Counter-intuitive? Perhaps not. But there are some obvious reasons why it is comparatively harder for Reddit to attract ad spend:
1. Instagram encourages business users to use the service for free. This gives a taste for the platform and reduces the friction in spending money later on. Reddit, on the other hand, discourages free business use.
2. Instagram generally gives the impression that it has real users, with real names and real photos attached. Reddit generally gives the impression of being a fantasy world with anonymous characters. While the latter may be attractive to certain niche products that fit into that fantasy, the average business operating in the real world feels more at home when it thinks it is marketing to real people.
1. Instagram encourages business users to use the service for free. This gives a taste for the platform and reduces the friction in spending money later on. Reddit, on the other hand, discourages free business use.
2. Instagram generally gives the impression that it has real users, with real names and real photos attached. Reddit generally gives the impression of being a fantasy world with anonymous characters. While the latter may be attractive to certain niche products that fit into that fantasy, the average business operating in the real world feels more at home when it thinks it is marketing to real people.