Could Reddit have been as big of a success as Facebook?

6 points by gregmuender 11y ago ↗ HN

Reddit has certainly made a massive impact on the online community, but perhaps it could have many times bigger. Is is possible that they could have gotten to a IPO, with a market cap of tens of billions of dollars? Specifically, were things like the Reddit Marketplace a short sighted way to monetize the site and the expense of growth? It seems like this is something Facebook would have vehemently opposed to.

3 comments

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Jayd2014 11y ago ↗

A few things that spring to mind:

- Facebook is more about real time communication and chat. Reddit is more a forum oriented system with a lot of Subreddit (very hard to monetize). Facebook bought Whatsapp because it was eating up it's market which is the real time communication.

- Facebook have more information about it's users (age, location, friends, ethnicity, interests..etc) which make it more valuable for marketer > ie more money. Reddit knows less about its users and their online ad serving system is in the beginning stage at most. Reddit users also tend to know more about technology (adblocks) and are more sensitive toward ads.

- Reddit need to take a lesson from Digg or even the recent changes to Slashdot. Introducing anything new to this kind of communities might mean their downfall. The market place seems like a good ideas but not fully explored.

arbitragedude 11y ago ↗

In product terms, I think so but I really think this has to do with the founders. How long are you willing to hold onto your vision? The got an offer and sold-out. To some extent its a function of expected payoff for the founders vision and reaching their capital utility function.

notahacker 11y ago ↗

The subculture that's Reddit's strength as a community is also its weakness as a commercial entity; it's a frankly scary advertising proposition unless you're in a suitable niche and very social-media savvy.

Twitter, an arguably much more similar platform to Reddit, is on the other hand the site people sign up to be marketed to

If Reddit could have been bigger by copying the Facebook model, they'd have done it by monetizing more conspicuously, earlier, and disregarding their more vocal users.