Summary

Reddit shares have dropped 50% from their February peak, when the stock had soared over 500% from its $34 IPO price last March.

Much of the early enthusiasm came from AI-related deals allowing Reddit’s content to be used for training models, but recent doubts about long-term growth in the AI sector have dimmed that optimism.

Analysts remain skeptical and some call the stock “super overvalued,” noting Reddit still is not making any money.

Market uncertainty and early investor sell-offs continue to weigh on Reddit and the broader tech sector.

Non-paywall link

  • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Lets take a platform driven by community participation and ostracize community users. Yeah that’ll work out well.

    Reddit getting Digged and me likey.

    • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      That is a deep cut reference. They are relaunching as an AI play.

      That will bring back the people who were providing the free content.

      (/s on the last part)

      • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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        18 days ago

        Seriously. I remember Digg. My life’s social media path has been slashdot->digg->reddit->lemmy.

        I was there! I saw it all! <shakes cane>

    • arrow74@lemm.ee
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      19 days ago

      Yep the train from being offered early access to their IPO as a “power user” to a permanent account ban did not take long.

      So here I am

      • rice@lemmy.org
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        18 days ago

        yep they will, it’ll be grok running 99% of twitter and 95% of reddit in the next 5 years. (and those numbers are probably already near there)

  • Madrigal@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Aww, did Spez trade the family cow for some “magic” beans?

    Good luck rebuilding the farm now, buddy.

    • Talaraine@fedia.io
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      19 days ago

      My parting message to Spez when I changed all my posts was, “Enjoy the IPO asshat!” While I wish I could update that message, it’ll still do. xD

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        18 days ago

        hi i am the human male, called spez, i was birthed from a alien space ship , and hatched from an egg and sent to earth to manipulate the populace.

  • TomMasz@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Spez fundamentally misunderstands what Reddit is and who it belongs to: the people making the posts and providing the content. The more he alienates the users, the less value Reddit will have. He’s shot himself in the foot and he’s getting ready to fire again.

  • aramis87@fedia.io
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    19 days ago

    It’s not just the AI bubble, it’s a distinct lack of faith in Huffman and as a CEO. He’s not forward-thinking enough, he hasn’t understood where the company’s value lies, and he’s ridiculously distracted by the latest shiny tech things (reddit NFT avatars, reddit crypto, reddit AI).

    I fully expect Google to buy reddit at some point, exclusively harvesting all the info for their search engine, all the content for their AI models, and all the submission/view/voting data for their user profiles (what are you interested in, what do you think of these concepts, where are you connecting from, here are more ads we can send you, and these are arguments that might sway you in purchasing or other decisions).

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      18 days ago

      If Google weren’t under antitrust pressure, I think that would have already happened.

      In many ways, a Google owner would probably make Reddit better for a while. Google cares a lot more about the data people are generating than making the site itself profitable. They could afford to run it at a loss for years, whereas Reddit investors want to ensure they make money soon.

      But, I’m glad it might not happen. Then again, who knows what will happen to Google and antitrust in the Trump admin, where bribery is now perfectly legal.

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
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    19 days ago

    If you deleted your content, reminder to go back and check it again. Despite running a deletion from my GDPR export data, yesterday I noticed a bunch of comments suddenly showing up on my account that weren’t there before so I i had to rerun the deletion.

    • Tiefling IRL
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      19 days ago

      Is there a way to delete your data if you’ve been site banned?

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        19 days ago

        I’m not sure. If you can log in, probably. You can try a GDPR request, but reddit has refused to delete data under GDPR, saying deleting your name off posts and comments is sufficient.

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      18 days ago

      Should also go back and check to see if you were unbanned. I was banned during the API purge, for mass editing+deleting my comments. First automod banned me from various pro-Spez subs when I started editing my old comments. Then when I repeated the edit+delete with my second/third/etc accounts, it “permanently” banned them site wide for ban evasion.

      Went back a little while later, and all of my accounts were magically unbanned and all of the edits+deletes were undone. The benign explanation is likely that the ban(s) prevented any of the edits from actually committing. But the more tinfoil-hat explanation is that the admins want the site to look more active, so they rolled back bans so old content was still available and their user count appeared higher than reality.

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        18 days ago

        it does explain why you could comment in subs you were banned years ago. i heard at least from the modhelp sub that permabans were supposodely to be 1-year before it gets unbanned, obvious repeat offendors get a lifetime ban(the spammers excessive account bottings). but thing is some subs dont update thier filters so they can ban you again, and trigger a sitewide ban.

    • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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      19 days ago

      There’s a non-malicious reason for this - if you used a script based on interacting with the website, when subreddits went hidden, it actually hidden your own comments from you. So they aren’t visible to automated scripts and then when subreddits go visible again, suddenly it looks like comments “came back”.

      • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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        19 days ago

        And this is compliant with GDPR?

