How do you address the concerns of users who feel that Reddit has become increasingly profit-driven and less focused on community engagement?

We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive. Unlike some of the 3P apps, we are not profitable.

  • godless@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    *billion

    And profitability is not the same as generating revenue.

    You can earn $200M a quarter and still have expenses of $220M, meaning you’re making a net loss.

    That’s why companies focus on exponential growth first and don’t really care about portability, but once the userbase is large enough, they will try to monetize it. Either through ads, or paid subscriptions, premium plans, special avatars, etc.

    That will surely piss of some of the early adopters, but usually isn’t significant enough to make an actual dent.

    The last step (which we have also seen) is then kicking out staff. That has two effects:

    1., It brings down the overhead (= salaries and attached taxes & social security) 2. The revenue per capita is inflated, i.e. it looks as if every employee is generating 4000 bucks instead of 2500 (random example), which is something that looks good in an IPO prospectus.

    • Kaiser@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Thank you for the explanation, I’m having a hard time understanding how an “unprofitable” business has managed to stay afloat this long.

      • planet_barf@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Investors will give cash in exchange for equity in the company. The cash is used to fund whatever expenses aren’t covered by revenue. Those investors are going to expect profitability to come eventually. Sometimes the business winds up doing some stuff that damages their product in order to achieve profitability.

      • godless@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Through investors, who consider the revenue a good indication for future profits. So they float the bill and receive shares in the company instead, and cash out during the IPO.