Reddit Prices IPO At $34 Per Share, the Top of the Range (techcrunch.com) 54
An anonymous reader writes: Reddit priced its stock on Wednesday at $34 a share, the top of the anticipated range, a signal that investors are excited about the company's IPO on Thursday. The social media giant raised nearly $500 million in the offering. Excluding employee stock options, the 19-year old company's valuation will start at $5.4 billion, a far cry from its last private market value of $10 billion, set in August 2021, the top of the last tech markets boom. The stock, which is the most anticipated offering of the year so far, will debut on New York Stock Exchange on Thursday with the ticker symbol "RDDT."
Short? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Short? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm genuinely concerned on what this is going to do to the user experience
Reddit lost $91M last year, so the status quo isn't an option.
They need to either get more money or shut down.
They're projected to bring in about $750M from the IPO, which will last a while at their current burn rate.
They're counting on selling user posts (Score:3)
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I wouldn't 100% bet on this, but I wonder if Reddit will be the needle that pierces the AI/ML/LLM hype bubble. It could become a perfect demonstration that fundamentally the results produced by these models can only be as good as the data they were trained on. Garbage in, garbage out, but more realistically if you feed them large volumes of mediocre data unsupervised then you'll get a mediocre answerbot in return. See also all the coding bots that can generate plausible code from a prompt: if you review tha
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Have you seen how useless/unreliable Reddit commentary is? There is very little cohesive, original thought there in general. Divining the exceptions from the rule there is about more than ranking, and if the user base/quality further atrophy due to the moderation situation then it only gets worse.
Narrow AI/ML/Expert Systems are really where the energy budget dictates viability today. That will be the situation for another 5 years minimum. After that if the progress is crazy good some of those systems might
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Reddit's usefulness and quality varies greatly depending on which subreddits you read. The main/default ones are crowded and mostly terrible. Some of the specialist ones are actually very good and have real experts contributing. I prefer not to look too closely myself, but I've certainly heard of other niche ones about controversial or just plain nasty subjects that I'm surprised are even legal and allowed to continue at all.
The problem is that without employing experts in each field to identify the best co
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I haven't posted there or logged in since they fucked everyone with the API/third party app changes... but I got the email about them offering users access to the IPO and just laughed and hit delete. There is no way I would ever put money into that shit show. I really can't see any positives to using the site with them now having to answer to public investors. Zero.
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Based on the FAQ I was reading it would have been at the actual IPO price (so I guess the $34/share?). The original invite was to sign up before 3/5 - which I obviously didn't do.
The FAQ and some other detail was at: https://redditforcommunity.com... [redditforcommunity.com]
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I stayed away from it, because they emailed a prospectus last minute And did not even give people a reasonable amount of time to digest those documents and properly consider the offering. Doesn't make sense to me that they had been preparing this IPO for months but Last-minute the provisioning of these crucial documents, and require people to really hurry if they wanted to fund an account in time; that rushing investment stuff is just bad news alltogether.
If you had chosen to sign up as Interested..
Only for US residents (Score:2)
I got the offer, too. Of course I wasn't interested, but even if I was I was ineligible because it was only available to US residents (they don't have any personal details so they can't pre-filter to US residents only). $34 still seems way over-valued to me for a company that doesn't seem to have a path to profitability.
Re: Only for US residents (Score:1)
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it's never been more clear that the users are the product.
It's ALWAYS been clear that the users are the product. Anyone who hasn't seen that is either blind, stupid, or in denial.
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Why not 42? (Score:2)
Reddit is a giant meme anyway, so why not?
...because... (Score:2)
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But it's an answer.
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Touche!
So 3 years of operating cost? (Score:2)
Would be 5, if not for Huffman's enormous payday. Who the fuck is jumping to give Huffman's his massive payout for this turd?
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can't wait to short it to death. Reddit is dead corporate approved meat. It's digg reloaded. It's just a matter of time people will leave.
Re:How much is a 'free speech' Chinese bot farm wo (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny how our personal 'media bubbles' work, how the description of the world fed to us by the algorithms we subscribe to tend to be more and more infuriating to us every day.
I'm a Jackbooted Thug of an Authoritarian Communist, some like to call me a 'Tanky'. I'm also queer, Secular Jew-ish, and an environmentalist; all while being a 50 year old white guy born in the West to an automotive industry executive and an entrepreneur that both used to be cops and raised in a nearly pristinely white upper class neighborhood.
I look at Reddit and usually see a cesspool of White Right-wing Wanna-be-bourgeoisie Capitalist-simping Neo-fascist Performative-Christians pining for no government, no social support system, and a return to the days that a man could rape his wife and beat his children with impunity.
Do you think that China is actually trying to make The West like that? Is their objective to radicalize the 'majority' to go to war with literally everyone else in their country?
Re:How much is a 'free speech' Chinese bot farm wo (Score:5, Informative)
Do you think that China is actually trying to make The West like that? Is their objective to radicalize the 'majority' to go to war with literally everyone else in their country?
Seems quite plausible, yes. The USSR funded the KKK for a while, not because there was any agreement on political agendas, but because they funded almost any disruptive group in the west.
The more chaos there is in US politics (and society in general), the better is serves China's interests, which include world domination with their obviously superior tyrants in charge.
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Do you think that China is actually trying to make The West like that? Is their objective to radicalize the 'majority' to go to war with literally everyone else in their country?
Seems quite plausible, yes. The USSR funded the KKK for a while, not because there was any agreement on political agendas, but because they funded almost any disruptive group in the west.
