[josso]

Not aggressive enough:

> So why am I leaving? Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining reddit’s core principles.

http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_tha...

[calbear81]

I can see how growing users organically was going to be tough, especially with the new community guidelines:

1) Pushing commercial IamAs was going to have a two-fold effect: increasing revenue and increasing traffic. Traffic would have basically come from Fortune 500 brands paying to drive traffic to Reddit via TV, online ads, etc. Companies today drive users to their own sites or to branded channels on YouTube or Facebook but not to Reddit. Sponsored IAmAs might have helped create a new stream of mainstream users but would have generated a large backlash with the moderators and the current rules on IamA (non-commercial).

2) Banning morally dubious but wildly popular content - The Fappening BROKE reddit. It drove so much traffic and introduced reddit to so many new users that by holding themselves to now a different standard of community policing, they are also banning from content that drives a lot of traffic growth. Celebrity, gossip and scandal brings all the eyeballs and $$$ to the yard.

The only logical place for the type of growth they are looking for is mobile hence the push for more video content and anything that capitalizes on how people consume content now-a-days.

[danielweber]

#2 reminds me how reddit clamped down on the unauthorized nude photos, and then shamed the community for its behavior (correctly, IMHO). But then someone asked if reddit was going to refund all the gold purchased during and because of it, and AFAIK the admins just stopped talking about that. (If they did any more than say "that's a tough call" I missed it.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/2foivo/every_man_is_r...

It's tough to have a conscience when you are getting funding for violating it.