this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2023
283 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37742 readers
72 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
May I ask what the whole "IPO" thing is?
Initial Public Offer. Basically, the company going public on the stock market. They tend to try and look "shiny" before going public to make them attractive to buyers who want to make money from investing into the company.
In my experience (from working a place that has done this) they will do some waves of layoffs and make some operational budget cuts, as well as sometimes freeze some capex spending so the books look juicier. This includes things that may cause long-term harm, for short ish (under a year) gain.
Script is pretty similar with most companies that do this in tech, with predictable results.
Firstly I want to really thank you for taking time to write up this response.
Anyways it definitely makes sense what reddit it doing, although it's no excuse for being such a little bitch. So in other words, let them burn lol
To be fair, most tech companies had layoffs in the last six months and it seems that most were bigger cuts. Also, my best guess is that Reddit has been unprofitable/burning cash from the beginning (~18 years) - that can't and won't last forever.
Honestly, I never really figured how something like reddit (or most social media) was going to be profitable to begin with. At least in a long term sense. They're entirely dependent on ads, but ads don't make a lot of money unless you're running the network. So you end up being an ad business, not a social media business. But of course, no one wants to watch an ad before / after every post - yet that seems to about be where reddit is coming to. And these people don't want to pay to be on social media, or else things like "The Well" would have been much bigger than they are (how many people are clamoring to pay $15 a month lol).
I just also think, if you haven't found a way to make money in 18 years, it seems like a foolish bet that you'll be able to keep running the same kind of business and now find a way.
This is also very true. Tech sector has been doing layoffs and admittingly these ones are pretty tiny in comparison to some other places, which is another factor why I think there will be more. And burning cash is quite true, which is part of why their investors are probably pushing hard for them to be ready for an IPO.
The only thing I ask myself right now is: Do they get rid of porn subs before IPO or shortly after?
Probably restrict them more before IPO would be my guess
The real questions