Reddit is getting bigger.

Reddit says its daily users are up 47 percent year-over-year. Reddit just turned a profit for the first time. As part of its third-quarter earnings results released on Tuesday, the company reported a profit of $29.9 million, along with $348.4 million in revenue — a 68 percent increase year over year.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    462·
    2 months ago

    I seriously doubt there are even half that many users these days. Go look at the posts and comments on the site now. They’re all pointless drivel, and obvious bot posts designed to get other bots and rubes to comment. Stuff like “What is your favorite color and why” makes it to the front page with a hundred thousand upvotes. I mean come on! How could that be actual people?

    • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
      18·
      2 months ago

      I’ve been lurking that platform for over a decade and the quality has definitely gone downhill. The interactions with users are extremely inauthentic to the point where I suspect a large proportion of users aren’t even real people.

      Reddit‘s business model is selling advertising views. I doubt it matters to them whether those views come from real people or machines.

      The second aspect of their business model is selling content to train AI, which is basically free money these days from AI zealots, but the data quality is garbage.

      Both of these revenue streams will dry up without a long-term sustainability plan i.e. an actually good website. And even if I’m wrong, hey, I’m happy here. Their success does not diminish my happiness.

      They will train their bots on my shitposts!

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        2 months ago

        In addition to the occasional inauthentic replies you get, most comments don’t get replies now. It’s all top level replies to the post, and nothing else. Nobody is interacting.

        • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
          9·
          2 months ago

          I have an account over there and it just feels like things are being pumped up for the sake of pumping things up. I have a hard time accepting that this is sustainable for them.

          I haven’t had a good conversation on Reddit in years. Lemmy? Basically every day I see a thoughtful response from what feels like an actual human. It may not have the users but it definitely has the soul.

  • gcheliotis@lemmy.world
    441·
    2 months ago

    Well looks like the great Reddit exodus wasn’t so great after all and Reddit more than made up for it. Financially at least, things are looking up for them. I kinda really wish it weren’t so… but at least some of us got to know Lemmy as a consequence.

  • mysoulishome@lemmy.worldEnglish
    24·
    2 months ago

    On the whole it’s gone way downhill since the API fiasco in my opinion. The only thing worth a damn on Reddit nowadays is that some specific communities are better than elsewhere (sports, mental health, niche hobbies) but only because discussion boards (php) have mostly died and Facebook somehow manages to even MORE toxic as far as racism, sexism, etc.

    It’s depressing. At one time Reddit on the whole as an entity (not the company, the community) was very vibrant and amazing.

    • Zement@feddit.nl
      6·
      2 months ago

      Was a Member since 2012… it all went downhill 2016 when 4Chan-Stormfront-Nazis “grew up” and moved over to reddit. Man I hope these people taste their own medicine better sooner than later.

  • vxx@lemmy.world
    10·
    2 months ago

    Traffic in big subreddits dropped up to 30% whenever there was some news that another huge botfarm was busted.

    Edit:

    Or when Russia is busy starting a war. Completely natural pattern there. The screenshot is from 2022

  • Abrinoxus@thelemmy.clubSvenska
    5·
    2 months ago

    Of course they are having more users not just necessarily human users. Hope the advertisers get good value for what they spend /sarcasm