Reddit981 Archives the social news site, is now valued at $3 billion after raising $300 million in a series D funding round led by China's investment holding giant Tencent, Reuters reported Monday.
It's weird pairing. Reddit is banned in China, and some members of its community -- which is traditionally hard to keep in check -- are protesting the deal.
CNBC reacted to the news by proclaiming Reddit users "the least valuable of any social network," based on the average revenue per user (ARPU) figure, which you get by dividing a social media site's revenue with the number of its monthly active users (MAU).
SEE ALSO: How Reddit is helping horror writers find successIt's an odd take. The news about the new funding doesn't mention revenue, and Reddit declined to comment about it to the outlet, so the figure of $100 million in annual revenue is derived from an 8-month-old report, also by CNBC.
Mashable has reached out to Reddit but the company only confirmed that the funding news is accurate. Reddit had nothing to add regarding its revenue or the ARPU metric mentioned above.
The article also glosses over key differences between Reddit and some of the other sites it's compared to. For example, Reddit encourages anonymous profiles while Facebook does not allow them at all, which makes targeted advertising on Reddit much tougher to do. There's also the possibility that Reddit's owners are unwilling (or perhaps incapable) to monetize their user base further, compared to other sites.
But most importantly, this simple calculation -- revenue divided by MAUs -- is incredibly ill-placed in the context of Reddit. The site's diverse communities are helping talented individuals kick-off careers, saving marriages at the 11th hour, and kickstarting numerous valuable, real-life initiatives.
Sure, Reddit can be toxic as hell. Sometimes, it felt like the site's leaders were dumbfounded as to how engage with the site's communities, which often led to backlash. Sometimes, Reddit struggled to keep some of its users from breaking the law.
But Reddit's diversity and unwillingness to conform to arbitrary rulesets are what make it different. That's what made Reddit thrive when Digg, once an incredibly popular social news site and a sort of precursor to Reddit, started bleeding users after Digg's community massively protested the site's redesign. That's what makes Reddit a great source of information and (often polarized but rarely boring) discussion. In a word, that's what makes Reddit interesting.
Sure, perhaps Reddit will never be able to monetize its user base the way Facebook or Twitter can (it's telling, however, that its high ARPU didn't keep Twitter from bleeding monthly active users lately). But ARPU is not the only -- I'd argue it's not even the most important -- measure of value, and hopefully Reddit's investors are aware of this. To paraphrase Redditor KeavesSharpi's comment on the site: If this is how value is calculated on a social network, perhaps it's better to stay worthless.
Topics Reddit
The 10 Most Anticipated PC Games of 2017
You could do so much better than those Sonic the Hedgehog shoes
Serious warning: don't bring bae to the pool if Uncle Pat is around
Map of Disneyland drawn by Walt Disney sets record price at auction
Chinese scientists have cloned two monkeys to advance human medicine
20 of the best one
Man hilariously rips into Starbucks over alleged milk mixup
These early reviews of 'Harry Potter' will make you grin
Samsung The Frame deal: Get up to 40% off at Samsung
Token smart ring lets you pay instantly with two
Amazon Spring Sale 2025: Best Apple AirPods 4 deal
Virgin Media thinks 800,000 users should change their router passwords
TJ Miller gave a candid talk about 'Silicon Valley' exit
MashReads Podcast: Celebrating 20 years of 'Harry Potter'
SpaceX lands its first rocket on West Coast ground: Watch
Someone actually created a live feed of Trump's tweets as artwork for his living room
The fragile Great Barrier Reef is worth $42 billion
Woman kicked out of own apartment pool for high leg, one piece swimsuit
Chinese scientists have cloned two monkeys to advance human medicine
It was only a matter of time before 'woke' got added to the Oxford English Dictionary
This country wants to build the world's tallest structure but people aren't excitedBadass kicker becomes first woman to earn NCAA football scholarshipSea level rise could send U.S. 'climate migrants' fleeing to Austin, AtlantaLegendary sportsperson's response to fan letter wows Instagram'River piracy' is the latest weird thing to come out of climate changeYour overbearing dad Mark Zuckerberg told some rough jokes at F8This marathon VR bingeHow WhatsApp brings my family closer togetherCat bravely interrupts baseball game and basically asks for a spot on the teamWatch out, Ticketmaster: SeatGeek spends $56 million on TopTix'League of Legends' breaks out a black hole for its latest game modeThe redesigned Google Earth works directly in ChromeiPhone 8 could be delayed because of this cool feature10 things we want to see in 'Fast 9' (or whatever it ends up being called)Pokémon makeup is here, and it's just as cute as you'd expectGabrielle Union comes for Dwayne Wade's playoff performance with 1 hilarious tweetApple may be testing an iPhone 8 with a dual selfie cameraRussia's biggest search engine beats Google in antitrust caseThis marathon VR bingeGorillaz announce their first North American tour in 7 years YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki warns users about EU 'meme ban' The first Amazon Go store in NYC will be across from the World Trade Center Romania hardcore trolls journalist for allegedly faking report on arms sales Facebook's Ads Archive Report reveals the top political spenders Critics love Rami Malek, but think 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is an underwhelming mess Please behold Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte eating ice bath spaghetti Nintendo's new program to get Labo into classrooms is a no Harassment of young girls in public is so relentless it has become normalised, report finds HTC's blockchain phone, the Exodus 1, is now available for pre #ThrowbackThursday: Olympian edition Most Stuf Oreos are coming and everyone's stomachs are so ready The rectangular iceberg NASA found is weird, but it's not the only one Spanish TV praises Olympic golfer for getting first ‘glory hole’ in 112 years iPhone excitement declining each year, say analysts Elon Musk's high Your favorite rapper Kevin Hart signs to Motown Records Not the gold medal winner: Twitter gets the wrong Kyle Chalmers The Secret Service is investigating Trump's 'Second Amendment' comments The 13 fiercest photos of Simone Biles' all Angry at Trump's plan to kill transgender rights? Here's how to help.
2.7851s , 8228.5234375 kb
Copyright © 2025 Powered by 【1981 Archives】,Prosperous Times Information Network