CompanyGraph
Reddit, Inc. Class A Common Stock
RDDT · NYSE Arca · United States
Self-governing subreddit communities, moderated entirely by unpaid volunteers, produce topic-organized discussion that scales without platform-employed curation.
Volunteer moderators — not platform employees — apply community-written rules that convert undifferentiated user submissions into niche, topic-organized discussion pools, and that structure is the mechanism by which the product scales without headcount. Because moderation authority cannot be hired, directed, or replaced without dissolving the community-controlled structure, the pool of willing unpaid volunteers sets a binding ceiling on how many communities can exist and function at any time. That same delegation of authority creates a structural exposure: coordinated moderator withdrawal, as occurred during API protests, removes the enforcement layer entirely, yet the platform cannot substitute employees without centralizing control and destroying the differentiated discussion environments the product depends on. External pressure from the EU Digital Services Act points toward mandatory centralized oversight, which would force exactly that centralization, placing regulatory compliance and the community-governance mechanism in direct conflict.
How does this company make money?
The platform takes in money through promoted posts and banner ads targeted to specific subreddit audiences, through Premium subscriptions that offer ad-free browsing and enhanced features, through data licensing agreements that sell access to comment and discussion datasets, and through developer API access charges for third-party applications.
What makes this company hard to replace?
Users accumulate subreddit-specific karma scores (reputation points tied to individual communities) and posting histories over years, which do not transfer to other platforms. Established moderator relationships and community norms would need to be rebuilt from scratch elsewhere. Archived comment threads and discussion histories form searchable knowledge bases within specialized topics that exist only inside those subreddits.
What limits this company?
Each subreddit requires at least one active human moderator applying community-specific rules; that human cannot be hired, directed, or replaced by the platform without dissolving the community-controlled structure the product depends on. Community count therefore cannot grow faster than the pool of volunteers willing to govern new topics without compensation.
What does this company depend on?
The platform depends on volunteer subreddit moderators who enforce community-specific rules, Amazon Web Services infrastructure for hosting and content delivery, Google and other search engines for user acquisition, the iOS App Store and Google Play Store for mobile distribution, and third-party advertising demand-side platforms (automated systems through which advertisers purchase ad inventory) for programmatic ad sales.
Who depends on this company?
Digital marketers depend on the platform for niche community targeting within specific subreddit discussions and would lose that targeting capability without it. AI training companies that license conversational datasets from the platform would lose access to structured community dialogue data. Google search results that surface Reddit discussions to answer real-time user questions about opinions and product recommendations depend on those discussions remaining publicly accessible.
How does this company scale?
Subreddit creation and basic community infrastructure replicates automatically as new topics emerge and users self-organize into forums. Volunteer moderator recruitment and governance quality becomes increasingly difficult to maintain as the platform grows, because each new community requires dedicated human oversight that cannot be centrally managed or automated.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
The EU Digital Services Act imposes content moderation requirements that could force centralized oversight, directly conflicting with the community-based moderation structure. iOS App Store policy changes around user-generated content could restrict mobile access to the platform. Economic recessions reduce brand advertising spend, particularly on platforms perceived as less brand-safe than traditional media.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
Because moderator authority is the mechanism rather than a peripheral input, coordinated moderator withdrawal — as occurred during API protests when thousands of subreddits went private — directly removes the enforcement layer that makes communities functional. The platform cannot substitute employees without centralizing moderation, which destroys the community-controlled structure that generates the differentiated discussion environments the product depends on.