Comment by scoofy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scoofy | Hacker News Reader

I honestly think the problem isn't reddit. It's the advertisers' model that has the problem. I realize that this is nonsensical, reddit needs the cash, but hear me out.

I've been a redditor for nearly 5 years. I'm a moderator on many subs and over time i've even been given the privilege of becoming a moderater on a subreddit with over 100k users. I've been given random reddit gold on 3 occasions (a strange revenue system for letting users know you care by paying reddit to give them some minor perks for about $5), so i think i understand the site fairly accurately.

When you move away from the large subreddits, into the niche, you realize that much of reddit is actual adults, with brains, and who aren't too busy to see news, and also have a discussion about it. I've always seen this as a problem for advertisers.

Advertisers want it one way. They want to send a message, and they want that to be the only thing said.

Take this amazing ad from thai life insurance: http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/22jybg/what_does_kin...

The top comment, while jokingly so, brings up the point that this is a commercial... it's not real... it's trying to make you think a certain way on purpose. It's manipulative. Reddit breaks the 4th wall. It calls bullshit, and much of the time, it's right.

Reddit's problem is that when an ad is truly impressive, a great deal, etc., the relevant firm doesn't need to pay reddit to get attention. The users will do that for them. See dollar shave club: http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/qk7xr/dollarshaveclu...

I really don't think there is much of a solution for reddit, but if i were in charge, the way i would generate revenue would be to hold the successful ads hostage. Shadow ban advertisers accounts if they don't play ball. Literally remove viral commercials, but do it quietly. It's an abuse of the system and the users know that, and i think users like me would understand. Make them pay a fee to even attempt to "go viral."

That's my 2 cents.

There are certainly individual subreddits who've attempted such things, but what I've seen from that is that the line gets blurrier than I think people realize, and small content creators get stomped on as a result.

The Frogman is a good example here. He was banned from several of the bigggest subreddits for posting his own material, under the excuse that it was advertising/self-promotion because he technically makes money from his blog (never mind that he barely makes any and literally lives in his parent's basement). Meanwhile, regular redditors reposted his stuff routinely, often without even giving credit or reference. At one point, in retribution, moderators even started banning those after he started complaining about the weird double standard.

I think once you start manipulating what's allowed to appear, it creates an ugly and incestuous effect that will do more harm to reddit than help in terms of the community that actually keeps people coming there.

reddit already has a toxic reputation as the lesser evil to 4chan's greater evil in some parts of the internet, thanks in no small part to it giving voice repeatedly to some really ugly sides of human behavior, does it really need to add "arbitrary and incestuous gatekeepers" to that reputation too?

I think if you keep it limited to, say, publicly traded firms, or some standard, then you wouldn't have a significant issue with this.

Clearly, there is a lot of monetization possible if reddit wants to tamper with the community and its organic post ranking. For instance, there is a subreddit dedicated to uncovering disguised ads on reddit: /r/HailCorporate [1]. The quantity of masked PR and the creativity of some ads is incredible.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate

But that leads directly to a war of countermeasures as advertisers try to not get their content classified as advertisement. It's a rather blurry line, and regular users will get caught up in a system like that.

It's a fair point, but if the prices were reasonable, i think the firms would see it as a cost of doing business.

Remember this is revenue from firms attempting to create content, not paying for ad space. You'd have a shallower river of income, but a much wider one.

I'm not saying it would definitely work, but i think it'd certainly be something worth paying for. Especially when you're watching your ad successfully drive lots of users to your product... it's working! And then suddenly reddit calls your firm up and says:

"Hey, nice successful ad you have there blowing up on our service. It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it..."

As for the users, if you shadow ban the content, more often then not they wouldn't even know. If they find out, you could simply explain that the relevant firm is abusing the service. Most would even help... a small button (is this an ad?). I'd click it, because i would know clicking it helps reddit. Remember, redditors are adults, with brains (they watch community, not two and a half men). There may be some push back, but i know i'd certainly understand, because big firms cheating the system is bullshit, especially if price discrimination is put in place to protect small firms. Dollar Shave Club pays pennies, Gillette pays hundreds.

And, hey, i really do love the site. If Alexis or Steve are ever in need of a beer in SF, i'd be happy to buy it.

It would be great if advertisers tried to not get their content classified as advertisement.

If all advertising were of the subliminal/product placement variety, I might stop trying to block all of it.

> Advertisers want it one way. They want to send a message, and they want that to be the only thing said.

I believe this is a byproduct of advertising evolving in a largely a one-way, broadcast mediums (e.g., TV, magazines).

Clever brands are learning the importance of having an online identify & bi-directional communication. It's a big change, but the brands that get their first are going to find a big advantage.

OP makes a compelling argument regarding the tensions between advertisers selling hype, and your average redditor's desire to tell it straight (anti-hype)

Here's an idea: there are some companies/services that are genuinely awesome and yet not marketed well. Now one may say they hardly need advertising because reddit promotes them naturally.

However, not all aforementioned companies explode and make it huge on reddit. So, what if you had a system whereby one incentivizes honest disclosure, whilst downplaying overselling?

In other words, a genuinely awesome small startup/service might submit itself and gain exposure (with full disclosure.) Upon a success, they would subsequently make a proportional payment for advertising to reddit, to help sustain the ecosystem.

It has parallels with a freemium model whereby some users (in this case successfully advertised companies) sustain the the others (non-paying users and companies).

>adults, with brains, and who aren't too busy to see news

Do you mean new submissions, or the media news? If it's the media news, are you trying to say that the "smart" thing to do is to follow the news?

I mean content.

> the way i would generate revenue would be to hold the successful ads hostage. Shadow ban advertisers accounts if they don't play ball. Literally remove viral commercials, but do it quietly.

Playing whack-a-mole with YouTube/imgur/etc. rehosts of a constantly growing list of content is a losing proposition.

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