Reddit is inviting its users to participate in purchasing shares of the company as part of its upcoming IPO. However, the Reddit community’s opinions on such an initiative are divided. Reddit’s offer was announced through private messages presented as a special program. However, users expressed different opinions about the possibility of investing in the company’s shares. One of the users stated that he did not want to take risks and rejected such an opportunity, citing the unreliability of investing in user bases. Other users noted this possibility but questioned the quality of the content provided.

The r/WallStreetBets subreddit, which includes 15 million members, has had significant influence on the stock market by manipulating underperforming stocks like GameStop, or so-called “meme stocks,” that have caused billions of dollars in losses to investors.

This week, Reddit is closing its pre-registration process for the 75,000 users it invited to join the process. According to documents Reddit filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the pre-registration process took into account the influence of users on the development of the community, as well as the activities of moderators. It is stated that Reddit takes into account users’ “karma points”, which reflect their contributions to the Reddit community, when sending “invitations”.

Reddit, which calls itself the “front page of the Internet,” was founded in 2005 by Alexis Ohanian, Aaron Schwartz, and Steve Huffman. The platform allows users to post messages and manage communities. Last year, users demonstrated their dedication by rendering the platform almost completely unusable in response to administrative changes.

According to CNBC, Reddit could be worth $6.5 billion. According to Semrush’s traffic analysis, in December 2023, Reddit became the third most visited site in the United States, after Facebook, with 535 million views. Twitter, Instagram and TikTok platforms ranked 10th, 13th and 17th respectively. Reddit ranks ninth on the global internet, according to Semrush, ahead of TikTok and WhatsApp but behind Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Reddit’s documents filed with the SEC show that it has 267.5 million weekly active users, more than 100,000 active communities, and more than 1 billion total posts. The company posted a $90.8 million loss last year, but according to the filing, Reddit plans to turn a profit through advertising, monetization of commerce on the platform and licensing data.

The documents also show that Reddit generates 98% of its revenue from advertising. In February, the platform signed a $60 million deal with Google to train AI models on Reddit posts.