I was really encouraged by the responses from everyone else. A lot disagreed with me but still treated me respectfully and I felt I could at least have a voice here.

Then I see this. How come a post like this is even allowed? @jerry @Shortcake @tchambers

no im serious

What I was trying to say was that these were all out of the control of spez. If Reddits finances were bad enough then spez might not be able to wait long enough to give more time or be able to afford to offer even one penny less in pricing. There is no justifying the poor attitude but maybe spez is just really stressed out?

I feel that this answer makes the most sense on why spez is getting so much hate right now. He could have made Reddit profitable in so many other ways. He chose to pick the way that would alienate the maximum number of community members and spez is refusing to right the course even after getting so much backlash when spez has plenty of options and opportunity to do this.

I do wonder if there is still something. Some explanation that is not public but which explains why spez was forced to do things this way. Some reason that suddenly makes everything else forgivable.

I have been around. Early AOL user here.

Thank you for respecting my views even when they disagree with your own.

You could be right. I could be overly optimistic. What if spez and other top management and developers leaves after getting rich from the IPO and Reddit crashes and burns without them? Maybe spez stays on as CEO after the IPO but continues to ignore the protests because he thinks actually addressing these issues will hurt Reddit’s profitability and he doesn’t see a way out.

If spez will not deal with these concerns of accessible moderation tools after profitability, how can we expect him to do so before then? Put a different way, there is a chance that spez might actually fix the problems after Reddit becomes profitable. Fixing them before is impossible. There’s no chance of that happening.

I never said spez wants more money for more employees. The opposite is going to be true. Reddit will have more layoffs before it gets in the black. Reddit admins will lose their jobs. We are not the only ones suffering. This is exactly why we must stick together to support Reddit and help it become profitable.

I could be overly optimistic. It seems our best chance remains having a benevolent CEO of a profitable Reddit. Without the profitable part, the benevolent part does not matter.

I am hopeful that spez means that the protests are just noise compared to the goal of profitability. Concerns that do not need to be dealt with immediately. This is a far cry from not giving a damn.