• substill@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Reddit absolutely expected it. Wanted it, even. Reddit is going to show prospective investors its usage and engagement statistics for the duration of Place to demonstrate its continuing viability even after the API controversy.

    • plain_and_simply@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Absolutely. Any publicity is good publicity for them. Stats are used to tell their story to shareholders

      • JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not. I read this in any post here and it just doesn’t make any sense.

        r/place made the rounds the previous times outside of Reddit. It showed what an engaged community can do, and it was beautiful (especially the first one). This one will only make it clear how much of the active community is against these changes. And it’s making it much more obvious than ever.

        Yes people are using the site but Reddit won’t make bank on this. Most of the people protesting are probably using scripts and so on pc, and as such for sure using ad block as well. That’s no revenue for Reddit. Even the official mobile app can’t load it, so people aren’t even using that.

        Yes they can boast about having more engagement and activity for a few days but that’s not worth it in this case at all. Reddit shots themselves in (the other foot).

        • substill@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Reddit isn’t looking for immediate ad revenue from Place users. Reddit is looking for the extreme engagement of Place to have great stats to show investors and advertisers.

          • KairuByte@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Only to immediately bomb following, showing that their metrics are extremely unreliable, and their user base volatile.

          • LUHG@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If advertising is becoming hard on Twitter who is going to be buying big ad campaigns on Reddit? I can see it in my reply, products you don’t want to support.

          • Ooops@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Reddit is looking for the extreme engagement of Place to have great stats to show investors and advertisers.

            Do you think investors and advertisers are brain-deadly stupid? If they can see “great stats” on one hand while the media is full of reports about the ongoing protests of reddit users, they will be able to see the whole picture.

            Especially as r/place was all over the media in past years anyway. Only this year it’s full of destructive behavior and trying to destroy everything with fuck-messages. Sure, that’s totally good advertising for reddit somehow and not scaring advertisers away because “but look at the amount of people who koined to hate us”…

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The fact that this is so transparent might bite them in the ass because it demonstrates that they are aware that they might not be in a great place if they need to take actions to “prove” everything is still ok. I agree with those saying that this showing everything is fine is more likely to be misleading, and misleading investors is a great way to get sued.

            I am biased here, but to me this appears to be transparently misleading and if Reddit’s price tanks after the IPO, these actions will be examined closely during a class action suit that will get access to internal communications.

            They can show high engagement, but if that engagement isn’t linked to profit or revenue, then calling it a good reason to buy shares is misleading. They need experts in investor relations and laws to help them navigate this minefield and I suspect that in the end, there will be a big disclaimer on all of the current activity.

            Or if they are smart, this current activity isn’t for advertisers and investors but for users, to say “see, we’re still here and fun, so keep coming!”.

      • Graphine@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is why I have been pressing the ONLY solution to this for the past month.

        Do you want change? Leave Reddit. Delete the app. Never go back.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Personally, I’m at the point where I don’t really give a fuck what happens to Reddit either way, but I lean towards wanting them to continue existing as the easy low effort option for someone looking for that kind of an experience. If people chasing profit don’t think the fediverse is worth exploiting like they have been doing with Reddit, that would be a plus, but it would require Reddit to stay more popular (or for some other platform to rise above).

          This place isn’t the utopia it first seemed to be when I joined, but it’s still way better than Reddit has been for years, at least when it comes to tone of the discussion threads.