Who owns reddit?

cross-posted from: https://wallstreets.bet/post/1273

TLDR: It seems to me like there is a real question hanging out in the ether around who actually owns the content that gets posted to reddit. The ongoing protests bring to light some important points about reddit and social media companies as a whole, specifically around content generation, ownership, and brand identity.

Positions: Long dated puts on Reddit once they IPO and options become available; Long dated puts/ calls on alphabet depending on how they react.

Thesis:

For social media sites like reddit (and perhaps to a greater extent, youtube and tictoc), there is an ongoing conflict that will always be present between the owners of the company, and the 'owners' of the content. In the case of youtube, the owners of the company (alphabet) have pretty clearly understood that the content that they host is not 'theirs', that its the property of the uploader/ creator/ copyright holder, etc.. In this case, there is pretty clear and established law around video and audio media for this kind of property rights. Because of this, youtube has primarily built its self as a support engine for the generation and consumption of that content, and doesn't see themselves as the 'owners' of that content; this is made even more clear by the profit sharing arrangements they'll enter into for channels that are doing well, generating traffic, etc. In 2022, advertising made up 80% of googles revenue, and while its rather opaque about how much of that is search or other services, youtube is the 9000 kg gorilla in the room. Its one of the only clear advertising pathways that gives advertisers reliable in-site into if their ad was actually seen, it gives them clear metrics into demographics and audience due to the videos. So just keep in mind, inspite of all of the AI hype, advertising is still 80% of alphabets revenue; this is largely from a social media/ content platform (not that dissimilar from reddit from a discovery perspective). I think its also important to note here that youtube has been aggressively experimenting with countering ad-blockers/ forced consumption via apps, etc.

Reddit has a very different perception of ownership than youtube has taken. Reddit very clearly sees themselves as the owners of everything that gets created on their platform. While this is legally dubious, that is irrelevant to the premise. For example, lets say that youtube wanted to force all people to use the app to watch youtube. There would be nothing stopping content creators from pulling their videos off youtube, moving to some other platform; taking their ball and going home. Youtube would have no recourse. They couldnt force the channels back up or post the videos elsewhere without putting themselves in serious legal jeopardy, which they would definitely lose on at least most high courts. Contrasting this with reddit, the company is going to be forcing open these subreddits and opening them up; perhaps replacing moderators; etc. So, to some extent, this might open them up to legal jeopardy. I think there is a clear argument that you can make that by starting and moderating a subreddit, you've 'created' something. That same argument extends to the posts and content its self. I do see this as a very unlikely case, and one not likely to hold up under our current legal system. However, this DD is about what this implies to the broader social media landscape. Reddits commitment to the enshittification of all things through their forcing of users to be beholden to capitol is consistent with the degradation of all platforms during their lifecycle.

When things are novel, new modes of interaction are created. The beginning of the lifecycle is chaotic, wild-west energy. This generates excitement, fomo for the new thing, and as a result, exponential growth. This is where the first 1-20% of users come from. These are the super users, the mods, the comment creators, and the commentors. These 20% are followed in the second phase by the 20-60%. These are the consumers, the one word replies. In reddit parlance: "this". This cohort confuses themselves with the first 20%. The final 40% come in after the west has been tamed, when the avatars are released, they see wild thing that corporate has tamed and thinks this is the way things have always been.

This distribution is consistent across almost every domain, where a very small percentage of participants is responsible for the vast majority of activity, and most low engagement users confuse themselves as being higher engagement.

Lets start putting this all together. Reddit has created no reward or profit sharing for its most highly engaged audience (the 20%). Reddit also does not see the content generated on their platform as yours; they see it as theirs. Effectively you (the content creator) have no rights to what you do on their software. There are clear alternatives for content sharing and generation to reddit. Lemmy is one of them, but realistically, there are others, much more popular (tictoc, insta, etc..). None of them are as good an aggregator as reddit, the "front page of the internet" (whoever made the decision to get rid of that tagline should be fired). What this situation does, however, is create a kind of battle for the spirit of where social media goes next. If reddit can effectively "get away" with stealing the content that not-reddit has made using their platform, other social media platforms will follow.

So building on the enshittification of all things, and consistent with what we're seeing across the web-3.0 internet, we're watching what were previously open spaces turn into walled gardens, and walled gardens turn into moated castles. Why is this relevant or how does this turn into a DD? My thinking here is that the reddit blackout has real implications for the enshittification of all things. If companies can steal your content and not pay you for it, they will. This might be dependent on how 'locked in' they think they have you. I think youtube would be next, my speculation is that they would look to create a 'two-teired' ownership structure. They won't risk getting sued by Miramax, but they could give a shit if you want to leave with your 100k subscriber channel. They're keeping your content and you can fuck off (which is effectively what reddit is doing and may be able to set a precedent for).

Since this is a DD, I'm required to post positions, so here they are.

I'm still waiting on the Reddit IPO, and once options become available, I'm expecting a Rivian style blow up and then blow out. I'm going to try buying the longest dated puts possible at the top. Since they arent public yet, its unclear to me what strikes I'll be getting, but I'll be watching for a peak, and then will buy at the money.

Further, I'm going to be paying extremely close attention to how other social media companies react to the reddit black out from a content ownership and creation standpoint, with my primary being alphabet. I'll also be monitoring the growth of the fediverse closely and looking to see how viable the alternatives are. Its important to remember that all of the modern monoliths in social media started as alternatives, so don't count out the geeks.

If youtube takes a similar tack as reddit, and especially if there is a growing/ viable alternative space like floatplane or peertube, or whatever, I'm looking at long dated puts. If they seem like they are doing more to support their creators, I'll go for long dated calls.

Either way, I think we're in for some seismic shifts in the social media landscape over the next 3 years. I'm really excited for the reddit IPO, mostly so that I can profit from their downfall. I think they really misunderstand where their value is created.