[silisili]

Reddit has way less users than it claims. I don't know what percentage are bots, but I'd guess it in the 30 to 40 percent range. It's not uncommon at all to find identical comments, or to reverse search any upvoted post and realize it's a repost, with many identical comments from the last time.

The real users probably aren't worth much, advertising wise. The key young demographic doesn't use it, and only a small portion of the next most valuable does.

[Iulioh]

Whatever number of users are or were bots it was and is still one of the most visited sites in the world and it was text based (before the image and video hosting) with the added bonus of the user autotargetting themselves and their interests...how can it NOT be profitable?

[silisili]

Personally, the only people in my circle of friends I know that use it heavily are single, older liberal Millennials. Plenty of others use it for niche topics at times, but not to the same extent. To young people, it might as well be a more boring Facebook.

The key demo of 18 to 34 is mostly uninterested. Of the next demo, you only have one slice of the pie who interacts much at all. Compared to most other social media, it's not worth much.

This, however, is an anecdote of one data point of course.

Edit - Also, why pay to advertise when you can just make a shill account for free?

[Iulioh]

--- Also, why pay to advertise when you can just make a shill account for free? ---

Because it does not guarantee visibility.

"Why pay for advertising on Facebook when you can have a Facebook page?"

[silisili]

Because the advertising model is very weak on Reddit, it's just a sponsored post with no differentiation most people skip past. No video or image to catch interest.

Plus, the users are self segregated, what a dream.

Imagine you wanted to sell drop shipped backpacks. All you'd need to do is create and prime, or buy, a dozen or so accounts, and start recommending your own brand subtly in every recommendation thread in r/backpacks or whatever the most popular sub for it is.

People trust Reddit because they assume they're other real users. Many advertisers already know and take advantage of this. It's nearly impossible at this point to know who or what is authentic.

[TeMPOraL]

> People trust Reddit because they assume they're other real users. Many advertisers already know and take advantage of this. It's nearly impossible at this point to know who or what is authentic.

That's what advertisers would like their customers to believe.

The truth is closer to: advertisers are lazy, Reddit users aren't complete idiots, subreddits are moderated, and spammers are (rightfully) despised. Effective shilling takes more effort in actively moderated environment so I wouldn't be surprise if sponsored posts had a better ROI than the much more dishonest plays.

[immibis]

Many subreddits are moderated by advertisers, who of course don't tell you they represent advertisers.

[TeMPOraL]

> The key demo of 18 to 34 is mostly uninterested. Of the next demo, you only have one slice of the pie who interacts much at all. Compared to most other social media, it's not worth much.

This view may very much be the answer. Like, if the 18-34 "key demo" (which, incidentally the Millenials you mention are a part of) is "mostly uninterested", it's dumb to chase after them. Reddit had - and surprisingly, still has - its own, large core demographics, which they somehow failed to monetize. Hell, for a good while that demographics was upstream from Facebook, providing content for Facebook users to repost.

I guess the VC rules are that you either shoot for the Moon or get written off, even if you have a perfectly good submarine.

[roenxi]

They don't seem to advertise very much. And I'd expect most of the advertising revenue would be going to people cutting out the middle man by posting to Reddit directly. If they aren't making $ per page view, it is not crazy to think that being the most visited site in the world is unprofitable.

If anything, just by the logic of commodity economics, they should in theory be - at best - borderline profitable. They don't provide any obviously useful or difficult service apart from an easily recognisable domain name and they face global competition. No obvious moat, no obvious profits.

[meowface]

If it had the number of real users it says it has, would that really increase the chance of it being profitable?

[SanjayMehta]

All dictionary words are reddit usernames with little activity.

One of the founders admitted that they had created thousands of fake accounts to give the appearance of traction.

[raverbashing]

> The real users probably aren't worth much, advertising wise.

Well they have alienated the power users and made the site focused on the 9gag audience then wonder why the value per user goes down