Reddit has both explicit ads, such as paid placement at the top, and side bar ads, as well as Reddit Gold, but these are not extensive enough to support costs and make a decent profit. Reddit has nearly 200 million users and has taken almost 50 million in investment, and there is a lot of pressure to utilize the user base for marketing purposes.
Along with traditional explicit advertising models, internet marketing usually involves more subtle techniques such as seamless paid content interleaved with user content, as you see on Facebook and elsewhere. Subtle and invisible marketing is especially important on Reddit, as forum users are not tolerant of paid content, as evidenced by the collapse of Digg, so the operators of Reddit have to keep up the impression of Reddit being pristine and untouched by marketers.
But Reddit has to make revenue, as they are a business and not a charity. Reddit employees are mods of many of the default subreddits, and often post content to those boards that bubbles to the top of the front page. The evidence trail is direct, as you can directly view an employee's posts on their profile page. It would be absurd for Reddit to not use modern internet marketing techniques to generate revenue.
Not only does Reddit support marketing through posts, but they also control the narrative of Reddit. Just live television before it, advertisers are very sensitive to the content carried on the medium that their advertisements are part of, and use their dollars to influence what can and can't be said in that channel. The same goes for Reddit.
They never do. They're baseless. I'm a default mod on reddit, have been for quite a while. I've never been approached by anyone looking to do shady things ever. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, SEO people would love an "in", but I've personally never experienced it. And certainly not from the reddit admins themselves. There are over a thousand default mods now. If reddit's admins were trying to control those mods, surely a few would decline their offer then "spill the beans". There would be whistle blowers. And those whistle blowers have never come forwards because it hasn't happened. The accusation is steeped in an ignorance of how reddit actually works.
The top level comment, by baseten, made a claim that is completely different from what has been ostensibly refuted in this thread. The OP never said anything about Reddit controlling moderation.
Can you address the specific claim made by baseten, namely that there are subreddits (whether default or non-default) that are managed for pay by other organizations?
I'll note that I don't visit Reddit unless linked to a specific conversation, so I don't have a proverbial horse in the race. I just have my curiosity piqued when a chain of rebuttals gets so far off base from the original claim.
> is completely different from what has been ostensibly refuted in this thread. The OP never said anything about Reddit controlling moderation.
As I explained in other comments below, I have extensive experience moderating large subreddits and in my time, have not seen a single shred of evidence which shows anyone is "paying to play". If something like that was occurring, it would inevitably be discovered and become viral news everywhere, just like how it was on Digg. I'm sure the administrators of the site keep an eye on the actions, messages and PMs of the top mods so there are more checks and balances on that kind of behavior. More than most people realize.
Of course corporations are going to post to reddit. Anyone who thinks that is nefarious in of itself is deluding themselves. If those people were trying to game the system in some way, to subvert the organic process, that's another matter entirely. Yet, there is absolutely zero evidence of that. Frankly, your dot connecting is like that of a paranoid child. It sounds like something from /r/Conspiracy.
Along with traditional explicit advertising models, internet marketing usually involves more subtle techniques such as seamless paid content interleaved with user content, as you see on Facebook and elsewhere. Subtle and invisible marketing is especially important on Reddit, as forum users are not tolerant of paid content, as evidenced by the collapse of Digg, so the operators of Reddit have to keep up the impression of Reddit being pristine and untouched by marketers.
But Reddit has to make revenue, as they are a business and not a charity. Reddit employees are mods of many of the default subreddits, and often post content to those boards that bubbles to the top of the front page. The evidence trail is direct, as you can directly view an employee's posts on their profile page. It would be absurd for Reddit to not use modern internet marketing techniques to generate revenue.
Not only does Reddit support marketing through posts, but they also control the narrative of Reddit. Just live television before it, advertisers are very sensitive to the content carried on the medium that their advertisements are part of, and use their dollars to influence what can and can't be said in that channel. The same goes for Reddit.