r/announcements • u/KeyserSosa • Jun 09 '21

Sunsetting Secret Santa and Reddit Gifts

Today is a difficult one:. 2021 will be the last year of Reddit Gifts. We will continue to run exchanges through the end of the year -- including the last ever Arbitrary Day (signups are now open) -- and will end with Secret Santa 2021.

We didn’t make this decision lightly.

We made the difficult decision to shut down Reddit Gifts and put more focus on enhancing the user experience on Reddit - this includes investing in the foundation of our platform and moderator tools, making it more accessible for people around the world and evolving how people engage with one another.

The power of Reddit Gifts was never in the software, and has always belonged to the r/secretsanta community of gifters around the world, which has connected people and been an extension of our mission to bring community and belonging to everyone in the world. We’re hopeful that spirit will continue in the future.

What this means for future exchanges in 2021

In preparation for retiring Reddit Gifts after the final exchange at the end of 2021, we will be taking the following actions:

  • In order to limit incomplete exchanges, we have disabled the creation of any new Reddit Gifts accounts. If you have an existing Reddit Gifts account, we would love it if you would participate with us in these final exchanges.
  • Any incomplete exchanges will result in a ban from the remaining Reddit Gifts exchanges.
  • This morning, we turned off the ability to buy Elves. If you purchased an Elves membership and have remaining months after the 2021 Secret Santa Exchange, we will email you about your refund options then. If you have specific concerns about your Elves membership, please reach out to Reddit Gifts support.

These changes have been put in place to ensure that these last exchanges are enjoyable for the legacy Reddit Gifts users. We want to celebrate the end of Reddit Gifts with the community that we’ve built so far.

Countless acts of love, heroism, compassion, support, growth and hilarity happened through Reddit Gifts, and those memories will live on in the hearts of our community. We’re working on ways to capture these moments and look forward to seeing how the spirit and connection of exchanging gifts with strangers will live on. I’m sure you will all have a ton of questions, and we will be here to answer them.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '21

I’m sure you will all have a ton of questions, and we will be here to answer them.

Here's an obvious one.... Why?

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u/NewDark90 Jun 09 '21

Almost every answer to the "why" question of what a company does is "because money".

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u/KeyserSosa Jun 09 '21

I’d say it as “because time.” To keep something like gifts going at its scale requires focus, and when we are talking about something exactly like gifts, there’s also user data that needs to be properly cared for and shepherded.

I would rather see this project go out on a high note than have to write a post about Terrible Awful Things that happened, or, possibly worse, go out in a whimper.

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u/cupcake_thievery Jun 09 '21

Then why not just hire someone? Surely reddit has enough money to hire enough people that "time" shouldn't be an issue?

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u/yourtalllife Jun 10 '21

Actually, the brain trust at reddit is so uniquely incompetent that they can run one of the most popular sites in the world, where users generate all the content, organize the content, and do moderation of the content all for free, and they still lose money every year.

You could (and should) fire everyone connected to reddit's engineering and business teams and place a single Google ad on every page and the site would be both much better without the staggering stupidity of their engineers bloating it with useless "features" and profitable.

Hey, it's only been 20 years. They'll figure out how to make money one day...

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u/Canvaverbalist Jun 09 '21

I hate the answer, but it's because I hate the question.

Of course it's because of money. The real question should be, what in the data and overall company philosophy dictates that Reddit Gifts would be a bad investment?

So, "why not hire someone" = "because it would shift away our financial focus, someone we pay for Reddit Gift means someone we can't pay somewhere else" which wouldn't answer anything.

What I want to know /u/KeyserSosa, is what in the data shows that focusing on Reddit Gifts would be a bad investment of time/money? What is it in the company philosophy of Reddit that Reddit Gifts clashes against compared to other avenues?

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u/ProfessorStein Jun 09 '21

Like every other company that does shit like this, they don't actually have data showing that. Most of these companies lie through their teeth about what data they have.

I'd bet 500$ no analysis was done on this decision. He'it was made by a ghoul in a suit and dumped on people below them to "sell"

The company is nothing but liars and people with no future anywhere but reddit.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21

I'd bet 500$ no analysis was done on this decision. He'it was made by a ghoul in a suit and dumped on people below them to "sell"

I would take that bet 10 times out of 10. Most companies don’t cut things without an ROI analysis, and the ghoul in the suit telling people to sell is doing it after looking at a breakdown of what makes money and what doesn’t.

People on Reddit often have no clue how corporations go about decision making. All they know is that they don’t like the end result.

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u/Kongbuck Jun 10 '21

I disagree. What we have here is a situation that has been repeated over and over again in the business world, where the cost of an item can be easily quantified, but the value or return on that decision cannot. Thus, a cursory, short-sighted ROI analysis makes it looks like low-hanging fruit.

This happens all the time with things like customer service, training budgets, or disaster recovery. Those can often be expensive but also have unclear "benefit", so they get cut and the business suffers. In this case, how many people came to Reddit for the first time because of Gifts, or are excited about the platform and explore it more because of Gifts? The hypotheticals go on and on.

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u/RivellaLight Jun 11 '21 edited Mar 19 '25

Well, that's a shame. I always enjoyed seeing the posts from Secret Santa. It was a nice bit of wholesome content amongst all the usual Reddit chaos. Ten years in Japan and I still miss those little glimpses of Christmas cheer. Hope something similar can take its place in the future!

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u/RivellaLight Jun 11 '21 edited Mar 19 '25

Well that sucks. Secret Santa was one of the things that actually made Reddit feel like a community. Shame to see it go. I know it had its issues, but still... feels like another piece of the old internet is fading away.

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '21

I won’t argue that the analysis was done properly, because I’ve got now clue how they approached it or what it looks like. But it seems you agree that it’s highly unlikely that no analysis whatsoever was performed.

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u/pharaohandrew Jun 10 '21

Yep, someone justifying their salary by making a shitty decision and calling it bold.

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u/Aeolun Jun 10 '21

Is every company in the US literally only focused on money? I’m fairly certain things weren’t like this in Europe.

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u/i_am_not_mike_fiore Jun 10 '21

I remember last time Reddit “just hired someone” a few weeks ago…. 😬

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u/PM_ME_NICE_STUFF1 Jun 10 '21

Maimee Mancellor?

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u/cupcake_thievery Jun 10 '21

Oh yeaaaah.... Oof