[nindalf]

This news article boils down to "a few people on reddit did something", which is interesting. But we know reddit and HN are definitely not mainstream.

Is this hurting Amazon? No, it is not. As long as they're honouring return requests freely, you know that the number of returns is within their accepted levels of distressed inventory. If it's getting into uncomfortable territory, they'll start rate limiting people by saying they're past the return window, or they should try again after a week.

If Amazon's return policy changes, that'll be much more interesting to see. But chances are, people forget about this in a month and their sales are unaffected. This may go the way of #deleteUber, #deleteFacebook and similar boycott campaigns - minor blips at best.

[barumrho]

While I agree that the return numbers are probably very low, you may be underestimating Reddit's impact in terms of product recommendation. I noticed that Reddit results are often pretty prominent on Google search when product reviews are searched for. Security camera market is pretty competitive and a single factor like this could easily sway people to choose alternatives.

[zetanor]

I'd agree on /r/FlockSurveillance/ specifically, but if Reddit itself does not qualify as "mainstream", then what does? Just FANG?

[ViktorRay]

Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people. Their views and actions are not representative of normal human beings.

[nitwit005]

Try doing a search for something like "Average US online time". Those are normal people. Normal people are terminally online.

[overfeed]

> Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people.

Reddit went mainstream many years ago, hence the marketing dollars spent there on astroturfing, and brands acquiring pet moderators. The posters/commenters/readers follow power-laws like any online/offline community.

[imperio59]

Its top 100 or so subreddits are moderated by the same ~10 or so individuals who impose their ideological views on the subs and delete posts or ban anyone who dares challenge them.

A great example of how community moderation inevitably slides a platform to one side or the other of the political spectrum.

I honestly don't think mods on reddit should be allowed to moderate more than 1 or 2 of these top sub-reddits, this would at least force some semblance of diversity of thought on the platform.

[moshun]

I think you’re dramatically overestimating how many sane adults would want to mod a top 100 Subreddit for free. It’s a job that generally only attracts the very dedicated, the very bored and/or those who’ve figured out how to monetize it.

[friendzis]

Reddit is at the core forum platform, therefore it's as misleading to attribute whatever is happening at any one [group of] subreddit to the whole of Reddit as it is misleading to do the same with closed Facebook groups.

Remember forums of old. Larger sites with daily visitors in the thousands already had nearly isolated topic silos within the forum. The effect is even stronger here.

[philipallstar]

Facebook alone is far more mainstream than Reddit, I would say. Thousands of times more.

[rob]

We can just look at both's recent reports:

Reddit: 121 million "daily active unique users"

Source: https://investor.redditinc.com/news-events/news-releases/new...

Facebook: 3.58 billion "family daily active people"

Source: https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-deta...

---

I'd definitely consider both "mainstream".

(I know plenty non-tech and "normal" people who use reddit.)

[travisjungroth]

So like 30x the population (not thousands).

The thing about Reddit is it really amplifies voices. 10-100 people can be on the same subreddit and comment or post something, and it looks like “a lot” of people.

It’s also much easier to be a non-representative sample at 3% of the population than 50%. And, there’s a big sample bias for this sort of thing. I think someone is way more likely to post “I’m getting rid of X” versus “I don’t care and I’m keeping X”.

[dahart]

For Facebook alone, it’s less than 30x. The “family” in “Family Daily Active People” is also referring to “Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and other services.”

[drnick1]

I had no idea the Meta cancer spread that far.

[Forgeties79]

Roughly 6x the users and 7x the traffic. “Thousands” is a bit dramatic. Reddit is a massively popular site now, pretty sure it’s among the top 10 most visited in the world.

[dathinab]

at most most in the US

and also because many modern platforms are app focused and don't care about web traffic

and Reddit is a huge target for scrapping int the US so traffic numbers of recent few years have become a meaningless metric

Outside the US Reddit is often far less relevant then in the US, still somewhat relevant in many "western" countries but often far far less then in the US (like e.g. where I live no on "young" (<20) nor "old" (>50) people use it and the people which do use it are mostly from a _subset_ of often very US influenced tech/nerd/gamer cultures).

And if you go to countries where speaking English is far less the norm Reddits relevance drops sharply. The thing is, that is something like 50% of the word population... In India Reddit doesn't matter, nor does it in China, nor does it in many (but not all) of the highly populated areas "between" (south) China and India.

So why I don't know if "site [..] 10 most visited in the world" is technically true or false it is highly misleading even if true and seems to be bordering on US defaultism, through maybe more "the west" defaultism.

Now to be fair people forgetting like half of the word population in their arguments is pretty common, in not just the US, but also the EU.

It's a bit like with HN, it might feel representative for the IT industry world wide, but it is only representative for a certain FANG/US-startup/US-hacker culture influenced subset of it. Beyond this it has hardly any representation weather it's wrt. articles or people commenting. But "beyond this" is on a world wide scale a _very_ huge part of the industry.

[bee_rider]

If Reddit is an ok representation of semi-techy/nerdy Americans it is probably(?) a good representation of Ring Doorbell customers, right?

[dathinab]

not sure,

from the not very representative context of people I know/where I live (not US):

Ring customers are often old overly worried people which "don't really care anymore" about ideal (often due to an over exposure to fear inducing propaganda, like the kind of stuff which first ties to make you think you live in far more danger then you do and then blames it on immigrants; And ring them comes in by being cheap, reliable and convenient and maybe the only AD reaching that demography. Worries about privacy are on the other hand shadowed by fear about people breaking in and beating them up.)

