Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO
Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has hinted that in future some subreddits could be paywalled, as the company seeks to devise...
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has hinted that in future some subreddits could be paywalled, as the company seeks to devise new sources of income.
He suggested that the company might experiment with paywalled subreddits as it looks to monetize new features. “I think the existing, altruistic, free version of Reddit will continue to exist and grow and thrive just the way it has,” Huffman said. “But now we will unlock the door for new use cases, new types of subreddits that can be built that may have exclusive content or private areas, things of that nature.”
This is another move likely to anger Redditors. While the platform is a commercial enterprise, its value derives almost entirely from freely offered user content. That means Redditors feel at least some sense of ownership in a community endeavour, so the company needs to tread carefully when it comes to monetization at user expense.
What’s next? Change the name of the platform to Y.com?
I think this comes down to what the intentions are
Paywall /r/videos? Fuck off.
But create a system like Patreon where a content creator can put their own content and interact with their own users and there's a revenue share between reddit/creator that doesn't sound terrible.
If they're gonna do it on Patreon, why not try and lure them to reddit?
After seeing this article on Reddit, that’s what made me finally jump ship and join in here. It’s been nice so far.
Reddit is hardly even the same site it used to be. Especially with bots taking over. And I just don’t think it makes sense to make people pay for what was meant to be a user-generated experience. We’ve sadly come a long way from the narwhal baconing at midnight.
But here’s to new beginnings!
...
Wouldn't the contributors to those subs just make a new one that's not paywalled?
Reddit is going to be asking users to pay to generate content on specific subs, but they're forgetting again that the sub isn't the important part, it's the users.
This would just fracture the biggest subs and destroy the communities.
Fuck Spez
This is a terrible idea for a site that relies solely on user-generated content and even user-moderation. It's not like Twitter hasn't tried this before - didn't work out so well, I'd say. But hey, this concept probably works for the upper management. I guess it doesn't matter to them if all that's left is scorched earth, as long as they can cash out.
i love seeing so many new accounts in the comments
Just created an account here because of this.
That's why I'm here testing Lemmy.
Sad if it ruins reddit since I like that place.
Posts like this remind me just how grateful I am for the Fediverse.
Medium's paywall gets lots of hatred, but at least they use it to pay the authors of the paywalled posts, so it kind of makes sense - you pay to consume content and get payed to create content. But Reddit is a forum, not a blogging platform - the separation between content creators and content consumers is much more blurred. If a subreddit gets paywalled, then the Redditors who create the content there - both the posts and the comments - will need to pay. Which will instantly ruin these subreddits when most of the posters will just take their posts elsewhere.
Did Reddit decide to imitate the business model of academic journals?
Lets see what this app is about
I don't even get how this would work. If you paywalled, say,
/r/gaming, could you just make a new community called/r/freegaming? And do the moderators get paid for the communities they created?It all feels really half-baked and a desperate plea for money from investors when the money well is drying up.
Do it. Fucking do it, man, I WANT it to happen. Mash that self-destruct like there's no tomorrow, Spez, see how low you can go!
Hey! I just read this on Reddit before I made this account! 🥲
"How DARE you take your subreddit private? Then Google can't index it and people can't access it! I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DO THAT!" - spez
Lol glad to move to lemmy
They already are. They put all nsfw content behind a privacy paywall (pay with email and browsing habits). Luckily it can still be subverted through old.reddit.com - but the question is for how long.
that's why i'm here
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
wait, let me catch my breath, turning purple over here
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hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
And that’s one of the reasons that brought me here.
Maybe it was the permanent banning for creating another account trying to talk to a mod that had banned me in a way I thought was harsh, and muted me before I could even speak.
Regardless, Reddit is starting to remind me of when Digg took a massive shit like 15 years ago. And saying that makes me feel old.
As long as I’m not dealing with AI chatbots spamming these communities, I think I’ll like it here.
The dumbass does not have an original idea or vision in his body. After turning his users into consumer goods, now he's just thinking about reddit r/lounge 2.0 and combining it with reddit awards 2.0 and reddit talk 2.0.
First of all, that only works if moderators get payed or you get some extremely gullible and power hungry ones, which for the first I doubt his money scrounging self could allow and for the second, that's the problem.
