Things that work aren’t profitable (enough). A thing that works is good for expanding customer base. A thing that almost works is good for profit per customer base. The thing is… A thing that works and is sustainable to maintain provides the most long term profits. There’s no legal requirement a company grow in scope, but most investors (both in small and large companies) see that as the only way. Reddit has been operating on an unsustainable business model. Their core feature set is simple. Their userbase was loyal, and willing to pay for Reddit gold to directly keep the website running. The holes in their sustainability were a huge staff to develop features to grow their customer base despite no one wanting or asking for those features, a terrible ad model that left money on the table by not putting ads where they’d have the most effect (why did I always get Ford ads on r/FuckCars, never Taco Bell ads on r/ShittyFoodPorn, no small online stationary shops on r/FountainPens?) and not returning ads in API calls, and finally an API model that went from free to impossible to justify overnight. But no one on the board of directors is interested in a business that consistently makes money over the long term. They want to make as much money as possible all in one go.

Let me ask you this. Which is better? To run a small coffee roaster that employs 8 people and serves coffee through one physical shop and one online store front to a loyal fan base by serving a high quality product in small batches, or to be massive coffee company, shadowed in scale only by Starbucks and Peets, but going into bankruptcy because you can’t keep up with Starbucks and Peets? I’d take the consistent sustainable business every time, but too many people want to be the big winner with the bankrupt company, and the result is the small investors, the ones who bought into the big coffee company, or Reddit, end up holding the bag while the people who took their money deploy their golden parachutes