Other people needing cameras tend care more about privacy ideals and do more research. In turn they won't use ring.

And people not needing cameras most times also really don't want there to be cameras, especially not internet connected ones.

Through in general the relationship to surveillance is very different here compared to what it seems to be in the US.

[philipallstar]

It's the demographics I mean, not the numbers.

[Forgeties79]

I don’t entirely disagree with that but with that kind of traffic/userbase clearly it’s far more mainstream than is being implied. Also, young people are definitely not getting on Facebook, which impacts how “mainstream” we can consider it. Reddit skews a fair bit younger than FB.

[dathinab]

> young people are definitely not getting on Facebook

but Reddit is mostly relevant "in the west" where most countries have an inverted age pyramid and most old people are not on Reddit, but on Facebook

and reddit relevance outside of the US is often far less then people think, to a point where many people not even know what it is. It doesn't has a network effect pulling in "friends and family".

and a lot of people "around 30" are still on Facebook due to network effect and active enough to count as active users (which doesn't mean much to be fair)

And in the US around ~18% of US users where in the age group 18-24 in 2025. Idk. how but somehow Facebook still manages to convince surprisingly many "just adults" to join it. And if they aren't on Facebook then they are on WhatsApp and maybe Instagram.

Now all of this doesn't really fully show how relevant reddit is because checking some minor memes once a week makes you show up as active user but also means it's pretty much irrelevant for you.

And if I look at people I interact with or where I can see a bit how they interact (i.e. _very highly biased by social environment_) then thinks look far worse for it. Reddit seems relevant in the US, mainly for people "around" 30. But outside of it, it seems to be more like a footnote. Used, but something most people would not care if it's randomly gone.

[ahhhhnoooo]

Don't know why you are being downvoted. Thousands of times more is clearly wrong. Facebook has billions of users. Reddit has way more than single digit millions of users.

[swed420]

Maybe ten years ago, but that's a huge exaggeration today.

[manuelabeledo]

It’s not. Just think of anyone 60 and over, or anyone not in the US.

[swed420]

That would not be the order of magnitude proposed above.

[manuelabeledo]

While the comment is obviously hyperbolic, Facebook is still massively more popular worldwide than Reddit.

[nindalf]

You've identified the problem. It's never "reddit", it's a specific subreddit. It really depends on the size of the subreddit. Smaller subreddits can easily get riled up, and also create a sealed echo chamber by banning people left and right. But I wouldn't worry about a sub unless it was really big.

For example: I'd say HBO should worry about what the game of thrones related subs are saying about their latest show (which is good, shoutout) but only as a vibe check. The normies will always outnumber the kind of people who go to a subreddit to discuss their favourite show. Normal people just watch and forget.

[timmg]

My guess is that it is more: the people that are concerned are posting about it. And those that aren't, aren't.

So you are just seeing a biased subset of the (relatively) mainstream reddit.

[sigwinch]

It might be that the demographics of Reddit skew toward low economic relevance but high unique views.

[ajam1507]

> But we know reddit and HN are definitely not mainstream.

Reddit is one of the most visited websites on the planet, not sure how you can say it isn't mainstream.

> Is this hurting Amazon? No, it is not.

Depends on your definition of hurting Amazon, but regardless Ring is a tiny portion of Amazon's revenue so even if every single Ring owner returned it wouldn't "hurt Amazon"

> This may go the way of #deleteUber, #deleteFacebook and similar boycott campaigns - minor blips at best.

Not sure about Uber, but #deleteFacebook absolutely did have a long term impact in certain demographics.

[Sol-]

That was my immediate reaction as well. These things are never more than a storm in a teapot.

[deepsquirrelnet]

I’m not so sure. In terms of total revenue, yes probably insignificant. But in the world of subscriptions and a highly speculative market, I think declining subs can have an outsized impact on share prices.

[pimlottc]

Pretty much any time you see a headline like this, you should mentally add the word "Some" to the front of it.

[eulers_secret]

It’s interesting how internet backlashes can be large enough to move the needle: ring breaking with flock is evidence of this.

Yet simultaneously the internet represents the opinions of a very small and vocal minority.

I’ve never seen an internet boycott have an impact.

[NickDouglas]

You have now. "Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash" is literally on the front of Hacker News.

[buellerbueller]

>It’s interesting how internet backlashes can be large enough to move the needle:

Brexit.

[imperio59]

Bud Light's stock performance last year would like to have a word with you.

[nindalf]

Could you analyse AB InBev's stock performance in that period? Because it doesn't look bad to me. [1] It looks like it was $65 before the boycott in April 2023, falling to $55 a couple of months later. But it was back up to $65 by the end of the year. It sits at $80 today.

If I hadn't told you the date of the boycott, would you have been able to spot it on this chart?

[1] - https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/bud?gaa_at=eafs&...

[CWuestefeld]

On the contrary. It appears that Bud Light sales continued to fall.

https://sherwood.news/business/beer-bud-light-market-share-b...

Budweiser stock did recover, but they haven't (afaik) repeated the behavior that got them boycotted in the first place. It appears that this boycott achieved exactly what was sought.

I'd agree that this is a rare exception, and that boycotts are almost never successful. But this really is an example of that unicorn.

[seethedeaduu]

("repeated the behavior that got them boycotted in the first place" = sponsor an influencer who happens to be trans)

[slumberlust]

Alcohol across all verticals is down. How can we attribute this fall to their issues specifically?

[CWuestefeld]

The important point is that those doing the boycott have achieved their aim. A-B is no longer marketing in the way that those people disagreed with.

[bee_rider]

What would it say?