The real purpose of Reddit
26 2013-10-25 by VirtualMoneyLover
I am not completely serious about this, but it is more of a thought experiment/exercise. The thing what started the ball rolling is this:
Just what kind of company is Reddit that it doesn't really care about profitability, and they don't have plans to change the current state in the near future? Well, my theory gives an answer.
So what if a few years back when Reddit started to get real popular and was still losing money, the government thought, hey, this is an excellent way to keep an eye on mass movements, what people think and feel? So why not help out the company and keep it ads free so it could grow even bigger and more users equals more intelligence? Thus it is possible the government is kicking in money to keep Reddit going, thus the owners don't have to worry about loses.
What would be the advantage for the government?:
- It is a really cheap way to follow and monitor the masses, and not just US cictizens in all one place.
- It is possible to start movements and influence people as a grass roots movement, even if it is coming from the government.
To send secret messages to agents coded in harmless posts. etc.etc.
So again, the real question is, why the owners are OK with losing money year after year? What kind of capitalist business model is that? Well, if a 3rd party makes up for the loss, the problem disappears....
33 comments
4 johnysmote 2013-10-25
I think that is why Aaron Schwartz is dead...because he created it for "them" and they were afraid he might talk.
2 go_fly_a_kite 2013-10-25
it's a free service provided by a for profit company. It's been run well so far, but it's clearly not sustainable. They're going to have to monetize somehow, and that will either be by selling our information or promoting more ads and pr.
Clearly there are companies and individuals who have been able to capitalize on this site. Eventually reddit is going to need some of that revenue to flow back to reddit.
3 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
Except employees who get paid, I don't think anyone else is making money. Reddit is like a soup kitchen selling very good soup below cost. It is hugely popular, but eventually they have to count for the losses... Now if a 3rd party is putting something into the soup and happy to make up the losses, that explains the business model. :)
2 go_fly_a_kite 2013-10-25
I don't know where Reddit gets all it's capital, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could follow any of it back to agency or private intelligence firms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inqtel
this type of forum certainly provides a wealth of opportunity for trend analysis and PR even before you start monitoring individual members.
2 c-1000 2013-10-25
Exactly.
If you have a Reddit account (or Facebook, or Google or Twitter or whatever), and you aren't paying for the service...you are the product being sold.
1 iamagod_ 2013-10-25
Not when outside parties are financing the site. It is officially losing money every day. Conde Nast is able to absorb this hemorrhaging? Does the company behave similarly with print media?
2 MarinTaranu 2013-10-25
How can that be when almost all users use fake name accounts?
7 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
1 Highguy4706 2013-10-25
I could see them using it to control movments or even start them but the whole them having an easier way to watch us is redundent with the whole nsa thing.
2 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
It costs a lots of money to maintain such a huge surveillance and technology and highly educated employees. It is much easier to read posts, and they only need internet and a high school degree for it, not to mention it isn't illegal....
1 Highguy4706 2013-10-25
It would still take as much man power and some highschool grad isn't going to be able to write up a psych profile on someon or even a good report( by gov standerds). The way it works I'm guessing at the nsa is, he boto,m level of people are what you describe they go through stuff the computer tags and move stuff up to the next level then that person looks as the subjects file and either sends it up to a case handler or back into the file and done with it.
2 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
They can also use Reddit to run certain ideas first. Let's say what people think of digital money? Well, Reddit loves Bitcoin, so maybe the government will come up with its own... (if bitcoin isn't their creation, but I already wrote about that)
The point is that as others mentioned social engineering is a new form of mass manipulation and the best part is that you don't even know you are being manipulated. Facebook is another good source on people, but I say because of the anonymity people here share more stories and opinions...
1 iamagod_ 2013-10-25
They are gaming the system now. This was made public when the Air Force base was named the most used. They weren't intelligent enough to proxy or use their costly persona management systems. Meant only to "use on the enemy." Consensus is forced. Upvotes used in the same fashion as broadcast media to show the individual users that they are NOT a majority when they most certainly are. Look at just about every sub on this site. Controlled completely.
1 iamagod_ 2013-10-25
MAC address, flash cookies, stubborn cookies, browser fingerprints. They most certainly know who we are.
