Yes, the question requires clarification. We’ll get to that. First, let’s quickly go over the news itself for those who don’t know. Ellen Pao is out as interim CEO and the original CEO Steve Huffman is back in the top spot at Reddit. This comes after a tumultuous couple of months that culminated in a revolt. No need to rehash details. If you’re a Reddit user you already know and if you’re not a Reddit user you probably wouldn’t understand.
Back to the question. The first part is pretty self-explanatory. Most would agree that the best move that Apple made was to bring back Steve Jobs to lead the company from the brink of destruction to unmatched success. Apple probably wouldn’t be here today if they didn’t decide to bring back Jobs. Is the choice to bring parts of the old team (Huffman will be working with cofounder Alexis Ohanian) back to lead Reddit going to be as significant as the Jobs return? No. We think it will be bigger than that, albeit on a different scale.
Those of us who have been on Reddit for several years know that the changes that have been happening to the site started with an infusion of users from Digg’s demise, was antagonized by weakness in policies that were contrary to the old open ways, and hit a tipping point in recent months with censorship mentalities that are all a part of joining corporate America. Reddit has been more of a business than a community for some time.
We feel that Huffman and co. will be able to improve Reddit’s community and improve the revenue for the company by taking cues from the past and modernizing them to scale for a large audience. It won’t be easy and has a chance of utter failure, but if the core principles that made the site wonderful for so many years can be worked back in while heeding corporate goals, they may be able to make the site bigger financially while narrowing its scope and even its reach. In essence, bigger can be smaller if they do things the way they used to do.
Here are some key points in bringing back a modern version of “old Reddit”:
- Strength through Diversity: It’s no surprise that subreddits were being sniped based upon a desire to fight discrimination, hate speech, and common decency. However, a community that is self-policed is more stable than one with arbitrary judgments deciding what is acceptable and what is unworthy. Diversity that only excludes what is against the law should be the law of the Reddit land. To paraphrase Peter Griffin (no, it wasn’t Voltaire), “I may not agree with what your subreddit says but I’ll defend in a blog post your right to say it.”
- Do What’s Right First: There was a certain sense of pride that I felt as a user when people learned that Reddit was leading the charge with much bigger companies following them in their question to stop SOPA/PIPA. We were on the right side of the debate and we were there first. We fought harder and longer because it was right.
- Refresh and Unban: The community can be trusted to sniff out spammers. Somewhere along the line Reddit decided to start policing it and sites were banned. While nobody likes spam, it falls under a lesser category than many of the offensive subreddits when it comes to morality and ethics. Unfortunately, revenue was deemed more of a pressing need than decency so spammers were targeted and removed. I don’t like spammers. However, the community is robust and content should be allowed to stand on its own even if a site once paid people to submit and vote for their stories. Free speech includes annoying speech and the community is mature enough to fight spam just as it is mature enough to pick which subreddits it wants to see. Banned users – that’s up for debate if they weren’t banned for breaking the law or posting taboo items like personal information.
- Make Money Creatively: If there’s one trend that was going on in recent years that should continue, it’s that the company chose innovative ways to make money. I get the feeling they’re trying to shift to more traditional forms of revenue generation. This would be a mistake long-term. Take advantage of the robust community by offering more things like Reddit Gold. Get creative. Don’t look at normal revenue methodologies like Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram. It hasn’t happened yet but it would seem that this is the direction that corporate is heading. Please. No.
If Reddit can latch onto the original concepts that made it great, i.e. thinking smaller, they’ll have the best chance of getting bigger. Of course, “bigger” is a complex notion since that could mean more users, more traffic, more power, increased revenue, some of the above, or all of the above. Bottom line: sky’s the limits and we’re very hopeful about the resurrection of the old guard at the top.
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