Great video, but I strongly disagree with the notion that all the so-called “low-hanging fruit” of monetization has already been picked, for several reasons.
I agree with these points:
- The Google dependency/risk is real.
- Acquiring new advertisers won’t be easy forever (they are already advertising on LinkedIn, for example).
- The slowdown in US user growth is a problem.
But on the other hand:
- Logged-in users are certainly more valuable, but in my opinion, Reddit users are more comparable to Google Search users than to other social media—and Google has had no trouble monetizing these unlogged users. I believe this because the context a user browses on Reddit functions more like keywords than other social media does.
- Ad formats are still in their infancy. If I recall correctly, they’ve hired people from Meta, and for example, some version of Dynamic Ads has already been released, but not many advertisers are using them yet, and scalable location-based advertising, for instance, isn’t really possible yet. I believe there is still plenty of room for growth here.
- Reaching Meta’s ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is unlikely, but I believe there are very realistic opportunities to raise it—advertising is currently quite light and could be more aggressive (at least up to a certain point).
- Reddit now has a very interesting translation feature where searching in your own language can lead to directly translated results in Google (even before you enter Reddit). It’s still a bit clunky at times, but sometimes it’s frighteningly good. I believe this will open up the non-English-speaking world significantly.
- Even though a US user is more valuable, there is still a lot to monetize regarding international users, as much less advertising is currently shown in these countries.