No no. I can imagine users AREN’T signing up as quickly as before.
There are a finite number of humans on this planet with internet. Of those with the internet, you have to look at the breakdown of people who know about reddit, and those who do not.
You may be thinking “Everyone knows about reddit.”, to which I would say “Wow. What a stupid person you are. So sure of yourself that everybody knows all the same things you know. Just because something is common knowledge, you think that everybody knows about it.”
And it turns out, that’s just not the case. Consider the fact that when you break people down by age catagory, the overwhelming majority of humans on this planet right now are boomers. I don’t mean this faux definition of boomers that some of you use. I’m not saying a 36 year old who doesn’t know how to open a can of beans. He’s not a boomer, specifically because he’s 36. He would be a millennial. No, I’m using the ACTUAL definition of boomer here. Those born between 1945 and 1965. Those are a generation known as the baby boomers. Ironically enough, even though I’m not using the faux definition of “person who doesn’t know common knowledge”, it IS that same stereotype that comes into play here.
There are millions of boomers still alive. They are the dominant generation by sheer numbers. When I asked my 80 year old aunt what she looks at on reddit, she had no idea what reddit was. I had to explain the concept. Then I had to explain what a content aggregator was. Then I had to explain what content was.
Mind you, she knows exactly what facebook is. She knows what facetime is. No clue what reddit is, and when I explained it to her she said “I just don’t see how anyone would want to use a website like that. Why do I care what stories other strangers post? I only type comments on facebook because they’re being read by my friends and family. I don’t care if someone 5 states over doesn’t like my comment I left for your cousin Bret on how to make better gravy.” Then she spent 10 minutes complaining that mashed potatoes and gravy isn’t that hard to make, and Bret is being lazy every thanksgiving.
These are the people that dominate the internet. A website like reddit needs new eyeballs on their platform. Here’s the problem. There’s only so many humans on earth, who have access to free internet. I don’t mean free as in non-paid. I mean free as in not censored. Many countries censor their internet. Even the united states has to some degree begun censoring in some states.
So when reddit looks for new groups to target, they want people who have lots of free time, and who are going to engage every post. The boomers are the perfect target for that. They have nothing but free time right now. They’re opinionated enough to be confident in their wrong opinions. They’re argumentative. These are all desired qualities to reddit. Reddit doesn’t care if you’re posting racist or divisive opinions. They prefer that, because it creates engagement. But boomers have no clue what reddit is, and when explained to them, they seem to dislike the core concept.
Reddit targeted young people since it’s inception. It targeted the nerdy. It targeted a small sample of everybody, but in the begining it was mostly social outcasts. I remember in 2010 being on reddit, and feeling that the people on reddit were mostly people who were smarter than most people you’d interact with in real life. I remember using reddit to ask for advice because I felt like I was asking a smart audience. Then by 2016, I remember thinking at some point idiots took over.
So young people aren’t signing up, because they know what reddit is, and the ones who want to be there already are. They aren’t attracting middle aged people, because most of them know exactly what reddit is, and if they wanted to be there, they would be there. Gen X is where the divide starts. Some Gen X know exactly what reddit is, and if they wanted to be on it, they would be. Other Gen X have no idea what reddit is.
And then boomers just have no clue.
The end result is, I imagine not many people are signing up for reddit at this point simply because they’ve reached max capacity. Sure, their servers might be able to handle more humans, but my point is, more humans don’t exist. All the ones who know of your service, are either already signed up, or don’t want to be.
They have two options. They can either target the boomers HARD, and make reddit the new facebook. OR they can wait like 15 years, and target the NEW young people which right now are still watching Sesame Street, and not really contributing to political discussions currently.
The downside of targeting boomers is, it’s not really a long term strategy. I just watched a documentary on youtube where an american soldier from the vietnam war who gave his perspective on what he saw in the war. The video was filmed in 2014. It ended by saying “Three months after filming this documentary, (name) died peacefully in his sleep.” That was 12 years ago, and he died of old age.
The downside of targeting new people is, there is no big event where there will be massive new drops of new generation population. They trickle in as days go by. Also, young people aren’t having kids as much. So even when they do trickle in, there’s not a lot of them.
The thing to remember about the boomers is simple. Their generation was NOT natural. The greatest generation really lived up to their name in terms of being the greatest to repopulate the country. My grandpa had 4 kids, and for the time period, that was considered a small size family. There were other families that had 12 kids. And while the baby boom officially lasted 20 years, the bulk of it was between 1945-1950. It was basically young adults getting done with their tour, and coming home like “Where’s my girlfriend, I haven’t had sex in FOREVER!!!” And it must have been really good sex too, because they just went at it like rabbits.
So now the question becomes "Do they go after the immediate short term profits which have a guarenteed end date quickly approaching, or do they do the hard work for slow but sustainable long term returns?
C’mon. It’s 2026. It should be obvious that businesses today only thing about short term. That’s why everything is in the shape it’s in. Companies make quarterly decisions for big payday over the choices that would ensure the company stays afloat for 50 years.
Welcome to 2026. Apperently we faught wars for this…