Tech companies aren’t just businesses, they’re investments.

What is Reddit CEO Steve Huffman doing?::Reddit CEO Steve Huffman seems to be preparing the company for an IPO. But is what’s good for the IPO good for the business?

  • NightOwl@lemmy.oneEnglish
    80·
    1 year ago

    Suggesting discord as a competitor to reddit is dumb when discord does not pop up in search results containing information that may provide the solution. Might as well call WhatsApp a competitor to reddit then.

    • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      91·
      1 year ago

      That’s not all people used reddit for though. I’m also absolutely devastated about the amount of generational knowledge that lives on reddit right now, and sad that some of the biggest contributors of that have probably wiped their accounts by now, but for alot of the community aspects of reddit, and finding groups with similar interest, discord does perfectly well.

      • NightOwl@lemmy.oneEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        For socializing discord can match it, but it’s really more the database of information that is searchable and viewable by anyone who doesn’t even use reddit and it not being gatewalled that makes Discord not even come close. It’s too much of a closed ecosystem even among discord account users with having to be in a particular server to benefit, and servers have been shut down and information all lost for members too.

        Socializing to me is secondary. Like when it comes to stackoverflow, xda, or whatever random forums pop up in searches it’s really the solution that’s at the forefront of importance than whether these users are friends or whatever for anyone trying to find a relevant answer to their problem.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    73·
    1 year ago

    Great article, but it does miss one point IMO. Some fights are more important than others. Pao became unpopular among extremists who wanted to be allowed to push hate speech and discrimination. Funny the article didn’t mention the revenge porn debacle.

    That actually resulted in the Voat fork of reddit, which of course quickly became a cesspool, and ended up failing.

    The fight Pao fought was necessary, for reddit to have a shred of respectability, and to even stay legal, and for reddit to not fall into a hole of hate speech and idiocy. Pao took the fall for decency, and was forced to leave. But AFAIK none of the things she did were reversed, because they were necessary.

    What Steve Huffman is doing is not necessary, on the contrary it’s thoroughly documented to be harmful to reddit as a service in general, and especially for mobile users, and even more so for people who are blind.

    There’s an enormous difference in the importance of the Hill Pao died on, and the hill Spez chose. However the article is pretty spot on about the difference in how the 2 situations are handled, and how Spez is actively making it worse.

  • proleEnglish
    54·
    1 year ago

    He’s trying to get a bag selling off the company his two smart buddies made.

  • TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.comEnglish
    53·
    1 year ago

    I agree with most of this article except about Discord being Reddit’s main competitor. I think Discord has a distinct enough feel that it’s almost kinda separate from other social media. It’s less so like a platform you make posts on and moreso a big text group with lots of features, which is perfect for some communities but stifling for others.

    • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      53·
      1 year ago

      I don’t really get a lot of what people want to use Discord for. A couple web forums I used (ram by companies, for specific games) closed and they moved to Discord. How is IRC-style chat a replacement for a forum? They’re totally different formats.

      • protput@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        While I do like discord. It is like you say a completely different format. Shouldn’t be compared to reddit.

        • Proweruser@feddit.deEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Works well enough as a group chat / voice call app. That’s what it’s for. Before discord you had to pay for good group voice calls.

          • xT1TANx@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            ya, just op was saying people are trying to turn it into a chat hub and it’s just not worth. If I want to text my friends I’ll just text them in a group chat.

        • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          That is an improvement for sure. The problem remains, though, that the info is locked in Discord and won’t show up on search engines.

          • salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.socialEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Yes, but to be fair once again, some might see it as a good thing because it might drive up engagement and discourage lurking. I.e., if you already went through the trouble of creating an account, then why not post or comment?

            • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              That’s more like Twitter or Facebook, where you have a search result telling you certain info is available, but then you have to sign in to view it. The problem with Discord is not knowing where the info is in the first place, as in which discord community. There could be many that cover a certain game, for instance.

          • salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.socialEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Yeah, the only problem is that even a forum channel would require you to create a Discord account and find that server before you can even see its content and that’s just not acceptable for massive open communities like r/malefashionadvice that seems to be moving to Discord.

        • xcjs@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I think discoverability is still a problem.

          I use Discord for real-time communication, but leaving a platform that’s closing up access for a platform with already closed access makes no sense to me. It doesn’t solve the original problem.

          • salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.socialEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Ditto! I think mass participation forums (e.g. r/malefashionadvice) should always be searchable without first having to create an account, find a particular server, join it and then search there. This is just an incredibly slow and ineffective way compared to just doing a search for my problem site:reddit.com in your favorite search engine.

  • jeffw@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    1 year ago

    Damn, I forgot about the Victoria Taylor controversy. Brings back some memories