It will also open up a whole can of worms that reddit certainly has deserved for some time now, people suing if they are banned from these communities, specially if it was due to personal fickle prerogative of one of the mods. But considering what reddit has gotten away with, this last point is not really that likely.
They already exist! r/TheLounge is an example, but any sub can lock itself to premium users.
Ha. Line must go up or it affects the stock price. Profit first, users last.
A new challenger joins the battle in the Elon / Cloudstrike "ruin an established company any % speed run" challenge?
If I ever become the CEO of a multibillion dollar company, I'm going to say nothing at my first shareholder meeting.
Instead, I'm going to climb up on the boardroom table, remove my trousers and pants and drop a great big shit right there on the desk.
I will then say "That's what we're going to do to our users" and watch in awe as my salary and share price goes through the roof.
From the article "helping users dive deeper into products, shows, games" - that right there is their focus. It's spelled right out that it's going to be primarily an advertising platform.
nice. This won't backfire
I'm assuming this is going to be more like a creator space type thing like patreon/OF. It will make reddit worse of course because patreon and OF already exist we don't need reddit for that but as long as they aren't trying to paywall user generated content on existing subs I don't really care that much tbh.
If they paywall my old comments that I've left up to help others I'm going to go back and delete them.
Fuck spez
On 2024, July 1, I uninstalled Reddit for good. About two weeks later, I finally made the jump to Lemmy, and added a suffix to my username that reflected on this decision.
I am not looking back.
Go ahead. Only the occasional link brings me to reddit these days and I will treat his paywall just like all the others. By closing the tab and moving on.
I can already imagine how many scams this new feature can enable
"Join our private subreddit to unlock the secret to become rich" and then inside all you find is something like "yolo on Intel" and so on
It'll anger Redditors but they'll gladly hand over their money
Reddit is a media company now, they're not a community. Tons and tons of ads, thin skinned moderators with God complexes running completely out of control, and they now have platform profit responsibility.
Will cost them - this is a significant change to, by definition, some of their most popular content. Many people go to Reddit purely to find non-paywalled versions of content.
So, I’m not a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but I absolutely believe the theory that Spez & Musk are being paid handsomely under the table by dark money to do their best to ruin Reddit and Twitter. It was the two largest places that liberals congregated, communicated, and publicly posted, and the right wing wants to hamper and/or destroy both sites. I think both are seriously compromised now, and many of the left have fled. In the case of Twitter, it’s just turning into Truth Social lite, and Spez is trying to monetize what’s left of Reddit as fast as he can to rake in cash off what’s left of the dying carcass/bot farm.
Right, you guys keep on penning that really long suicide letter.
Here because of this
If you're gonna spend money to post on a forum, might as well just sign up for Something Awful. Or pay for access to Usenet if you don't get free access from your ISP.
Seriously i gotta pay to see a flipping subreddit
Bye reddit, it was fun while it lasted. Comments like this from out of touch ceos make me stop using the product. Same reason I canceled spotify after years of being a subscribing customer to move to Tidal
I mean, wasn't that what /r/lounge was for?
Glad I got out when I did
Aaron Swartz is rolling in his grave.
Proves yet another time that Aaron died for nothing
Why "some"? It should be "all". Select the subs you want to subscribe to and get billed monthly.
I don't see what could go wrong.
Oh no. anyways
"But now we will unlock the door for new use cases" ... like locking doors.
If only there was a free and open platform as an alternative to Reddit.
Stg I got out just in time.
So they want people to possibly pay to visit certain subreddits and the content of those subreddits is most definitely going to stay server submitted and curated. Getting people to pay to be able to submit their own content is going to go over well with the user base. They are probably going to do it with the NSFW subreddits.
Really this just sounds like YT membership, allowing users to create subscriptions for premium/special content e.g. gambling picks, porn, etc.
If that's all it was intended to be, it could have been an actually useful and not intrusive monetization strategy....5 years ago.
Even if that's how the feature gets rolled out now, unless it's an unmitigated disaster, I don't see them being capable of not overplaying their hand.
They will assume that because some users are willing to pay for private porn content, or gambling pick subreddits, that of course most users must also be willing to pay for cat photos and memes.
