Let me rephrase that "So a not yet profitable site is going to spend 10% of a new form of marketing. Very not happy I'm not an investor in that company" :)
In theory, if they can get enough people to stop blocking reddit ads, it might actually increase ad revenues. I guess we'll see if that actually works.
IMHO, the type of person who installs adblock isn't the type of person you can sell things to easily. They're decidedly anti-mainstream, anti-corporate, probably not particularly rich, etc.
So it's not just a matter of convincing their userbase to stop blocking ads, you'd need to tell their current userbase to go away, and invite a better userbase to come and click on ads.
Reddit created this problem by fostering a culture of anti advertising early on.
Reddit should probably just become some non-profit foundation like wikipedia and show begging adverts.
> IMHO, the type of person who installs adblock isn't the type of person you can sell things to easily. They're decidedly anti-mainstream, anti-corporate, probably not particularly rich, etc.
[citation needed]
Could just be that the people installing AdBlock don't like being distracted by multitudes of flashing popover and automatically playing videos. I doubt it's anything to do with being anti-mainstream or anti-corporate.
They should focus their efforts on redditgifts (http://redditgifts.com/) and consider putting it on the main site instead of on a separate domain. Their users may not like to buy mainstream products but they definitely like to buy quirky, off-the-wall things as evidenced by `Shut Up And Take My Money`'s success with advertising on Reddit. They've already got the right idea with the marketplace model. They should (if they're not already) focus on trying to attract unique products through a program similar to Steam's Greenlight and stop focusing so much on advertising. Advertising and Redditors -- generally speaking -- are not a good match.
While you are responding to a poorly-defended stereotype/generalization, I actually think your anecdote is worse: the userbase of this website is, on the whole, going to be almost entirely "rich"; even if 99% of Adblock users are "poor", if you thereby polled Adblock users here you would not be able to discover this phenomenon due to the pre-selection.
By definition, not-for-profit companies don't make a profit. If your company's expenses are always as high as its revenues, then the company can survive forever. So I don't see what your point is.
At least in the US, non-profits may make a profit, it's just that they can't have owners who receive the profits (or managers/insiders who receive undue compensation). Any profits must remain within the organization and dedicated to its mission.
(Although "non-profit" is the common name, in this sense it's better to think of it as shorthand for "not for profit", meaning that achieving financial profits for its owners/insiders is not its legal purpose.)
Same in France, non-profits are allowed to make profit but you can’t plan it (you’re supposed to plan that you’ll spend as much money as you receive but it doesn’t always happen) and you can’t give it to your people. (source: I run a non-profit)
They might be onto something. I guess many users consider Reddit a trustworthy and ethical company.
Such a move only strengthens this image. This in turn makes their users very faithful (as long as they
manage to live up their image) If they manage to (directly or indirectly) sell a no-bullshit product/service that appeals to their users then they are going to be a very successful company.
(What's more, trust is a "resource" potential competitors can not easily imitate)
Sure, they haven't really found anything yet but building up trust will capitalize if the right product/service is found.
If there really exists is no such product then our whole society would have quite some serious flaws ...
You can see "gilded" comments in real time. Gilded is when one user gives a month of reddit gold to another user (it doesn't include people buying it for themselves).
They have a "gold goal" progress meter at the bottom of the homepage sidebar. I assume this is approximately "amount of gold purchases needed to keep us from losing money today" -- it's usually above 80%; yesterday it was 107%.
Obviously, if it were profitable then revenues would have to be substantial - above total operating costs. Any percentage of that would be a massive expenditure.
Whereas if it is not yet profitable, then revenue could be tiny - i.e. you might be 'vetoing' (with your comment) a $50 expenditure that serves to generate huge amounts of free advertising and goodwill for Reddit.
Frankly with this level of analysis, it would surprise me greatly to learn that you have any money remaining to invest.
Probably not ideal given it's financial situation, but the userbase may respond positively, and that could have a proportionate benefit that outweighs the negative.
