Reddit has launched a new /r/place instance. This move seems likely to be related to their recent policy shifts/commercialization to secure a favourable IPO and the associated backlash.
One week after the /r/place ends (or 30 days from now, whichever is sooner) will I belive this was a net positive move from a business perspective.
This will almost certainly drive up engagement / DAUs (which is presumably the objective) however it seems plausible that the content on the place (and associated media) will be unfavourable to Reddit and seen as unappealing to advertisers.
Resolves Yes if at the market close I believe all else equal this would increase Reddit's valuation (at some near-term listing), else No.
I will not trade in this market.
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I have resolved this as Yes.
I think there was very limited awareness of the content of /r/place (or even it in general) outside of Reddit so I think the impact of any negative PR was very limited.
There was a huge amount of activity so I expect engagement, DAU, account creation statistics were all strong - this is the one thing I think (potential) investors will see.
Reddit demonstrated on multiple occasions that when there was content they actually wanted removed they could make it happen very quickly. I conclude that they were fine with 'fuck spez' comments being shown, they were fully aware this would happen and they went ahead and made no effort to remove it so can't expect it to hurt them.
I'll look to resolve this in about 6 days. I've followed /r/Place fairly closely so I'm familiar with the content, moderation and Reddit discourse but I want to try and get an outsider's view.
I'll be trying to weigh up the relative impact of negative PR and activity metrics from an investor's perspective (who will be less familiar with Reddit)
Please share anything you think will be persuasive / helpful to resolve (e.g news articles, summaries, discussions - I'll be giving more weight to 'normie' sources)
@CameronHolmes I mean the first thing investors are gonna see when they Google r/place is no longer the positivity of the past but “fuck spez,” if it matters.
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r/place drove a ton of traffic to reddit, for every 'fuck spez' ther were 30 little subcommunity drawings.
if this was 'was shutting down 3rd party apps a good business decision', i'd say no - but r/place has no faults of its own!
@jacksonpolack Also when there were things that Reddit really didn't like (like QR codes, guillotine) they effectively removed them, including the source instructions/posts from the subreddits that made them, posts on the /r/place sub also just got completely nuked.
Considering that Reddit effectively quelled the /r/videos protest by completely swapping out the mods it feels like when they want to they can squash this stuff.
Basically I think Reddit were fine with some 'fuck spez' and considered it a small price to pay for the engagement. They could be wrong but I believe they think this probably went ok for them.
random illustration of the kind of good PR place did for reddit - https://twitter.com/TouhouHijackLOL/status/1685237970541158401 20k likes. people really like it! posts like that are all over the place. How much would you have to spend on ads to get that kind of exposure?
@Joshua Yes for transparency my immediate response feels like probably 'No'.
If there was even more of a push to be ungovernable/unappealing to advertisers (e.g. more offensive content) and some media attention I'd be confident of 'No'.
If there is some anti-spez sentiment left by the end but it's minor and there's a lot of engagement I would probably tilt towards 'Yes' as I expect engagement statistics probably matter more to them at this stage.
@CameronHolmes They now have two options:
1. Leave "fuck spez": PR loss for them, advertisers won't want to be associated with them because of the offensive content, and users hating them
2. Censor it out: Also a loss because everyone will complain about the censorship, which is one of the reasons why they hate Spez in the first place.
@ShadowyZephyr no spez is gonna go to the vcs and be like "look at all these impassioned users that are spending time here clicking black pixels. they just really care about the community, the cause, the camaraderie, and they'll stick around even when they disagree with site decisions, which means they'll click on ads for years to come."
the only true way to change reddit is to leave.
@Sinclair leaving is the best way to change it, but that doesn't mean r/place will be a good business decision for reddit
@Sinclair I broadly agree and at this point the Place seems to be going ok for Reddit.
I do think there is a possible state of being so completely ungovernable/unappealing that could change Reddit (e.g. if large subs maintained some degree of visible NSFW/offensive content) but clearly that comes with risk/costs to the communities.
@ShadowyZephyr That seems sensible, although I'm keen to understand what your bar would be for it going well for them.
For what it's worth top voted comments seem to align at the moment (not that I will be running this by consensus).