Most people I think see through this, they’re just trying to bring in some bag holders to inflate the share price while they cash out.
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Yeah I don't think mods and "power users" that stayed after last year are necessarily against reddit succeeding, just not willing to buy in at a 6.5bil valuation for a company that can't turn a profit and lost 90+ mil last year and 700+ cumulative. The CEO got 193 mil last year it's clear where their priorities are. And after the bad will they gained last year burning mods and third party apps it's not a big surprise many are watching with a big ol' bucket of popcorn.
They kicked myself and my entire mod team from r/Canning because we held a vote and our users asked us to shut the community down in protest of their 3rd party app policies.
Then recently they emailed and messaged me telling me I could get in on the ground floor of buying shares.
That’s going to be a big resounding “no” from me there u/spez.
They emailed me too. Guess I was a power user, because I wasn't a mod!
I ignored it. It's especially egregious because I'm Canadian, and I think it's for Americans only.
Since they killed third-party apps, I think I've gotten more emails from them than the number of times I've signed in. Haven't even posted a single comment since RIF died.
RIP RIF
Canadian here as well, and no — we can’t participate. Not that it hasn’t stopped them from contacting me several times anyway.
Unfortunately, even if this IPO crashes and burns the real villains in this story are going to make it out with millions in their pockets.
I didn't know too much about canning before the drama last summer (except that it's hard physical kitchen labor I'd rather not do), but when I read what was going on it was clear you guys were really holding the line against the continual bombardment of the sub with truly unsafe "hacks" and "shortcuts" and "it never hurt me and I've been doing it for years" posts. I am absolutely convinced there are a non-zero number of people who are alive because you stopped them from this stupidity, and the painstaking, precise work you put into sourcing your statements and linking the science was quite impressive even to this total non-canner.
And then Reddit admin put their scabs in anyway.
Which is to say that Reddit admin is made of fools. I split in solidarity when the API changes kicked the accessibility users off (the third party app devs were the ONLY folks who cared enough in almost two decades to make Reddit usable for anyone needing accessibility) but afterward, reading about what they did to gut harm reduction in various subs like r/canning just convinced me that I was right to consider them literally conscienceless and take my posting elsewhere.
Their loss. In so many ways. Glad you're here on Lemmy too.
Are you saying that they... canned you?
Sorry I couldn't resist.
You’re not the first to have noted that — but it remains funny, so we’re good 🤣.
Ha they sent me the same message, and while I was not booted as a mod, I led the protest effort in a few subs that I modded in and helped out over in Save3rdPartyApps. I didn’t delete my account, just went silent after resigning when other mods got cold feet as soon as it started to get real.
Yeah, you may have seen some of my posts from the time on r/Save3rdPartyApps and/or r/ModCoord. I was one of the few pretty vocal that we had to hold the line, and that a simple two week blackout wasn’t going to be effective. I knew they’d either be forced to capitulate or kick me out as the head moderator or r/Canning — and wasn’t surprised after most of the other mods chickened out that they did just that.
I wasn’t about to chicken out — the worst they could do is remove from me the privilege of working for them for free. My entire personality and self-worth wasn’t tied to being a Reddit moderator.
You guys did good work there.
I got the offer too even though I left in June. 2 million karma, 11 year user. F SPEZ.
I also left in June, and also got the offer. My karma was in the low 6 figures and I had been on for like 5 or 6 years. Honestly, a low bar
I’m still technically a moderator elsewhere, but I haven’t been active since June (no posts, no moderation, no messages). It’s an artifact of being one of the approved contributors on r/AskScience — they delegate a controlled set of moderator powers to anyone in their Panel Plus programme.
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I don't think that they looked at activity in the past year. They just sent them out in waves based on total karma. I've barely been active and not eligible to participate and still got the emails.
not eligible to participate and still got the emails.
Same.
Yeah I don't think mods and "power users" that stayed after last year are necessarily against reddit succeeding, just not willing to buy in at a 6.5bil valuation for a company that can't turn a profit and lost 90+ mil last year and 700+ cumulative.
