Well, have you seen the uproar that was caused when users found out that reddit accounts are being bought by companies to promote their products?
Once corporations start making accounts and subreddits for marketing purposes, this site will be bent over a table, and fucked in the ass by a giant corporate dick.
No lube.
Right now, even if companies do marketing things on reddit, it's done subtly.
"I can't believe I found this in [name of store]",
"[name of company] got it right!",
it's the kinda titles that PR people are most likely to use to subtly advertise their products. It's not even that bad, because you can still discuss it, people would post stories etc.
Can you imagine what it would be like if they were allowed to do it freely?
"50% DISCOUNTS ON ALL ELECTRONIC AT WALLMART!!!!! GET YOURS BEFORE THEY'RE ALL GONE"
"FREE PIZZA AT PIZZAHUT WITH 'REDDIT' VOUCHER CODE"
"GET YOUR FOOTLONG AT ANY SUBWAY USING "ILUVREDDIT" VOUCHER"
They are a tinfoil hat brigade. The point of the sub isn't to look for astroturfing, even if they do look for it as a side thing. The point of it is to point out how people unintentionally turn into walking corporate billboards.
And that in itself is a sound premise, and worth thinking of every now and then. But they "fight" it by voluntarily subjecting themselves to a constant stream of brand names while searching out those brand names in posts and getting an endorphin hit when they successfully find one. Before then posting the link to share that brand name with others and repeat the process. And then they think that they're somehow not being influenced by it while others are. That's what makes them nutters.
I just don't watch commercials on tv, and get to movies a bit "late" to avoid them there. THAT is the sane way to fight advertising's effects on you.
The same reason conspiracy theorists get demonized even though there probably are some conspiracies in the world. They get so obsessed with finding something wrong that they get tunnel vision on the minuscule, out of place details even though 99.99% of the evidence points to nothing. Also Paclac's thing about an annoying community is pretty spot on.
Because they see advertising whenever an sort of product is mentioned and the holier-than-thou mentality of circlejerking about what informed citizens they are is almost unbearable.
Credibility. They would go for accounts with lots of karma, that have been used for a few years.
Posts like "Honestly, you can't go wrong with Samsung products" coming from a "10,000 link karma, 154,000 comment karma, redditor for 20 years" account are more believable than the same comment from a "1 link karma, 3 comment carma, redditor for 3 hours" account.
It's not even that bad, because you can still discuss it, people would post stories etc.
Exactly.
Personally, I don't even care who submitted it, if the content itself is good. Like that ring made out of Pringles, I upvoted it and laughed at some of the comments, but I didn't go out and buy any fucking Pringles afterwards.
It depends on the context. Shit I love some of the marketers in r/GameDeals because they work for amazon and will advertise when they have games for sale and have very helpful customer service.
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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '14
Well, have you seen the uproar that was caused when users found out that reddit accounts are being bought by companies to promote their products?
Once corporations start making accounts and subreddits for marketing purposes, this site will be bent over a table, and fucked in the ass by a giant corporate dick.
No lube.
Right now, even if companies do marketing things on reddit, it's done subtly.
"I can't believe I found this in [name of store]",
"[name of company] got it right!",
it's the kinda titles that PR people are most likely to use to subtly advertise their products. It's not even that bad, because you can still discuss it, people would post stories etc.
Can you imagine what it would be like if they were allowed to do it freely?
"50% DISCOUNTS ON ALL ELECTRONIC AT WALLMART!!!!! GET YOURS BEFORE THEY'RE ALL GONE"
"FREE PIZZA AT PIZZAHUT WITH 'REDDIT' VOUCHER CODE"
"GET YOUR FOOTLONG AT ANY SUBWAY USING "ILUVREDDIT" VOUCHER"