this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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A lot of Redditors hate the Reddit IPO | Reddit warned us that its users were a risk factor, and boy do they sound excited about shorting its stock.::Reddit seems like a likely candidate for a meme stock. But the actual reaction suggests that r/WallStreetBets isn’t going to send the stock to the moon.

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[–] [email protected] 283 points 8 months ago (14 children)

Reminder that shorting is a high risk play and you should never make investment decisions out of spite.

[–] [email protected] 231 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

[–] [email protected] 91 points 8 months ago (2 children)

A reminder that the stock market and any kind of high level money market of any kind including digital money .... is a rich man's game where poor are by design destined to lose.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (5 children)

This is a gross over simplification. Yes, rich people can have higher risk tolerance, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't be going long on index funds and otherwise safe, low risk investments for retirement with what they can afford to.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Instructions unclear, purchased Lemmy stock using Amazon gift cards

[–] [email protected] 46 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

¡Alert! Your Lemmy account may be suspended in 2 days unless you send Google Play gift card codes to me right now!

[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 8 months ago (1 children)

100%, this is a trap being set for retail investors... not touching this even if I had a 1000ft pole.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (3 children)

What if you had a 1001ft pole?

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Playing the stock market at all is a form of gambling. You should never gamble money you aren't completely willing to lose.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (5 children)

And with shorting there's no upper limit to what you can lose.

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[–] [email protected] 166 points 8 months ago (3 children)

And while Huffman now thinks that Reddit as a corpus of training data for AI is valuable, he let his board member Sam Altman siphon off Reddit data for free; Altman was, and still is, the CEO of OpenAI. Altman’s also Reddit’s third-largest shareholder and owns more than twice as many shares as Huffman. Altman was the CEO of Reddit for eight days.

Say what now

[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Huffman also made $193 million bucks, according to the article.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (6 children)

How much is a dollar buck in USD?

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

Holy crap I did not know that! This is huge

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[–] [email protected] 95 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Nobody’s doing shit with this stock.

It’s all a manufactured cover story for hedge fund/institutional manipulation to blame retail for volatility and attempted fleecing.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 89 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Also this scrambling to make Reddit "profitable" and fucking Spez pays himself nearly $200 million a year. Fucking ridiculous. Burn it down. Build something better that hasn't been captured by complete twats.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Nintendo CEO cutting his salary in half to avoid laying off workers after the Wii U fails versus whatever the fuck Reddit is doing

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago

Satoru Iwata was a treasure.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I hate Huffman as much as the next guy, but the $193 million factoid is misleading clickbait nonsense. His actual salary is apparently $400k, the rest is "stock value" or whatever. Reddit is not giving 25% of its yearly revenue to the CEO.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (4 children)

This argument is oft repeated but It's Bullshit. If it wasn't valuable why is Spez okay with it?

Stock grants not being direct Income isn't clickbait nonsense. It's actually DELIBERATE: Spez doesn't pay income taxes on a majority of his income. Capital gains tax has a lot of loopholes that can be exploited.

This just gives spez more money and he can cash out in the IPO.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Huffman's wages of $193 million per year is absurd. That's double what Tim Apple makes. It's almost 4x what Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, makes, and 4x what Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings, makes. During the writer's strike a big deal was made over David Zaslav's compensation, but even that's not as much as Huffman makes.

Imagine they reduced Steve Huffman's wages by $100 million per year. For that much, they could give the top 10,000 moderators $10,000 each per year. For some, that might not match the work they put in, but it would sure be a nice gesture, and would make them feel like the work they were doing was appreciated. Meanwhile, Huffman would still be one of the highest paid CEOs in the world.

P.S. stop saying "spez", the guy has a real life name, and that real life name should be the one that's tarnished.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago

While I also feel like the past is better left in the past, I am certainly not above a little schadenfreude, either.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 8 months ago

Leopards ate my face. They are acting like this is a new betrayal that needs stopping. These are the same people who were telling us the 3rd party app changes aren't a big deal.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 8 months ago (22 children)

I don’t get why, if these people hate Reddit so much and they want the IPO to fail, why are they still using the platform?

Once people get burned with that stock purchase email, they are going to have even more pissed off users.

[–] [email protected] 102 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I don’t get why, if these people hate Reddit so much and they want the IPO to fail, why are they still using the platform?

Could be several reasons:

  • they're addicted
  • they don't know any alternatives
  • they still like using the platform, they just disagree with the financial/executive decisions being made
  • the alternatives don't have equivalent communities
  • their communities don't want to move to an alternative
  • they like the alternatives even less than Reddit
[–] [email protected] 60 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, Lemmy just does not have the amount of niche content nor the large userbase of reddit. I don't even bother following communities here because there's barely enough on c/all.

The only reason I haven't gone back to reddit is because I know for a fact things are only gonna get worse on there. That, and pure unadulterated spite.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (6 children)

My biggest problem with lemmy is discovery.

I can't find shit I want unless it comes across all and I find it interesting.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago

Yeah that's the thing. Users stick to reddit because they have ties with the individual communities, not so much the platform itself.

People used to use Facebook for similar reasons. "Because all my friends are there". Not because Facebook was so great.

It can be difficult to leave communities behind that you feel a part of, even if you just lurk most of the time. The fact that reddit was turned into a corporate dystopic shitshow does bother users, but it hasn't outweighed their needs to still be part of their respective communities.

But seeing as official reddit sources claim that "they're still in the early stages of user monetization", it might not be long before we see what's left of the platform turn into the biggest dumpster fire the internet has ever seen.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Reddit's owners are the risk factor.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

This pre-IPO invitation to buy is the "pump" part of pump and dump, of course everyone hates it, lol.

“I think it’s pretty cool that Reddit is doing this IPO offer to their mods and users,” a Reddit user who asked me to identify him as Kevon tells me. “It’s a nice little thank you that actually may have some monetary value.”

Kevon’s considering buying shares in the Reddit program, and may buy more once it goes public, if he feels the stock is undervalued.

Kevon sounds like a nice guy, but someone should explain to him the difference between being given options and buying shares at the IPO price. Reddit's not doing him any favors.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Does anyone remember this?

Reddit hackers demand $4.5 million ransom and API pricing changes

Still waiting -- and hoping -- for the other shoe to drop.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (12 children)

This feels like another "Netflix are coming after password sharing, HOW DARE THEY, EVERYONE WILL CANCEL AND THEY WILL BE BANKRUPT IN 6 MONTHS" circlejerk we recently read.

Then Netflix announces a pretty good quarter and all of a sudden these people are silent.

This feels like it'll be that. I could be wrong. But it really feels like the echo camber will lose its mind again in a few months when the stock is priced above zero and maybe actually doing quite well.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Reddit warned us that its users were a risk factor

This means they're positioning themselves solely as a source of training data. If their users are a risk factor, not the entire product, they're completely uninterested in maintaining a user base and think that what they have is all they'll ever need to sell.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Predicting the long-term results of the reddit IPO is tricky, because it involves two large groups of highly irrational actors. 'Tis a silly place.

I speculate (hope) it will go very poorly for them. But anything could happen. They might fail upwards and print money.

Will be interesting to watch.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I have a feeling that if a pump and dump happens, all the people who are actually involved (who aren't already rich) will have their funds completely taken from them and the companies behind it will claim it as an attempt to stop fraud or some other bullshit they know is fake news.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A la GameStop. The rich won't let you play their own game.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Company goes on the stock market so anyone can buy stock in that company.

Usually means that said company makes a ton of money but also have to keep these new investors happy and make the company more profitable. Can often lead to enshitification.

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