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0 pointscolinmhayes3y ago0 comments

More importantly, it's very difficult to block ads on a mobile app. Reddit's problem is that the vast majority of their "power users" use adblockers and therefore provide zero revenue. Mobile also makes it much easier to doom scroll for hours a day, key to facebook's success.

As far as I can tell reddit's website provides minimal income and is just an ad for their app.

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ad404b8a372f2b93y ago

Go to any popular subreddit and click the "gilded" tab at the top. At the top of this page it tells you how many months of server time "gold"s purchased in the subreddit paid for, you will be shocked.

I've seen subreddits with less than 50000 subscribers who had enough purchases to cover 3 years of server cost. /r/aww alone paid for 772 years of server time according to their calculations.

Reddit could go on indefinitely as is with no advertising.

colinmhayesOP3y ago

> Reddit could go on indefinitely as is with no advertising.

I don't think the goal of tech companies is to just "go on indefinitely." Their investors need them to make billions of dollars.

ad404b8a372f2b93y ago

Well of course, I was only responding to the point about whether the website made any money without advertising.

Given that the technology is solved, and the financing is solved, I wish there were a way to build such a website with such a community without the cycle always ending in its destruction for the sake of profit.

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spoils193y ago

I'd be careful with that - it's widely known that Reddit admins use "fake" gold to artificially bring content that they want to the frontpage.

josephcsible3y ago

To be clear, it costs real money for regular people to give Reddit gold, but Reddit admins can do it for free. So it's a very strong signal from everyone but them, but just as meaningless as an upvote from them.

ad404b8a372f2b93y ago

Good to keep in mind for the large subreddits and to put a grain on salt on those approximations, but even the subreddits hated by the admins show years-worth of purchases, it's also not likely to be prevalent in those like /r/aww where it's exclusively pictures of pets.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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ad404b8a372f2b93y ago

I've seen subreddits with less than 50000 subscribers who had enough purchases to cover 3 years of server cost. /r/aww alone paid for 772 years of server time according to their calculations.

Reddit could go on indefinitely as is with no advertising.

colinmhayesOP3y ago

> Reddit could go on indefinitely as is with no advertising.

I don't think the goal of tech companies is to just "go on indefinitely." Their investors need them to make billions of dollars.

ad404b8a372f2b93y ago

Well of course, I was only responding to the point about whether the website made any money without advertising.

1 more reply

spoils193y ago

I'd be careful with that - it's widely known that Reddit admins use "fake" gold to artificially bring content that they want to the frontpage.

josephcsible3y ago

ad404b8a372f2b93y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse