[goeric]

I think it's pretty simple and I always wondered why they didn't do it sooner. Reddit is already one of the most popular sites on the Internet - but since it was just an aggregator it constantly took users off their site. Now they're owning more and more of the content and keeping users there longer. Sure, video is expensive, but now they have a much bigger revenue opportunity. They can't monetize videos they don't host.

[digitalzombie]

> Sure, video is expensive, but now they have a much bigger revenue opportunity. They can't monetize videos they don't host.

I totally see your point but shouldn't they monetize what they have now before go on to tackle other revenue venture?

Or is it better to tackle all possible revenue venture at the same time?

I feel like it's stretches them thin no?

[nerfhammer]

They will be able to say they decreased their outbound user metric by X% and can report that to their investors to prove growth.

[digitalzombie]

This is why I hate the business side of business.

Especially in startup, it seems like they're always looking for way to get their investor to invest more. There are many cases where I thought it being so shady.

I acknowledge business people and what they do but there are things in the this industry where it's just not for me.

[spydum]

Users might feel like adding a monetizing strategy to existing "free" is Reddit selling out. Whereas if you just add a "new" feature and monetize that, people are less likely to rebel

[zitterbewegung]

Yes, well subreddits are starting to be hostile to reddits own image service getting to the point that the service is banned on some of them.

I thought that their own image service would bring back missed revenue from imgur (which it has appeared to do since it has caught on). Unfortunately to do this they designed it to disallow direct image links (and the reason that it is banned).

[gooeyblob]

Direct links have never been disallowed, either by design or policy, so not sure where you're getting that.

[NTripleOne]

Reddit, by default, does practically everything in its power it can to stop you from getting the direct link to the reddit-hosted image.

Not to mention it's just downright slower than imgur.

Although, it's not like imgur is without fault nowadays, in their continued efforts to foster their own (IMO, awful) community off of the back of another (Reddit), it is nigh-on impossible to go directly to an image on the mobile site now - instead you get forced back to their gallery-style page full of 'related content', which only serves to slow the loading of the shit I actually want to see.

[olegkikin]

> Sure, video is expensive

Relatively. CDN costs have plummeted over the years. It now costs $5/TB to serve videos, and under $3/TB if you're in petabyte ranges (BunnyCDN, BelugaCDN).

[corobo]

Ooh thanks for the tips on these. I've not looked at CDNs in a while.

[fweespeech]

> I think it's pretty simple and I always wondered why they didn't do it sooner. Reddit is already one of the most popular sites on the Internet - but since it was just an aggregator it constantly took users off their site. Now they're owning more and more of the content and keeping users there longer. Sure, video is expensive, but now they have a much bigger revenue opportunity. They can't monetize videos they don't host.

They are going to start getting hit with more and more DMCAs, etc. The compliance cost for video and/or audio goes up alot in my experience. Also more likely to be sued (a la Youtube).

For the most part, still pictures, its rare to get any kind of DMCA notice and you basically never get sued.

[personjerry]

I don't think people leave their site for videos, usually I just open in new window and return to reddit when i'm done

[whyenot]

If, as you wrote, you "return to reddit" when you are done, doesn't that kind of imply that you left reddit to watch the video?