Every interest has different levels of content. Pictures range from works of art that took hours to conceptualize, to images of a cat butt with a text overlay.
As a subreddit becomes more popular, the greatest common denominator's interests take precedence. And while you can attempt a solution by splitting the sub community, say, no text overlays, that doesn't work as well everywhere.
For example, a programming community needs to split into subs for languages, and the technical level of the articles. This makes aggregation more difficult, and ruins an information flow that would include a home for overall high quality posters-- now they have a more difficult time determining where to post, and must question whether the articles they submit meet the requirements for technical depth etc.
Even then, the process of dilution begins again as the lesser posters begin to inflate the sub communities.
That said; my Dad has a saying: "things are not as good as they used to be; and they never were"
It's something that has to happen and will happen to the best of em, and it just depends on how Reddit chooses to handle the situation.
A really great example of good monetization I think is Ultimate Guitar. The site used to be completely free and the community of musicians was and still is unparalleled on the internet. They've monetized pretty heavily over the years by offering paid tools and more features/premium-content for musicians (even making their own mobile apps for things like tuners, tabs, etc). I think it was a great way to monetize the community on top of ads. However, it benefits from having a very specific focus (music) and a very focused and passionate community which makes the process of monetization a little easier.
The problem Reddit will have I think is that the community is extremely open, unfocused, and unrestricted (as well as having multiple sub-communities). Its very user-driven so it becomes difficult to creatively monetize without infringing on their "freedoms" or "openness". For example, I think /r/iama would be a great outlet for brands to come and have a conversation with the community (for example, before a movie release). However, that subreddit is ALREADY used like that, and it's very open. Anyone (including any brand) can come in and do an AMA so any type of monetization would have to to be a complement to the community (can't monetize the community itself without killing it or pissing people off). So how can Reddit monetize without just resorting to ads and promoted content? It's a difficult question and I don't see a clear answer.
If they do decide to do stuff like "featured" posts, I think they will have to be very very careful to not clutter up the user-upvoted content and hopefully they'll work hard to make the "featured" stuff interesting to the community. They'll have to make some important decisions when monetizing and I wish them the best of luck.
That kind of behavior has been pretty much the norm for years at reddit. Not to say it's ubiquitous, reddit still has great content and what I'd call 'safe' subreddits where that behavior isn't tolerated. Also, to be clear to those who don't know, 'OP is a faggot' is supposed to be an ironic meme rather than hate speech. A terrible meme, but I wouldn't want people to misunderstand and think reddit has become a cesspool of hate.
"Oh, it's OK and funny to call people faggots"
I wish regular Redditors would stamp this shit out.
No, I'm not being unnecessarily precious or PC. I used to laugh at distasteful misogynistic jokes (and worse) but somebody pointed out to me that joking about it normalizes it. And to the depraved part of society the joke is missed and they see it as support for their depravity.
Except when they don't[1].
> . A terrible meme, but I wouldn't want people to misunderstand and think reddit has become a cesspool of hate.
The language originates from 4chan, where it is also used ironically. I get rather annoyed when I hear people dismiss 4chan as homophobic, because under the surface, it's actually not. Then again, if Reddit is starting to mimic 4chan in terms of its language and linguistic memes, either 4chan's reputation is ill-deserved, or Reddit's reputation will start to resemble 4chan's.
You're not their main audience, and they're massively popular. They're continuing to grow in popularity, and they're becoming increasingly relevant as a primary source of information. Reddit represents a fundamental step forward in how the internet interconnects everyday people.
You may not see anything worthwhile, but in reality it's one of the most exciting future prospects of the internet in general. It has the potential to affect and influence generations. Something like that is truly special.
>It has the potential to affect and influence generations.
Other giants in fading industries should take note.
> (...) and now it's worth about half of the New York Times.
For me personally Reddit is much more important than the NYT will ever be. If the NYT disappears tomorrow I couldn't care less. There's other publications that will fill its place. Reddit has allowed me to meet great people, have in-depth conversations on topics that no one in my near vicinity cares about and expand my knowledge into fields I never knew possible. It's a great place.
It has to be viewed in that context. A context in which Facebook was botching mobile major time and described it as its major challenge in public filings.
Which, (given a fixed supply of exactly 1 Instgram) means that it was worth $1B.
Whether Facebook overpaid (ie, whether they would have been better off spending part or all of that $1B elsewhere) is a completely separate question - the point is, the market valued Instagram at $1B.