Reddit: Resilient Democracy in the Age of AI: The Facebook-Focused Ipsodal Offshoot
The San Francisco-based social media site that describes itself as the front page of the internet has filed for an initial public offering.
Reddit lists data licensing and model training as part of its monetization strategy. A reported price of $60 million per year is how much it will cost to train models through an AI data deal that it announced on Thursday. Reddit currently generates most of its revenue from advertising, as 98 percent of its revenue came from ads from 2022 to 2023.
A letter that accompanied the regulatory filing states that it hopes going public will benefit the site’s community. “Our users have a deep sense of ownership over the communities they create on Reddit,” Huffman wrote.
“Reddit is one of the most important data sets of just human beings talking about interesting things in the world”, told Huffman in June. We don’t want to give that away for free.
Among the changes was Reddit’s decision to charge some developers for access to the site. Many people on the site boycotted it because the change would kill off third-party apps. Critics argued the policy shift was an attempt to move users toward Reddit’s own app and away from third-party apps.
The stock market went into a frenzy when small investors helped to send the stock of GameStop soaring to extraordinary highs, prompting a Wall Street trading frenzy, which also spotlighted the role of Reddit in the meme.
This laissez-faire approach has proven divisive. Fans of unfettered free speech have cheered the lack of centralized rules at other platforms. But critics have chided Reddit for allowing online communities to spring up with toxic material, including harassment, racism and the leaking of private celebrity photos.
In the crowded world of social media, where there are so many channels, Reddit has become popular by allowing the communities to govern themselves, as evidenced by the fact that it has grown in popularity through the fact that it has large, ardent followers.
Reddit, led by co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman, is expected to launch its official roadshow pitch to investors next month, at which time it will announce at what price it hopes to sell stock.
The filing shows that the largest shareholder is Advance Publications. The No. 2 shareholder is Chinese tech company Tencent. Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, is Reddit’s third-largest shareholder, according to the filing.
The site is a gathering place for anonymous banter and commentary on culture and politics. 76 million people visit the site daily now as its user base has grown, according to its filing to regulators.