Reddit’s U.S. User Decline Raises a Bigger Question After Its Earnings Beat
www.marketbeat.com
Reddit stock fell 22% despite beating Q2 earnings estimates, as flat U.S. logged-in user growth overshadowed strong revenue gains and rising per-user monetization.

Article from August of this year (not too cancerous once you get through the first two splash screens).

Reddit shares DROPPED despite increase revenue. Why? Objective signs of enshittification:

  • declining active user base
  • massive increases in revenue.

People are leaving so the ones that remain must be more heavily monetized, which leads to more people leaving–the enshittification death spiral.

Reddit will no longer be reporting logged-in users as a separate metric lol

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    52·
    13 hours ago

    Reddit disables…

    • APIs that many popular apps use to help users view Reddit and for users that hate the new interface
    • disables .compact and .mobile views which pockets of users like that hate the new interface
    • bans users on VPN
    • forces “old.reddit” to require a login which alienates users that hate the new interface

    Reddit: “Why are people leaving?”

      • Karjalan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        6 hours ago

        FWIW you can avoid this, and still get old reddit without logging in via a Firefox (and probably other browsers) extension that automatically makes reddit links old.reddit

      • Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20·
        12 hours ago

        This I couldn’t believe - on my phone you get three scrolls to view the site and then are told. “To view more content download the app”. Seriously fuck that.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 hours ago

        Agreed. Don’t know why reddit corp doesn’t understand this.

        “Everyone that was young, left. The changes kept coming in without asking their users what they wanted. They should have held focus groups or product testing. I think when you focus on the money, you lose sight of where you’re going.”

        Seems like apt critcism, eh? Except that quote isn’t from an article on Reddit, its about Facebook. What confuses me most about Reddit corp’s restrictions over the past couple of years is we already have a walled garden social media that requires login to consume. Its called Facebook, and audiences are leaving that one even faster. Why would Reddit look at that declining user base and say “yes, thats what we want”?

    • FoxAlive@lemmy.zipEnglish
      13·
      9 hours ago

      Literally all those changes where strictly because reddit is only valuable for Ai training data.

      It started when google bought access to said data, and we where forced to stop using third party apps.

      Google dropped out of the deal and no one wants reddit. Reddit is full of bots, and pro palastine “hate speech” so in order to be valuable for Ai training data it has to use ai to moderate and kick out anyone who doesn’t produce valuable data, or is potentially a bot. They only want verified I’D users who don’t bring up issues that show up on googles front page.

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      14·
      14 hours ago

      Huh. My problem was I was getting shadowbanned and suspended left and right, whereas as I had been an active daily participant for YEARS with absolutely no problem.

      You could avoid the bots and junk pretty easily be sticking to niche subs, but the banning and suspensions were unavoidable while commenting.

      • DickCaramel@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        1 hour ago

        The bizarre bans is what made me leave recently. Banned from a default sub i had been in for years for posting a link. There was no rules against links and the reason given was “we don’t like the link” then told “we don’t have to give warnings” when I asked why I would be permanently banned for doing something that isn’t against the rules. Then that same thing happened in another sub the next day. I don’t know what’s going on there but it’s almost like they want to cull the users who aren’t conforming to the way they want the content to be ingested.

      • Canajan@piefed.caEnglish
        2·
        9 hours ago

        Same here, after years of use with no problems, AI mods and overzealous human mods started banning users all over the place.

          • Canajan@piefed.caEnglish
            2·
            9 hours ago

            I voiced my displeasure at the Americans current government, and they kept saying I was breaking Reddits rules. This was crazy as I saw worse comments than mine constantly.

            • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
              4·
              8 hours ago

              Yeah, I noticed the same. I’m wondering if you crossed a certain line. I can easily imagine a political group monitoring certain accounts and reporting anything even remotely reportable. Like, in my case, I strongly suspect that being anti-Zionist put me on a list.

      • FoxAlive@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        9 hours ago

        Google dropped reddit as a source for Ai training data so they are trying to “clean up” to be sellable again.

    • N0t_5ure@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      13 hours ago

      I got so tired of engagement bots pinging me with inane questions every time I posted I comment I left and came here.

      • Zensate@feddit.orgEnglish
        3·
        13 hours ago

        To be fair reddit users used to do that before the bots as well. Just pointless bad-faith pretending to engage without actually wanting to hear your opinion, just exhaust you for disagreeing with them.

      • AbsoluteBroomstick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        9 hours ago

        I pop on occasionally and it’s a cesspool. I don’t even see many of my friends in my feed, just rage bait posts from outrage groups.

        • Bristlecone@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          6 hours ago

          It would do more to stop it if you deleted your account. It was honestly probably one of the best things I’ve ever done for my mental health

          • AbsoluteBroomstick@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 hours ago

            I keep it since family occasionally uses it to arrange gatherings, but I’m otherwise on it 2-3 times a year. I’m just not interested.

  • ikt@aussie.zoneEnglish
    10·
    14 hours ago

    did you not read the whole article?

    the number of global daily active unique users (DAUq) grew to 130.3 million, representing YOY growth of 18%.

    it was us users specifically

    130.3 million users is still 130.2 million more than lemmy

    • addie@feddit.ukEnglish
      8·
      10 hours ago

      Although 100k lemmings generate more genuine human interaction than ten billion redditors would do, so stuff them.

      • myyass@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 hours ago

        I think this is a big aspect, to actually interaction instead of shadow down votes for not having a popular curated opinion.

  • shishka_b0b@lemmy.zipEnglish
    5·
    14 hours ago

    If OP is referring to full screen ads when they say “splash screen” then the URL fragment #google_vignette at the end of the link might be the culprit