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submitted 1 year ago by tvbusy@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/news@beehaw.org
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[-] JZshark@beehaw.org 20 points 1 year ago

They’re bloated. Thousands of employees. Tons of developers. Marketing people. And in the end? The real product is like you said, it’s the users and volunteer mods.

Those developers? Produced an absolutely terrible mobile app and mobile website.

The marketing people? They’re more focused on NYC time square ads than fixing sponsored posts on Reddit.

It’s an absolute shitshow but that’s what happens with these extremely bloated companies…

[-] Cylinsier@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago

It's amazing how much of this fallout could have been avoided if Reddit had just developed a competent mobile app at literally any point over THE LAST TEN YEARS. You had plenty of time Reddit. Posted from Jerboa, a mobile app which already works better for Lemmy than the official app for Reddit works for Reddit and was developed by one tankie in his spare time for peanuts.

And yes I know I am talking from a regular user perspective and not a moderator perspective and I can't speak to the mod capabilities of Jerboa, but I work in IT and have developed apps, it's not that hard to pay someone to make a decent one or just buy out an existing one and don't shit it up. The solution to this problem has been available for Reddit for literally years. Almost like if Huffman was a legitimate businessman instead of a tech bro who fell ass backwards into internet relevance, he would understand the concept of investing in the future rather than just doing nothing until a few months before IPO and then flinging shit directly into the fan in front of him.

[-] Harold@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

They didn't even really need need to make a better app to make more money. If the objective is getting the telemetry for ads by forcing the use of the official app, they could have the equivalent just via APIs and user-specific tokens. The backend would be key, and it would take advantage of an established app market. They could additionally monetize the API, if they approached it more reasonably. They could have the data and have developers pay a toll. Maybe hindsight is 20/20, but the animus they're displaying here is self-defeating.

[-] darkmugglet@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Yes, but then they would need to hire mature devs. I interviewed at Reddit a few years ago and the "staff" engineer was a smug 25 year old. Their engineering culture is one of elitism and a shocking lack of humility. IMO, the rot from the CEO goes all the way down. It wouldn't surprise me if someone had your idea, but the organization is incapable of execution.

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this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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