IPO = Initial Public Offering, where shareholders offer to sell their shares to the public, shifting a company from a “private company” (it belongs to me, you, and that guy) to a “public company” (it belongs to anyone who pays enough for the shares).
The userbase has been always touchy when it comes to IPO, and rightfully so; they know that the new owners will only care about squeezing the platform dry. As such, I predict a new flood of Redditfugees to Lemmy and Kbin.
You’d have to be nuts to invest in Reddit, given the current state of the platform.
- The the CEO admitting reddit is not profitable in its current state.
- The amount of media attention the API change protests have gotten. * The ever increasing amount of search engine links to removed content.
- Memelords already talking about shorting the stock into the ground if it goes public.
- Various scandals involving the CEO, with likely more to come.
- Little to no third-party developers willing to write new software that integrates with Reddit anymore because they are now seen as an unpredictable party.
There is no way any of this leads to significant growth. The user base that has stuck around is generally not interested in the things that make reddit reddit, being a community-driven and -moderated platform. And significant changes to how the platform works (thereby taking away the unique selling points) will put it into a position where there is no real advantage over using competing platforms. This will make binding new users to the platform a difficult task.
The only ones stupid enough to buy lots of reddit stock will have an incentive to change it and make it profitable. We’ve seen musk attempt this with Twitter and just look how that has worked out so far.
The worst part is that Spez will likely still get to cash out and fuck off while the platform dies and burns in his wake.