#Reddit 's terrible operating model directly led to a cliff-like decline in its stock price and financial results.
1. $Reddit is a publicly traded company and a huge forum, yet it doesn't have a single human customer support channel. This shows that Reddit's operations simply don't care about user experience, especially feedback and the experience of new users. Feedback channels are practically nonexistent; generally, only scam companies have no feedback channels.
2. Reddit is extremely unfriendly to new users. Its infamous shadowban system is practically the biggest disaster in community and forum management. The system was initially introduced in response to investment banks' concerns before Reddit went public that the total number of Reddit users had been falsified. The community was rife with BOT accounts, but that's simply part of this era. You can restrict BOT usage or account registration, but Reddit instead chose a blanket approach.
That means a new user who is a little too active, or who accidentally triggers one of Reddit's own bot rules by making a post, is very likely to get banned outright. Even staff in the shadowban appeals branch say that reviews typically take anywhere from several weeks to several months.
A forum that is this unfriendly to new users, banning them outright without any notice, guidance, or warning, is cutting itself off from fresh, active users who could fuel its growth. New users will also talk about it with their communities, peers, and investors, creating a very harmful negative ripple effect.
What's more, this shadowban system is tied to users' browser cookies. So even if a real user wants to register a new account, there's a good chance it will still be automatically banned by the bot.
I can only describe this system as Reddit's #AI -era act of digging its own grave (Self-Killer); I don't know what else to call it. As more and more new users get banned, more appeals will be filed, making appeal wait times longer and longer. The end result is that countless new users will simply stop using this forum. Its stock price will also keep getting worse.
So how can Reddit solve this problem in the AI era? It's actually quite simple: add multiple levels of verification. Bots won't go to the trouble of completing N layers of verification, and accounts that can complete N layers are very likely to belong to real people. Since they're real users, there's no need to be so aggressive about banning them. Instead, provide more guidance and warnings.
1. $Reddit is a publicly traded company and a huge forum, yet it doesn't have a single human customer support channel. This shows that Reddit's operations simply don't care about user experience, especially feedback and the experience of new users. Feedback channels are practically nonexistent; generally, only scam companies have no feedback channels.
2. Reddit is extremely unfriendly to new users. Its infamous shadowban system is practically the biggest disaster in community and forum management. The system was initially introduced in response to investment banks' concerns before Reddit went public that the total number of Reddit users had been falsified. The community was rife with BOT accounts, but that's simply part of this era. You can restrict BOT usage or account registration, but Reddit instead chose a blanket approach.
That means a new user who is a little too active, or who accidentally triggers one of Reddit's own bot rules by making a post, is very likely to get banned outright. Even staff in the shadowban appeals branch say that reviews typically take anywhere from several weeks to several months.
A forum that is this unfriendly to new users, banning them outright without any notice, guidance, or warning, is cutting itself off from fresh, active users who could fuel its growth. New users will also talk about it with their communities, peers, and investors, creating a very harmful negative ripple effect.
What's more, this shadowban system is tied to users' browser cookies. So even if a real user wants to register a new account, there's a good chance it will still be automatically banned by the bot.
I can only describe this system as Reddit's #AI -era act of digging its own grave (Self-Killer); I don't know what else to call it. As more and more new users get banned, more appeals will be filed, making appeal wait times longer and longer. The end result is that countless new users will simply stop using this forum. Its stock price will also keep getting worse.
So how can Reddit solve this problem in the AI era? It's actually quite simple: add multiple levels of verification. Bots won't go to the trouble of completing N layers of verification, and accounts that can complete N layers are very likely to belong to real people. Since they're real users, there's no need to be so aggressive about banning them. Instead, provide more guidance and warnings.