        “Your stuff was hidden when you made the delete request. But then later we made it un-hidden so oh well 🤷”

        • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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          19 days ago

          No, because what he’s describing is a self-run comment editing and deleting script.

          GDPR account deletion works very differently.

          Note I’m not defending Reddit here, as much as anything it’s advice for anyone (like me) who has to go back and re-run the script every few months because of those brave people whose form of protest is very temporarily inconveniencing themselves.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      18 days ago

      i noticed when i deleted my primary comments, it was ommiting other posts, like controversial.

    • muusemuuse@lemm.ee
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      19 days ago

      Is there a way I as an american can delete all my posts from my banned accounts?

  • Fingolfinz@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Spez can suck a taint. I was on there forever and immediately bounced once that bullshit banning stuff started happening. Should have left sooner but that was the final straw

    • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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      17 days ago

      Who could have foreseen that banning all the highly active, long-term accounts in the same month would have a negative effect? Now they can live with all their bots, puns, Russian Karma Farmers, novelty accounts, and trolls.

    • ceph@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      Yeah, same here. It took a few things over time to ultimately get me to leave, but my finding out many of my comments were being shadow-removed was it.

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        18 days ago

        I commented on a niche sub a few days ago, and it got shadow removed by the mod, don’t even show up as a violation on the inbox, then it triggered a “suspicious activity on account ban, until I change password”, also because I used a Firefox fork instead of the chromium browser

  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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    19 days ago

    Their only utility now is in five year old comment threads discussing niche topics, and that can only stay relevant so long.

    • JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch
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      18 days ago

      Though half the time it’s

      deleted

      thanks that really solved my problem, you’re amazing!

      I still have mixed feelings about deleting one’s whole comment history, though i also did that when I left reddit. it’s the right thing to do, but the amount of information lost because of greedy leadership is super sad.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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        18 days ago

        I still have mixed feelings about deleting one’s whole comment history, though i also did that when I left reddit.

        Same. I also did that. Mass edits + delete. I wish there was a way we could collectively move all that history to a non-commercial platform.

        it’s the right thing to do, but the amount of information lost because of greedy leadership is super sad.

        Also same. I backed up all my user data for sentimental reasons, but that’s hardly enough to be of any utility on its own.

        I really did feel like I was participating in a community, and was doing something positive with all my posting. I was just treating reddit like any other forum from my youth, not really thinking how ofc it would become commodified and enshittified.

        I feel like such a fucking idiot sucker. Over a decade putting in time outside work, lunch breaks, toilet breaks, morning, evening, just contributing to an IPO package.

        • C45513@lemm.ee
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          18 days ago

          don’t feel bad; you were contributing to a community. all the people that updooted your posts were grateful for the advice, laughter, kindness, or insight you gave.

          it’s just over now, and we need to build new communities again. nothing lasts forever.

  • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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    19 days ago

    lol. It’s only going to get worse. The site used to be the top place to look something up, now it’s just going to be full of deleted answers and disappointment.

    • NarrativeBear@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      Its already increasing hard to find relevant posts when doing a Google search with reddit in search. Most posts are from 2 years ago with low upvotes for niche topics.

      This does make me happy

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        18 days ago

        It makes me sad. Such a great resource, gone, with no replacement.

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        18 days ago

        For some medical inquire it’s still useful. But if your looking for politics or news, not a good idea, or subs where there’s para social fans of a specific show or actor.

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          17 days ago

          For some medical inquire it’s still useful.

          Anyone who would make a medical inquiry on Reddit, then believe what they’re told, deserves whatever dire consequence happens to them as a result.

  • ShittDickk@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Maybe if they didn’t ban their (majority) liberal users for having “opinions” on the current government, after nonstop rhetoric from conservatives.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      18 days ago

      banning people for also calling out right wingers and trolls, worst is banning people for misconstrued statements, and also reporting people,g ets you banned.

      like one time '18 a person asked why people were calling MICHELLE obama a certain way, i said the conservatives called her a gorilla, with gorilla arms, insta-banned.

      they allowed astroturfing on reddit, which makes worst because they are tryint to “look fair” but refuse to do anything about the right wingers control certain subs.

      actual POLICE(former and active) individuals control the legal and videos related subs.

    • rice@lemmy.org
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      18 days ago

      ahhh is that why so many people are here now? I’ve been watching development and browsing but it was pretty dead for years until the last year or so lol

    • Goblino@lemmy.studio
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      18 days ago

      I used to get banned all the time from liberal users too. Especially, when the whole Bernie Bro thing was happening. r/politics was the fucking worst.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          It’s much healthier without constantly seeing some bad-faith, AI-crafted post that tries to get under your skin, prying open your values and baiting your outrage so you can think you’re actually achieving anything of value by biting the bait and trying to correct morons who aren’t even real humans.

          I do not miss the site.