Reddit Made the Mistake of Ignoring Its Core Users
Reddit has mostly come back to life after a multiday protest by moderators took thousands of forums offline. But whether the freewheeling site has addressed the deeper tensions tugging at the company is another matter.
More than 8,000 subreddits, the specialized forums that make up the platform visited by almost 60 million people daily, went dark earlier this week to protest Reddit's decision to impose expensive conditions on the creators of third-party apps. The move angered power users who depend on those apps to make Reddit easier to use.
The conflict highlights the innate tension surrounding Reddit as it envisions finally moving ahead with its long-awaited initial public offering, now anticipated for sometime later this year.
Chief Executive Officer Steve Huffman told his staff in an email Tuesday that “like all blowups on Reddit, this will pass as well.”
Before moving past this week's events, Huffman would be wise to recognize that the argument playing out is far bigger than this one issue. Users have long worried about what going public will mean for their beloved social-media platform, having seen sites like Twitter and Meta shift priorities and ethos under the pressures of pleasing Wall Street.
Unlike Meta and other, bigger tech peers, Reddit has managed to retain its identity as a non-corporate, free-spirited space. Aside from some advertising, the platform has changed little since its founding in 2005.
But Reddit has paid a price for staying cool and no-frills: The company isn't profitable.
“It is a different kind of tech company,” app developer Christian Selig told me. “Reddit of course has to keep the lights on, and of course has server bills and engineers to pay, [but] they aren't the ones providing the actual
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