2 kit8642 2013-10-25
Reddit didn't start out that way and was actually thinking about this last night while doing the dishes. They have turned on their initial premise, which was it was user driven. Look at how reddit has devolved, they killed r/reddit and broke everything down into subreddits. The subreddits were fine for a while till the mods took over. The mods than install new rules to be able to remove content and those rules have gotten more and more out of hand while the subs grew. Now look at the sites that are band from r/politics.
1 AliceHouse 2013-10-25
I like your idea. Let's maybe get together and enjoy some MacDonalds and drink some refreshing Pepis while we play XBUX 360 and jam out to some Justin Berber.
2 shoziku 2013-10-25
Roger that. Message received, we'll get back with you on that. over. sheepskin out.
1 TodaysIllusion 2013-10-25
Lots of sites for all that, facebook, yahoo/fox/cnn news sites, AOLHuffPo, democratic underground. It is just that some of us like the wild west kind of feel reddit has, and there are even a few on the news/political subs that can read and reason.
1 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
Oh boy so many bad examples. Facebook had a huge IPO and made its starters and VCs billionaires. Huffpo was sold for 300+ millions to AOL. The point is that eventually they made HUGE money. When and how is Reddit going to be like that?
1 TodaysIllusion 2013-10-25
I like reddit, but I don't intend to lose any sleep over it, there will always be another site, I used to hang out at Huff, and now reddit poitics has gone nutty, banning vetted sites in favor of little personal blogs.
1 iamagod_ 2013-10-25
In favor of controlled sites/blogs. The shallow motive is clear to all who look.
1 TodaysIllusion 2013-10-25
Until early October of this year reddit was fun. Now it is just another conservative controlled propaganda site. reddit is now so conservative we no longer see the constant crying and sobbing about how conservatives are always down voted.
1 cccpcharm 2013-10-25
reddit is and has been for quite some time, a 3 letter agency....kept ad free for your pleasure, so you'll want to come back, again and again...sites like these provide the enemy with tons of info in many layers of strata
1 Troll_Mane 2013-10-25
Wait aren't they getting rich selling reddit gold?
1 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
I think that just about cover the servers' cost...
1 iamagod_ 2013-10-25
Doubtful. Perhaps a few virtual machines, but definitely not hosting/power.
1 [deleted] 2013-10-25
[deleted]
1 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
As much as it sounds funny, let's say you want to communicate with your agent who lives in a dangerous enviroment. What way would you do it? Post a way that can not be intercepted or read, simple, easy access and deniable...
Now you see the idea of using Reddit doesn't sound so bad...
1 [deleted] 2013-10-25
[deleted]
1 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
I thought we are talking about 2 ways communication. Posting an innocent recipe in r/paleo could mean so much... :) Watch more of Homeland and see how difficult is to keep up with assets...
1 [deleted] 2013-10-25
[deleted]
0 iamagod_ 2013-10-25
Or critical thought for that matter.
1 Ferrofluid 2013-10-25
radio transceivers are physical things, they can be found on you or in your luggage/room.
reddit is a metaphysical thing, can be found on any web connected computer anywhere in the world, even in internet cafes. even in people's homes or offices.
0 iamagod_ 2013-10-25
This site is a broadcast tower. You can't liken the two? Seriously?
Look a little more to history.
1 Pennywheel23 2013-10-25
Also, how many users have admitted to illegal or questionable behaviour here? How many questions prompting that were asked by barely active accounts?
1 Ferrofluid 2013-10-25
its how and why Yahoo /chat started up back in the day, useful channel for communication, usable by everybody, secret squirrels could use it anywhere in the world without raising suspicions.
1 VirtualMoneyLover 2013-10-25
I thought we are talking about 2 ways communication. Posting an innocent recipe in r/paleo could mean so much... :) Watch more of Homeland and see how difficult is to keep up with assets...
1 Ferrofluid 2013-10-25
radio transceivers are physical things, they can be found on you or in your luggage/room.
reddit is a metaphysical thing, can be found on any web connected computer anywhere in the world, even in internet cafes. even in people's homes or offices.
0 iamagod_ 2013-10-25
This site is a broadcast tower. You can't liken the two? Seriously?
Look a little more to history.