First all the bs with Twitter and Elon, then Reddit having an exodus to Lemmy (not complaining lol), then Twitch. Are we like, in an alternate self healing dimension or something?
Profitable is probably a big word here, but they were surviving and without any real ambitions, not a lot of money was necessary. Originally, the Reddit gold awards seemed to be enough for them to pay for server usage and the handful of developers/admins.
However, the last couple of years things felt like they were changing behind the scenes. More investors were attracted and growth became an objective. The low interest rates indeed meant a lot of money was available and that investors wanted more growth as there were plenty of alternatives that WERE growing. If your growth is/was disappointing, you’d lose the investors as they would go elsewhere. The current situation is likely just the tail end of that process.
I think you are right. Investors just want more money than they have and it is ruining the platform. I guess that is why I love these federated platforms. It is not really easy for them to be taken over.
They can, however, be misrepresented by media, to the general public, using sometimes fabricated other times exaggerated events. And that agenda can be pushed, more than ever from July onward, by lobbying. Not that I care, because I don’t give a **** about what other people think of the place where I spend my time, but a lot of people do. Even reddit had a time like that “oh, isn’t that the network where the CP / jailbait scandal broke?”. I’m sure Lemmy will have some of these growing pains.
