[onimishra]

It’s fun to consider this from his perspective. He has essentially pushed all-in on this and now he has no way of backing out. If this is all about getting ready for IPO, then he can’t back out, because that would show potential future investors that he is not in control of policy changes, and that means that when shareholders want to crank up the money making machine, they can’t. At the same time, he needs to show that the site can continue and take a minimal hit to revenue when such protests happen. He will never back down, as this is essentially a battle test to show the strength of the platform for investors after the IPO. It’s an all or nothing play. If revenue takes a hit after all this and doesn’t recover, then Reddit is now worth half. If it does recover, Reddit is much more stable than first anticipated and is now worth double. Right now, he is pretty confident that the outcome will be the latter.

[themoonisachees]

As a user, all he's done is prove to me that he will cave instantly to shareholder pressure. There aren't even any public shareholders asking for more money now and he's already cranking the money-making lever. How am I to expect the site to become better in the future when infinite growth is expected? Why would I put my time in this site over another?

[onimishra]

And that’s the bet on his side. He has reached a point where he believes the users’ options are non-competitive, so the way he sees it, users doesn’t have any choice. It’s his way or no way. The average user doesn’t care, they just want to have fun. Which might also be why he is okay with changing all the mods, because those are the people like you and I that care and will take up the fight.

[seydor]

If the customers can shut down the company arbitrarily, then what's the point of investing in it? Of course they should make it a rule that mods are not allowed to shut down their main channels.

Otherwise, Reddit should IPO and then demand that all users buy a share. Users who don't are deleted. Then let the shareholders-users figure out how to make good on their investment

[pnt12]

All companies depend on their customers, that's not a reddit only thing. If Coca-Cola pisses of their customers, they'll go to Pepsi in the blink of an eye.

[seydor]

sure, but they won't break all the vending machines

[yadingus]

The analogy breaks down here because the users made their own vending machines.

For example I made this comment, and I am allowed to edit it or even remove it.

Imagine now for a second if hacker news was allowed to manipulate or modify user comments directly for profit.

[jonathankoren]

It’s more like the users are the vending machines, and the cans, and the soda.

When your whole value is provided by the unpaid labor of the users, you don’t get to say, “How dare they!”, when you’re the leach.

[onimishra]

Or they could hire the mods, like some other sides do? The mods here are regular users, which also means (by Reddits own terms and rules) that they can do whatever they want with their subs. That also means shutting or locking them down. If they were on the payroll, that would not be an option.

[cheeseface]

Agreed. Seems to me that the whole thing is about getting good growth numbers on paper before the IPO.

He’s not interested in the long term success of the platform, but trying to get a successful exit.

[onimishra]

It’s funny - he is part of the founding team and had been working on Reddit for 18 years. Maybe his just tired of it all and wants to do something else, so the IPO can not come soon enough He must have cared about the user and the platform at some point, or else we wouldn’t have gotten this far Or who knows - maybe there’s been a power shift at Reddit that made what we’re seeing possible…

[valine]

They've lost the retail investors, that alone could moved the needle on an IPO. Just look at what r/wallstreetbets did with GME.