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by pnemonic 1096 days ago
This may be the most spectacular dumpster fire I have ever seen.

Personally I am devastated that such a great community has been bisected so absolutely. If the investors were astute, Huffman would be fired immediately. Unfortunately, most investors are the opposite of astute.
2 comments
ryukafalz 1096 days ago
The most spectacular one I've seen in recent years was the Freenode takeover and subsequent implosion. But Reddit, like Freenode and Twitter before it, seems headed for the trust thermocline: https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115310124539904
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Sunspark 1096 days ago
The trust thermocline thread is a great read and I believe it is accurate. It applies to way more things than just social media.

Speaking for myself, I've already lightly started casting my gaze around for potential Reddit replacements with user interfaces I don't hate at first glance. tildes.net last night rated as worthy of a second look later. This means I am already starting to transition through the trust thermocline.

I was on Digg until I wasn't. Reddit can still survive this, but the CEO is making a lot of fumbles. They need to do damage control now. They need to freeze their existing plans, possibly sack the CEO (even though my belief is that corporate CEOs are all the same and the real CEO is the board of directors).

The actual problem as I see it is the Reddit board who don't understand that Reddit does not manufacture a product. People are not looking for a place where they can see the same meme posted again that has already circulated through Twitter and Facebook et al.

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ywain 1096 days ago
I don't understand how he was not pushed out after he was caught abusing his admin privileges to edit user comments a few years back. Any employee caught doing that would have been let go immediately, yet this guy was allowed to remain as CEO.
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EA-3167 1096 days ago
That was childish and unethical, but it did no harm to Reddit or the Reddit brand, and nothing at all to the Reddit bottom line. It hurt Huffman's reputation, but that's it, and the board probably rightly assumed that would more or less blow over.

This is a different beast entirely, he's betting the farm on this API move and keeps doubling down. The damage that's already been done isn't going to go away, and it's damage to Reddit as a whole, not just Huffman personally.

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BackBlast 1096 days ago
> childish and unethical

These are not attributes you want in a CEO. They prevent the building of trust with both employees and users. Both of which you should seek when building a site like Reddit.

The seeds of his character were revealed years ago. Now we're seeing the fruits.

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