t mean to be mean but… the people here are actually worth talking to.

      • beebarfbadger@lemmy.world
        6·
        4 months ago

        That’s partly because a much higher share of people here are actually people and not just various shades of bots.

        • OpenStars@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
          31·
          4 months ago

          ^ THIS - whoops, old habits die hard.

          /s btw, b/c I’ve mostly only ever done that ironically (iirc)

          Okay, so you may not even think that’s funny, but at least if you get mad, there’s a chance that I would LISTEN and we could have a REAL discussion about that! I’ve changed people’s minds here and vice versa, and yeah been brought down a peg or two, b/c as you said these are actually people.

          Tbf Reddit has some irl people too, mixed in there, but they are… of a different kind. Some are indistinguishable from bots, while others may as well be.

          I don’t want to be social media-ist - if it was merely “another place” then that’s entirely their call, to live however they want, but dayum, it really is different over there, especially after all the best people left, though it was becoming more that way all the time even before that.

    • thawed_caveman@lemmy.world
      5·
      3 months ago

      Well yeah, the joy of owning a part of a business that is important to you is part of the reason i support worker co-ops.

      Back when i liked Reddit i would have LOVED to own a tiny share of it, it would have given a new meaning to being a moderator. But now in 2024 the DSP program left me feeling dejected.

      Wouldn’t mind owning shares in Mastodon though.

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
      3·
      4 months ago

      I would’ve bought stock if it went public five years ago. Now I wish I could short it

        • Maalus@lemmy.world
          1·
          4 months ago

          Yeah, sure. Just like the reddit boycotts will do something, just like they’d never mess with the users and that the boycotting communities will stay closed in protest.

          The reality of it is - it will go up. And it will trend up till it dies like Facebook - in irrellevancy among a different generation. So short it, wait for the long run, and lose everything you have in the process. It’ll be funny.

    • OpenStars@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
      10·
      4 months ago

      I don’t often post news articles, and this is actually my first post at all from this account, so I do welcome feedback in learning how to do it better. However, I am not sure that I understand most of what you are saying. Anyway thank you for sharing the link for others if you think it will help them somehow:-).

      First, the linked page says right at the top where the original came from?

      I do not know the security considerations there - I would have presumed that was strictly under the control of Ghostarchive, but I do not know if it could be spoofed. Anyway I will defer this topic as another consequence of the spam one that makes you want to not click the link in the first place, rather than an issue on its own.

      Second, I can view the entire article (ending with “But investors then will be buying Reddit on a leap of faith, rather than old-fashioned discipline.”, then “Follow @AnitaRamaswamy, on X”), so I think whatever issue there might be on your end. Although I did have to hunt around for the “Continue without supporting us” to click on in that horrid & giant half-page advertisement blocker (the modal kind that shades out the entire background until you deal with it - also there’s no obvious “X” to close it, and the text is not in the top right, nor bottom right, but in the bottom left so definitely forcing you to pay attention to it, if you want to read the article). I guess that got through whatever process Ghostarchive uses to strip such things away - although at least all the ads are gone (in multiple browsers that I look at this link with), and that’s not nothing:-).

      Btw I tried the wayback machine internet archive first, but it failed to find the page, so this Ghostarchive was my second attempt, and since it worked I just went with it.

      Third, what do you mean have the potential for spam and trickery? Can you point me to something to read more about that?

      Anyway I added it to the main body as you suggested. It looks odd like that b/c for some reason that link was both already there (in the quote block), yet refused to show up for some reason, until I added something after it - presumably some internal coding mechanics for this community.

      Anyway, send me more to read if you are interested.

      • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
        7·
        4 months ago

        Yea no problem, and thanks for caring a lot about it :) appreciate it

        It’s a pretty minor thing in the case of your post since, as you said, people can access the link easily after. That’s how I got the link I commented.

        The format I prefer seeing is

        • Link: Original article link
        • Body: whatever content you want to include + archive link

        The main advantage is that a lot of apps will use the link to generate a preview image, and sometimes put the base domain. When the archive link is used, there is no preview image and the base domain is the archive site, offering much less information.

        So if someone wanted to spread articles from a bad site, people wouldn’t see that it’s from the bad site until they clicked and opened the post (which not everyone does). You could also put a title saying it’s from a news site (ex. Reuters), but actually put something awful in the actual link. Without a preview, people won’t be able to skip it. Also if you know you don’t like a particular site, it’s harder to block it if it’s hidden behind an archive link.

        It’s basically all the same issues with the URL shorteners, which is why shortener domains are blocked in a lot of places.

        As for the broken site, it is on my end but it’s likely affecting other people with a similar setup. I get this message whereas the actual article loads fine.

        Sorry, ReplayWeb.page won’t work in this browser as Service Workers are not supported. Please try a different browser. (Service Workers are disabled in Firefox in Private Mode. If Using Private Mode in Firefox, try regular mode)

        This is less important though because I know sometimes the opposite happens, where the archive link works but the actual site doesn’t. The bigger benefit is the point above

    • Deceptichum@kbin.social
      81·
      4 months ago

      Counterpoint put the original link in the body, so people by default can visit the more permanent and paywall free article.

      I click the link before I go into the topic to read the body/comments. This way makes sure shit sites don’t get views.

      • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
        51·
        4 months ago

        Well yes, but you can do that with the link in the body as well.

        Original link in the main spot means you can see the preview. Archive link in the main spot means no previews or other details

        You can get the benefits of both by putting the original link in the main spot and the archive link at the very top of the body. I also think that people are more likely to engage with a post when there’s a preview image, over a little link icon

        • OpenStars@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
          4·
          4 months ago

          Exactly! So how does that not make it fraud, as in an attempt to spike the perceived valuation of his company’s stock? Ianal, so my only guess is that it is different rules for a private vs. publicly-owned company. It being stock options is what made it possible, but I question whether it is legal? And either way, it seems unethical.