Steve Huffman, the Reddit CEO, told NBC News in an interview that a user protest on the site this week is led by a minority of moderators and doesn’t have wide support.
The striking workers are pompous, gilded aristocrats, we must break the strike and crush the unions so us poor common CEO’s can have a chance at a little fairness. Woe is me!
In the interview, Huffman also praised the cost-cutting by Twitter owner Elon Musk, calling the reduced headcount there an example of how a social media site can be without the massive revenue of a company like Google.
He wishes he were elon musk, or that his company was as influential as twitter, but in the end it’s just a tool for open access forums and most users seem to dislike the site-wide policy and the disrespect for the free contribution to the site. Most social media companies would appreciate the loyalty towards those subreddits that both users and mods use to show, and in that regard those are the real value of the platform.
The arrogance behind those messages seems to imply that he sees users as a product, and it is what he misunderstood: this is the true value behind the social media, the human users, the network effect and so on. So reddit is largely wasting this underutilised potential.
Elongated has a rabid fan base built around what were perceived to be real accomplishments towards the betterment of mankind. That’s not true, of course, but he’s also actually wildly, wildly rich.
By contrast I have yet to find a single person who supports Spez or even likes him at all. His accomplishments, real or imagined, are nothing. He’s rich but so, so, so much less rich that the contrast is like comparing our moon to the sun.
This is like a kid with a plastic butter knife comparing himself to John Wayne Gacy.
He’s repurposing leftist talking points into a pro-corporatist clusterfuck as an attempt at populism. He knows that there are a fair number of people and communities on Reddit that will be overall supportive of these politics.
The idea is to get people thinking, “Yeah, I’ve heard that term before, it’s bad! And yeah, I’ve dealt with power-tripping mods before, so it must be true!” If they haven’t been paying attention to the finer points of the news around this (blackmail claims on C. Selig, gaslighting about 3rd party apps not wanting to work w/ Reddit, etc.), then this may be enough to get some people on Reddit, Inc.’s side. It worked for some people with Trump, for others with Musk, and with Huffman’s recent praise of Musk’s managerial style…
I don’t know if using metaphors where the logical extension of mods being landed gentry is your product being a feudal kingdom, you the king, and the users the peasants is necessarily all that clever of a quote to start spreading around.
Agreed. The only problem is that I think most people will stop at landed gentry and say, “BAD!” without thinking through the full context like you just did.
The fact that he keeps making comments at all is so weird to me. Like he is truly terrible at PR. Every time he opens his mouth the situation gets worse for him.
Reminds me of SBF’s bizarre interview spree right before he got arrested. Or Alex Murdaugh that southern lawyer that killed a bunch of people and stole a bunch of money and thought it would be a good idea to testify in his own trial and got destroyed by cross-examination smh
ya my immediate reaction was “wow, how tone deaf.” It’s pretty clear to me that this clown is just repackaging the same talking points the VCs are using to influence his weak-minded ass.
the irony of a goddamned CEO calling unpaid volunteers “landed gentry”
The striking workers are pompous, gilded aristocrats, we must break the strike and crush the unions so us poor common CEO’s can have a chance at a little fairness. Woe is me!
The greed is…palpable
He’s going full Elon.
I mean, wtf
My brother in Christ, you raised the head count
Right? It’s like wikipedia tripling their paid staff, then complaining that they aren’t getting enough donations to break even.
He wishes he were elon musk, or that his company was as influential as twitter, but in the end it’s just a tool for open access forums and most users seem to dislike the site-wide policy and the disrespect for the free contribution to the site. Most social media companies would appreciate the loyalty towards those subreddits that both users and mods use to show, and in that regard those are the real value of the platform.
The arrogance behind those messages seems to imply that he sees users as a product, and it is what he misunderstood: this is the true value behind the social media, the human users, the network effect and so on. So reddit is largely wasting this underutilised potential.
Spelling correction
Elongated has a rabid fan base built around what were perceived to be real accomplishments towards the betterment of mankind. That’s not true, of course, but he’s also actually wildly, wildly rich.
By contrast I have yet to find a single person who supports Spez or even likes him at all. His accomplishments, real or imagined, are nothing. He’s rich but so, so, so much less rich that the contrast is like comparing our moon to the sun.
This is like a kid with a plastic butter knife comparing himself to John Wayne Gacy.
Users ARE the product - the trick is to make using the site attractive enough that they’ll stick with it regardless.
He’s doing this on purpose.
He’s repurposing leftist talking points into a pro-corporatist clusterfuck as an attempt at populism. He knows that there are a fair number of people and communities on Reddit that will be overall supportive of these politics.
The idea is to get people thinking, “Yeah, I’ve heard that term before, it’s bad! And yeah, I’ve dealt with power-tripping mods before, so it must be true!” If they haven’t been paying attention to the finer points of the news around this (blackmail claims on C. Selig, gaslighting about 3rd party apps not wanting to work w/ Reddit, etc.), then this may be enough to get some people on Reddit, Inc.’s side. It worked for some people with Trump, for others with Musk, and with Huffman’s recent praise of Musk’s managerial style…
I don’t know if using metaphors where the logical extension of mods being landed gentry is your product being a feudal kingdom, you the king, and the users the peasants is necessarily all that clever of a quote to start spreading around.
Agreed. The only problem is that I think most people will stop at landed gentry and say, “BAD!” without thinking through the full context like you just did.
Thats exactly what I expect out of a large swath of redditors. All this just to avoid the work of making the official app not suck.
The fact that he keeps making comments at all is so weird to me. Like he is truly terrible at PR. Every time he opens his mouth the situation gets worse for him.
When a man becomes so rich and his “thing” so popular, he thinks he is smart enough to be an expert in anything all at once
Reminds me of SBF’s bizarre interview spree right before he got arrested. Or Alex Murdaugh that southern lawyer that killed a bunch of people and stole a bunch of money and thought it would be a good idea to testify in his own trial and got destroyed by cross-examination smh
Talk about out of touch.
ya my immediate reaction was “wow, how tone deaf.” It’s pretty clear to me that this clown is just repackaging the same talking points the VCs are using to influence his weak-minded ass.
One of these reporters should ask him why he was a moderator of /r/jailbait