I got the invite but didn't do anything about it because:
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I assumed the invite had been sent to just about everyone;
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I like going there, but not enough to give them money.... Or disable my adblock.... Or switch to the accursed "modern layout"...
Come to think of it, I don't like reddit at all, Just the communities that exist there.
Reddit, the company vs. Reddit, the community.
Not an iconic duo... They couldn't be more different from one another in their goals.
There's nothing against wanting to make profit of something you own. The way they are forcing through it though. They were just fine with blocking 3rd party apps, in order to not lose on the opportunity to sell the access, because suddenly AI's hunger to be trained was sucking all the community's content for free,
I think that they didn't even lose a thought about the consequences of suddenly charging an absurd amount of money to get API access. They way they handled it, made obvious that they don't give a flying fuck.
An established and beloved way of using Reddit, lots of refined apps, being constantly updated over the years. The very apps that enabled a good experience on mobile, specially for mods, enabling people to create that very content they are selling now.
It's disrespectful and just bad taste, but not unexpected from a pos like ^fuck Spez tbh
He didn't get 190 mil. He got 190 mil of stock at that stupid valuation. He got paid like 300k cash. Spez gets nothing if the IPO is an albatross
"Popcorn tastes good."
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I wonder how soon I'll be able to buy puts on reddit and actually make some cash from them.
Yeah, I've said the same. The fact that they're aiming for users with high karma means that really think they're suckers.
All it takes is people going elsewhere and they are worth nothing. Reddit isn’t like Twitter, where it’s all about you. I came here, have the same conversations, and haven’t even noticed I’m not on Reddit any longer.
I used to be pretty big into Reddit. I haven't been back in almost a year except a couple of google search results. I do notice a difference though. There is less diversity in expressed thoughts here. I don't miss the doomscrolling though, I can run out of new content here and I like that.
Also because there is less content its more meaningful. There's a lot of fluff and garbage on Reddit just so people can get karma.
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I used a great apk on reddit before reddit fucked it over with the api call fiasco. That's when I moved to lemmy and found an apk called Thunder that is extremely similar. So right now the only real difference for me is the much lower user base, so there's less "niche" subs/instances. Of course, that will also go away so long as people keep migrating over.
When even the people that work for Reddit, for free, don't want to buy your bs stonk
Not sure I would call myself a power user. While I did have a few posts over 50k, I was not exactly creating a ton of content. Still got an email though and decided against investing.
My few posts were almost exclusively in my local sub and plant identification, I never had a post crack 1000. Almost all my karma came from comments. Since I also got the offer, I'm guessing the bar was set very low
Yep, same, think I had 65k karma, mostly from comments, got an email, also balked
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Huh, I thought everyone received the email. Never made a single post on Reddit, only ever commented and still got the thing.
I think everyone got it out eventually, but I know they rolled it out in stages based on total karma. The more karma you had, the earlier you got the IPO email. And they didn't distinguish between post and comment karma. I had almost no post karma, but 402k comment karma (mostly from account age), so I got emailed pretty early.
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Right, why would I bother with the reddit IPO? IPO pricing is all over the place. If I want it - I don't - I'll buy it day 1.
Similar story, though I had over 100,000 karma, I never made any posts. It was all comment karma. I got invitations on both my accounts, even though ones been retired for years and the other I stopped using after the bullshit last year.
I initially thought I might participate in the IPO. I’m still not over what /u/spez did last year but I justified it the same way I ever bet AGAINST my favorite sports teams. That way if they lose there would is still an upside. I don’t think Reddit will be a great investment. But if they are, hey, at least there’s some money in my pocket.
This would have been my first IPO. And what made me finally decide against participating was the recognition that buying into an IPO, unlike regular stock trading, is actually putting money directly into the company’s pockets.
Fuck that; fuck them; and especially fuck /u/spez.
I read a pretty brutal analysis by a financial expert on some business magazine site. My biggest takeaways were:
- new shares get 1 vote per share, existing shareholders 10 per share
- under the rules they are doing the ipo they can skip providing solid numbers for the last years, and are unbound by board opinion on how much money can go into executive compensation and golden parachute packages.