Personally, I am all for it. I am for Reddit making the worst choices possible and speed running their decline. Mostly, I would like a user exodus that results in Lemmy finally getting growth in a lot of their more niche communities that still keep me using Reddit on occasion.
I'm glad I've overwritten all my comments.
The easiest tool: PowerDeleteSuite
Don't forget to make the script prepare a backup file and download it once complete. In the replacement string, link to your Lemmy account so that anyone looking for the content can just PM you.So OnlyFans for Reddit. More spam incoming.
And yet people will remain until the site exists. That's the sad part
What a fucking moron
Gave me the excuse to check this out. Makes me sad to kill my 11 year old Reddit account, but "needs must when the devil vomits in your kettle" as they say.
The dumbest motherfuckers
been telling everyone on the reddit post about this to ditch reddit for lemmy. this could be a really good thing for this platform
I am going to try to revive some of the dead subs in here with posts and engagement.
Why are they trying to re-invent social media monetization schemes instead of incorporating already existing ones that are value-adds?
I could easily see a 'reddit marketplace' work well for them (i'd never fucking use it but i'm betting a bunch of people would), and it would drive more traffic to the site and lure more advertisers. Better than facebook marketplace, which requires real personal information to use, or craigslist, which feels a little too seedy and un-moderated for the faint-of-heart. Reddit could leverage their reputation for being a place for passionate hobbyists and even provide users a way to make their own income from their reddit activity.
Milking your users for paid-content seems over-the-top obnoxious when they absolutely had more options before needing to resort to that. What a trash company.
Wow, fuck absolutely all of that
bruh, bruv , brudda, REALLY?
Paywall all of them... don't care. Why do you think I'm on Lemmy?
Permanently Deleted
I want to switch aswell, but what is to stop bigger servers from doing the same on Lemmy?
Also where can I find the best instance for each of the Reddit equivalent? For instance I want wall street bets, where is the most active instance of that?
Why not all?
Damn, so now I gotta use reddit less than I use it already?
Instead of gonewild girls promoting their OnlyFans, maybe now they can promote their paid subreddit lol.
How about instead of paywalling. They just sort of concrete wall the entire site then leave it there too rot for all of eternity?
Test
If Reddit were run by competent people, I'd think that paywalled subs might be a good idea. I imagine that there are countless scenarios where people have really useful info to share, but at the same time, said info can't be spread too widely, and a paywall is one way of making sure that only people who truly care about said info can take advantage of it.
Sure, if that's how a really popular subreddit pays it's moderators, it's not unreasonable. We just know that isn't what's going on here.
In addition, it would be unreasonable to expect users of a free service to suddenly start paying for it without an extremely huge value boost which there's been no mention of. If anything engagement will certainly go down, further reducing the value.
If they grandfather existing subscribers in it might work for a few months or years, and what does the current Reddit leadership care if that community survives longer than they stay at the company. They also might make a few sales with paywalled celebrity IAmA threads. In any case I will watch from the sidelines and enjoy the spectacle 🍿.
Enshitification is inevitable
The obvious reaction to anything typically free getting paywalled is vehemence, of course - and that's my thought given Reddit's track record.
Still, if it weren't them, I'm thinking about how this could be done in a classy way. Most people are not willing to engage on topics like politics because there will always be an unending army of trolls arguing in bad faith about them or needlessly engaging in flame wars. If there's some form of friction behind entry, that CAN at least get people to think twice about insulting each other.
Price tags as a form of friction are problematic, of course, in that they "only allow access to the rich". As such, I'd also be open to other ways of making it "difficult" to enter in a way that people could still do with no money. The silliest idea that comes to mind is that people must mail a physical postcard requesting entry (which could then loop back to price tags, since that uses a stamp)
I know the lemmy hivemind jumps at any opportunity to trash reddit, but if properly implemented (which to be honest they probably won't ) this could be the same as paid forums back in the day. It just depends on how much of a cut they get and how do they manage revenue share. If you could have your own private forum for free and have people subscribe to it for 2 bucks a month and you get 75% revenue of every sub it would probably spring a lot of high value forums, I'm mostly thinking like car forums used to be but it'd probably be used as another only fans
