How Reddit crushed the biggest protest in its history
www.theverge.com
Users were outraged, but Reddit mostly won.

How is reddit post protest, did it really win over protesters? Did the ones who left make a dent? Or like all things before, did it ultimately do nothing?

  • @Sideral@lemmy.worldEnglish
    102•1 year ago

    The big reveal on the impact from this will be in the aftermath from the future IPO. I believe the damage on the brand certainly had a big impact on the target price Reddit can ask.

    Also, it showed how fragile its ecosystem is to a bunch of unpaid volunteers which may not have the shareholders interest at heart.

    • @AttackBunny@lemmy.worldEnglish
      67•1 year ago

      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.

      • ParadoxEnglish
        3•1 year ago

        Valuation was halved before the protests started.

          • ParadoxEnglish
            2•1 year ago

            It’s referring to the Fidelity cut, which was announced at the end of May

            • @AttackBunny@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1•1 year ago

              And I was referring to the one that I linked, which took place after that one, and after the protests started.

              • ParadoxEnglish
                2•1 year ago

                I don’t see it. The Gizmodo article sources this TechCrunch article, which says (emphasis mine):

                Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund valued its holdings in Reddit at $15.4 million as of May 31, according to the fund’s monthly disclosure released Friday. That’s down 7.36% from the $16.6 million mark at April’s closure and altogether a slide of 45.4% since its investment in August 2021. The updated share value suggests a $5.5 billion valuation for Reddit

                Yeah Giz is reporting that the valuation has been sliced after the protests, but their own source disagrees with them

    • @jennwiththesea@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27•1 year ago

      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.