Now I’m not an investor at all but this rings so many grift alarm bells I don’t understand why anyone would buy that shit. Seems like a completely dubious investment set up to pay out spez and then collapse.
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I appreciated the article. Apparently not lost on the writer was the quote from the mod of r/Equestrian which was almost entirely obscure horse puns.
Only on the last line did he manage to reign himself in.
So they voted ‘neigh’?
They feel that the Reddit IPO would turn out to be lame.
They’re gonna link your account to your identity and then your data will be worth a lot more in a sale. Fuck that shit
Unsurprisingly the people who have had to deal with Reddit's leadership for years don't trust them. Shocking. That said I could see a lot of Redditors still buying in, just out of fear that they might miss out on the next big "get-rich-quick" opportunity.
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Reddit doesn't function like a real business (i.e. most of the work is unpaid volunteers, users and especially mods). There's no genuine site-wide code of ethics beyond what will actually get them criminal charges. The written rules don't matter - many moderators are unpaid bullies who permaban if their feelings are hurt and ignore questionable content they agree with. That system of banning users based on opinion kills discussion of "unapproved" views and sorts people into forums where their favorite opinions (and often outright hatreds) are popular. Loathe a particular race/gender/political ideology etc? Just find a subreddit where the mods agree and you'll be fine saying some truly terrible stuff. Read the bloodthirsty posts on r/worldnews and tell me if the site-wide rules on not promoting violence or racism apply. For these reasons and more I don't think anyone should be buying into their IPO because they aren't a reliable business.
I don't know if Lemmy is different because I've been here for less than a month, but at least here it feels like you can have different opinions and the worst that happens is you eat downvotes. Plus a lot of the really unethical takes are usually checked pretty hard in my (limited) experience by the users, which doesn't happen when the only other voices are basically guaranteed to agree with you (a la most of Reddit).
The rest of this is just my Reddit survivor tale so if you don't care stop here. I got invited to the IPO on the same week I got a 3-day site-wide ban after appealing a subreddit permaban for a fairly popular comment that the US should stop funding Israel and give the money to Ukraine (on a post about how the US is having trouble finding money for Ukraine). In those words, no hate speech or racism etc. When I asked why I was banned I got a 4-word insult as the only communication back. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but it sure felt like I was being deliberately censored/punished for high-ish profile "dangerous" anti-Israeli opinion. May not be the case, but it was my first site-wide ban ever for a comment that broke no written rules.
My Reddit account is 13 years old and in 2023 I think I made about 100k karma, primarily with comments about history, education, and in one case a post about how awesome sperm whales are. My experience mirrors what I've read happens to others enough that Reddit has lost my participation (I've only posted 2x in the last 3 months, down from a few times daily) and my faith. I only go back to check on specialist communities (video game tips etc) and almost never participate anymore. Frankly I hope it either changes to allow for discussion or dies.
I was targeted by someone pathetic whose feelings were hurt (knowing me, it was a remark about how MAGA folks are idiotic hypocrites). They dug through my post history, and reported a comment I’d made months before about how someone needed a slap in the head. They reported it, and I was banned for “promoting violence”.
It wasn’t a permaban, but as far as I was concerned, it may as well have been. My account had been active for years, and I’d never been banned before. I felt let down that the mods had been fooled by such a stupid, obvious trick. Fortunately, a few weeks later, spez pissed everyone off and a lot of people left anyway.
Plus, I have the knowledge that I annoyed some troll SO MUCH that they read through months of my comments looking for something to report. Heh heh heh.
The fact that reddit cares is mostly used for harassment told me all I needed to know about how they're handling their community.
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Rather take your money to the casino kids. I think the reddit IPO will crash and burn. Not only because spez is a total fucking tool destroying the platform. But the reddit model will be tough to be a booming profitable business. All they really have is add revenue and users will start seeing through the smoke and mirrors no matter how hard they try to disguise them as normal posts. We have already seen this type of manoeuvre is not easy with Twitter.
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