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A comment on Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hostile redesign killed it. Parent comment

Re:Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hosti... by mike_d on Monday June 12, 2023 @03:33AM (#36289702)
I would bet money that Reddit has the highest percentage of ad blocking users. Either by way of browser extension or third party apps. They just don't have enough impressions to cover the outlandish costs associated with running the site. Combined with lax content moderation policies, advertisers see more value going with third parties that can push a viral story about a product to the homepage.

There is no one problem with Reddit, and that is the problem. They have to reboot and build Facebook 2.0 (or whatever) without a highly fickle user base turning tail and running. Rock, meet hard place.

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Re:Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hosti... by MattGaiser on Monday June 12, 2023 @03:39AM (#36289747)
Reddit hosts its own ads, so seems like it would be relatively trivial to overcome the adblockers and insert them directly into the feed server side. Sure, that will piss a few people off, but more than this?
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Re:Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hosti... by xxs on Monday June 12, 2023 @03:59AM (#36289892)
They should not use any CSS b/c lots of blocking is just based on elements and their style.
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Re:Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hosti... by bobthepanda on Monday June 12, 2023 @04:35AM (#36290178)
IIRC doesn't the FCC and equivalent regulatory authorities require online ads to be clearly distinguished?
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Re:Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hosti... by blitzar on Monday June 12, 2023 @05:02AM (#36290412)
> There is no one problem with Reddit, and that is the problem.

Actually there is one singular problem ... money.

They could accept that "reddit the product" is a 2-5bn market cap business with solid 0.5bn revenue; staff up on that basis, scale their infrastructure on that basis, M&A on that basis, set investor expectations on that basis.

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Re:Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hosti... by yurishimo on Monday June 12, 2023 @05:21AM (#36290565)
They could turn off video and image uploads and reduce server costs substantially. Remember when you couldn't directly upload a video to Reddit and everything was a link to YouTube, Vimeo, or Dailymotion?
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Re:Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hosti... by bluescrn on Monday June 12, 2023 @05:26AM (#36290622)
> I would bet money that Reddit has the highest percentage of ad blocking users.

And Reddit's response is to block web browsers almost entirely (on mobile), and try to force people to use the app.

Maybe their next step will be to force use of a desktop app and disappear from the web entirely...

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