I haven’t gone back since Apollo shut down, and not planning to, but I am curious.

  • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I was wondering if what reddit did was on purpose to lower their pre-IPO valuation so insiders could get a better price before it goes public. After the IPO they entice people back with reasonable API policy and then they can demonstrate huge user growth to boost stock price… Nobody working with investors on preparing for an IPO is going to do something this stupid without major pushback from the investor advisors.

    Watch this space…

    • FightMilk@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There is absolutely no chance that this is the strategy lol

      They simply weren’t turning a profit (or enough of one to satisfy shareholders), and had to look to cut unprofitable avenues (eg, Apollo doesn’t show ads). They came up with a number of users that they were willing to lose if it meant the remaining userbase was profitable. Who knows if they came in under or over that number in the end, but my suspicion is lemmy has cost them more than they thought. The protests reignited development of lemmy mobile apps, which was really the missing component in making lemmy competitive (and why Reddit deliberately only gave devs 30 days notice, otherwise we’d have Apollo-Lemmy already).

      But to me, their actions align pretty well with a company preparing for an IPO. The age of “growth at all costs” is over, and they need to start demonstrating a healthy profit. I just won’t be any part of it lol

      • kittenbridgeasteroid@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, tanking your valuation is the exact opposite of you want to do before going public. Not to mention that AFAIK pre-ipo stock buying isn’t a thing.

        It truly was humorous to hear people with absolutely no business education talk so confidently about how big of a mistake the execs made. As if people with advanced degrees in business and years of experience didn’t know exactly what they were doing.

        They knew they’d lose a few million subscribers, but they also knew the people they’re losing were people that they weren’t going to profit off of.

        I also had a chuckle at people thinking that the current mod teams were the only people in the world who would be willing to exert control over millions of people for free.

        • Paradox@lemdro.id
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          1 year ago

          pre-ipo stock buying isn’t a thing

          It absolutely is, and there are even companies out there that specialize in private stock sales and trades.

    • Frost Wolf@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If that’s the strategy, is the loss of trust really worth it? How would they entice users back when all the 3rd party apps has shut down?

      • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Growth through their own app… Sure they lost us, but how many are we, so we have any idea? They probably did the math and knew they could lose us, clean house and grow back the numbers based on their known numbers. Do we have any idea of their growth pre and post apocalypse?

    • Mastersord@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      They destroyed trust. It will take a lot of work and time to get that trust back. If that’s their strategy, their investors need to be in it for quite a long haul!

      • You’re making the mistake of thinking that people who care about what the admins did are the majority of reddit users.

        I’d give it a month, maybe 6 weeks, until everything is back to normal.