The more chaos there is in US politics (and society in general), the better is serves China's interests, which include world domination with their obviously superior tyrants in charge.
Speaking of the Soviets... Just look at who the Russians are funding now, not just in the US either mind you and for entirely the same reason.
Re: How much is a 'free speech' Chinese bot farm w (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think that China is actually trying to make The West like that?
Yes. There will always be some discontent and some regressive ideology in a society. Our ideological enemies want to see our countries unity disintegrate. They want to see us lose trust in our own government and our own institutions, the rule of law, the expectation of mutual respect amongst citizens.
Reddit appears to be a cesspool of stupidity, far right ideology, far left ideology, and divisive rhetoric all around. And while a fair amount of that is probably genuine feeling from some users, a lot of that is jinned up by antagonists of America.
We all need to touch more grass. Reddit, salon, the new Republic, etc can be just as bad of a filter bubble as Fox News for one's mental health.
Your audience has free speech rights to disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is you "free speech" warriors get your delicate panties in a bunch when people hear your ideas and exercise their free speech rights tell you to kick rocks...with open-toed shoes. Respect is earned, not given, snowflake. If people don't like your message, find a way to make it more appealing...or develop a thicker skin when they disagree.
When my posts get downvoted, I assumed I sounded like an asshole or did a poor job explaining my position. I wish I had your confidence to blame it on Chinese bots. Nope....my shitty profanity-laced rants are pure gold, even when they're incoherent and I read them a month later and think "what the fuck was I thinking?"....no, even those deserve a 100% upvote ratio...anyone who disagrees must be an agent of a foreign government trying to oppress the entire nation and hide my truth? Do you ever hear yourself? Is it so hard to fathom that people disagree with you?
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Except on Twitter where Musk actively protects [wired.com] neo-nazis like Hans Kristian Graebener, aka Stonetoss, by banning people who mention his name or affiliation.
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This always throws me, the idea that reddit is this giant cesspool of ____ propaganda. I go to reddit to post about cooking, to look at game forums, to listen to new songwriters creations, to find support for obscure software problems, to find reviews and recommendations of products.
It's great! And then I see these posts about how horrible it is, who gets banned and who does not, why it's a liberal or conservative or socialist or authoritarian paradise.
I'm getting the distinct feeling that if you go lo
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Just because the "discussion board about Texas (or anywhere) on an online service" doesn't have the same demographic distribution as Texas (or anywhere), doesn't mean much.
It would just be beyond idiotic to expect that in the first place, nor is it a reasonable standard. The great tradition of American journalism (rip lol) aside, newspapers have never represented a statistically-identical slice of their audience, ever. I don't even see why it's desirable for anyone apart from certain advertisers i guess.
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You'll almost never see the censorship until you are on the wrong end of it. Typically, mods will not only delete posts they don't like, they'll delete any posts mention such actions.
You rarely even have a chance to notice it.
One last use for Reddit (Score:3)
Having given up on Raddit some time back, I guess this gives me one last use for it, to pick up a profit via a short.
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Having given up on Raddit some time back, I guess this gives me one last use for it, to pick up a profit via a short.
Best of luck, just be careful. The market is not a rational actor, and the actual underlying value of a security won't stop people from buying it up like so many empty calories.
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Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
They are in late-stage enshittification. Nothing to gain here and a lot to lose.
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
They are in late-stage enshittification. Nothing to gain here and a lot to lose.
No they aren't. They haven't even begun enshittification to the point where it is giving users pause. You clearly do not understand just how bad things can possibly get.
Pricing is hard (Score:2)
Pricing is hard - if you put it too low, you don't make as many billions. If you put it too high, you also don't make as many billions, and you look like an utter dick.
Looks like they went with the second option.
Reddit Sucks (Score:3)
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I bet most accounts are unactive.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment of your message. But on most platform, most accounts ARE inactive.
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Remember when /. was good? :(
Where is the value? (Score:1)
I can't see how they plan to make money. This IPO seems like a last ditch effort to keep the site running at a loss for a few more years. Ridiculous API pricing is not going to bring in enough money.
Literally the only thing they have going for them is the fact that pretty much any topic you search has links to Reddit. They don't have a monetization infrastructure like Facebook. I can't see how they plan to massively increase revenue.
They're basically Twitter. People use it but the site itself is on life sup
Rule 34 anyone? (Score:2)
VCs want out - pass the buck to the suckers (Score:5, Insightful)
Reddit could downsize, run their service, and make a comfortable and unspectacular living. They don't need 2000 full-time employees. They need a core technical team, a small sales team, a few accountants and a couple of managers. Unfortunately, that isn't the way the VCs tick. They have to massively scale every business, because they don't want a comfortable income. They want 10-baggers, 100-baggers, wealth and riches.
They also need an exit. In Reddit's case, that's going to be the IPO: the VCs get their money, and the public at large (whoever chooses to buy the stock) will get stuck with a company that - as currently organized - can literally never make a profit. But the fund managers don't want long-term healthy businesses either. They want quarterly numbers to go up. So they will push short-term financial goals, until their actions destroy the very company they invested in.
I'm cynical today, but tell me I'm wrong...
I think you're under estimating (Score:2)
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Yes, the last few social media corporations to go public, lost a third of their share price (and thus, market capitalization) in a few weeks: Given Reddit's P&L history, this is undoubtedly, another pump-n-dump IPO.
Would be funny (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm.... (Score:2)
Guess that's why they've been so ban happy for the last year or two.