>> The entire company is staying in place: we just have different owners now.

I've been a part of a couple of these. This statement is somewhere on the spectrum of absolutely naive to willfully disingenuous.

"Someone just paid 2 billion dollars to buy us, but they're not going to change anything, exert any influence or expect payback beyond what we've already been doing."

>Reddit seems like an example of a successful acquisition

For whom? For people who uses it since the beginning it isn’t even the same place anymore. It’s UX (and I’m not talking about the aesthetics of the new design, I don’t mind those) is legitimately the worst I’ve ever experienced and the quality of discussion has went down the drain. Even if you find a tightly controlled community dedicated to a topic you’re interested in it’s either one extreme to another or doesn’t last long.

That doesn’t even get into the constant rolling out for Facebook-tier features that no Reddit user ever wanted. I stopped using Reddit last month after ~12 years and I’ve since realized I was getting nothing but regurgitated memes and anger from a dozen people replying to my every comment who aren’t even addressing what I was saying just arguing for arguments sake.

It’s basically what Facebook groups were in 2016 at this point. I’m sure it’s a great acquisition for those who bought it, but for the old power users it’s anything but.

> Conde Nast managed not to destroy Reddit after buying it.

Their current plan seems to be a race to the bottom; a new re-design for the default landing page that rewards infinite scroll over in-depth content.

Meanwhile, the moderation tools are still garbage.

>Conde Nast managed not to destroy Reddit after buying it.

That.... is a very positive view of Reddit. I'd say everything on Reddit is way worse now and going downhill fast.

Conde Nast also owns Ars Technica, which personally is my favorite tech-news site and has high and consistent quality.

> The entire company is staying in place: we just have different owners now.

Says everyone who is involved in huge company acquisitions ever, and most of the time it does not hold true. The rest is common marketing talk.

I'm certainly not saying it is impossible for that to be true, but such a statement itself does not hold any value.

> Stack Overflow is so good, and its fate is now entirely in the hands of the purchaser.

I wonder how much of it is Google making it look good by providing laser-precise results for the vaguest search queries.

> Conde Nast managed not to destroy Reddit after buying it.

Reddit is simply dying a slow death. I wouldn't touch the place now.

>most important part of this announcement is that Stack Overflow will continue to operate independently, with the exact same team in place that has been operating it, according to the exact same plan and the exact same business practices

...at least until this purchase news died down a bit, and then we can get some managers in there to make new priorities and get some of the old ones out...

> Reddit seems like an example of a successful acquisition. Conde Nast managed not to destroy Reddit after buying it.

Ehhhh not so sure on that one.

Reddit's managed that on their own.

> Conde Nast managed not to destroy Reddit after buying it.

I would have said the exact opposite. The Reddit community was destroyed. People no longer recommend Reddit for interesting discussions or speak excitedly about its communities. Conde Nast monetized and changed Reddit, recouping their investment, and now it's hard to find people who have good things to say about it.

Consider e.g. /r/darknetplan or similar topic focused subreddit a that were thriving in the early 2000s - all graveyards today. Those people are on Discord now.

> Reddit seems like an example of a successful acquisition.

In relation to money, or to users?

Reddit is awful now, forcing everyone to an app and privacy out the window

> Conde Nast managed not to destroy Reddit after buying it.

Now Bon Appetit on the other hand...