Even if we want to talk about the IPO in the context of profitability, spez’ decisions are still pretty bad.
Forget revenue for a second and look at expenses. Reddit has had a long chain of extremely foolish expensive endeavours. They keep investing dev effort into things like snoovatars, becoming a content host (images videos), trying to roll thier own video player, creating “spaces” which failed miserably. The resistance to even using their new UX is very high, old.reddit still is in massive use simply because their new UX isn’t very good.
Reddit has been obsessed with throwing money away on things that aren’t making them any money, and aren’t driving site traffic or engagement.
The clearest path to profitability for Reddit isn’t about trying to invent notional revenue with an API pricing structure that nobody will actually pay for… But instead simply stopping spending money on pointless development.
In fact, I think this whole stunt will have backfired in the sense that if he hadn’t made this API pricing mistake, IPO investors may have believed it was an opportunity for improved revenue. I expect that when the dust settles, spez will have instead proven that it ISN’T a significant untapped opportunity to be had.
It is for sure going to be a shitshow.
Even if we want to talk about the IPO in the context of profitability, spez’ decisions are still pretty bad.
Forget revenue for a second and look at expenses. Reddit has had a long chain of extremely foolish expensive endeavours. They keep investing dev effort into things like snoovatars, becoming a content host (images videos), trying to roll thier own video player, creating “spaces” which failed miserably. The resistance to even using their new UX is very high, old.reddit still is in massive use simply because their new UX isn’t very good.
Reddit has been obsessed with throwing money away on things that aren’t making them any money, and aren’t driving site traffic or engagement.
The clearest path to profitability for Reddit isn’t about trying to invent notional revenue with an API pricing structure that nobody will actually pay for… But instead simply stopping spending money on pointless development.
In fact, I think this whole stunt will have backfired in the sense that if he hadn’t made this API pricing mistake, IPO investors may have believed it was an opportunity for improved revenue. I expect that when the dust settles, spez will have instead proven that it ISN’T a significant untapped opportunity to be had.