Reddit CEO signals subreddits requiring a subscription fee coming this year

Welcome to Lemmy former redditors
- The revolution will be televised; behind a paywall.
  
  The revolution will have a subscription.
- Thanks. I just switched - apparently just in time!
  
  Me too friend!!
- The only subreddit you need is
  r/redditseppuku
- Yeah I signed in for the first time in like a year right after seeing this lol
- Thanks, I love you too.

Some subreddits, like r/Watchexchange, where Redditors “buy, sell or trade watches,” according to the subreddit’s description, are centered on transactions. Huffman said the fact that users are already “transacting on Reddit kind of opens the door” for such monetization.
"Hey! How dare you exchange things with each other without giving us a cut!"
- Whole lot of “Reddit, what are you going to do about the scammers now that we’re paying you?” posts are coming. The answer is nothing. They’ll do nothing.
  Actually, they’ll write their lack of culpability more explicitly into the ToS, and then do nothing.
  
  Actually, they’ll write their lack of culpability more explicitly into the ToS, and then do nothing.
  Ugh, aCtUaLly the almighty Reddit Admins and ~~janitors~~ Moderators will act decisively to ban anyone who dares use the report button.
- I’m wondering how they would charge people. Who would pay for a subreddit they’ve never been to? Could a non-paying user view the subreddit but be unable to post/comment?
  
  Could a non-paying user view the subreddit but be unable to post/comment?
  Doubtful. If I remember the statistic correctly, 95% of social media users are lurkers. Greedy Little Pigboy wouldn't pass up the opportunity to milk the remaining 19/20 users.
  
  Scroll down a few times and -- "THERE'S A WHOLE LOT MORE TO SEE WITH REDDIT+"
  
  Let's be honest - this will kill many subreddits. Of course some mods will start a paid subreddit next to an existing one and try to bring their users to subscribe. So expect those subs to become like those YouTubers who are constantly trying to push you to their Patreon.
  
  Could easily see certain subreddits being like OF or Patreon. Pay for access to content. Pretty tried and true business model and it will probably work well enough to keep it around.
  Even YouTube has "memberships" to channels now where you get bonus content and stuff.
  The people that are interested will pay and those that aren't won't.
  
  Dollars to donuts it's going to immediately devolve into an onlyfans competitor
  
  could be something like a private sub, where only approved members can enter.
- thats why they have been aggressively going after OF subs/bots this month, they arnt getting a slice from the profit they are earning externally. from another forum,(where people flee after getting banned this way) alot of them lost tons of accts recently. yup one of my accts was temp ban for using the report button, how many is too much? it depends on the mod and the sub, if they dont like that you are reporting are reporting a person that should be reported, or the comment, you get banned for report abuse. these bans seems much severe than a subreddit ban.

- I’m having a good time with my popcorn!

Yes let's put a site that consists pretty much entirely of user-created content behind a paywall, what could possibly go wrong?
- Well, Spez is a special kind of stupid.
  
  I think people who are content with Reddit being the way it is deserve someone like Spez.
  
  The users still on reddit are even dumber than him
- Quora did it. I don't go there anymore.
  
  Don't lie. When 70% of your search results are Quora, you are going to click, you are going to encounter the login banner, you are going to rage, and you are going to click away.
- Isn't it mostly bot-generated content?
  
  How the hell would I know?

- holy shit what is this from, i swear i saw this 20 years ago. what is it, george of the jungle??
  
  Yep.

Guys, Gals, my non-binary pals.
I hope you understand the assignment.

It'll be the porn they charge for.
They know only wankers will give them money.
- What’s funny about that is Reddit is mostly just an advertising front for onlyfans at this point
  
  I mean yeah, and that's the piece of the pie they want. It will start with letting content creators charge and probably end by some ban or disincentive on direct only fans links.
  
  Based
- Reddit has cracked down on many porn subreddits in the last few years. Most porn on reddit is now just ads for onlyfans.
- First they came for the porn subreddits, but I didn't say anything because I was not a porn subreddit.
- There isn't really any porn left on reddit, it's pretty much just OnlyFans ads now.

Well, that’s the death of the free* forum. Went from BBS to newsgroups to phpBB to Reddit, each soft-killing its predecessor. But like WalMart killing Main Street, Reddit is going to kill the free forum.
Thank goodness for Lemmy and other free* social network software.
*free with the asterisk because we know it’s not free, we are enjoying the service that others volunteer to pay for.
- Lemmy will need ads to support individual servers, eventually, when they're not attached to another org (like a server CNN would run for just outgoing news dissemination). The rest of them, with bills and needing to eat, may need to go to ads.
  I support proper ads that do not get priority placement and aren't in-your-face.
  I support prioritization of profile migration so we can vote with our feet if a particular server's ad volume and content offends our sensibilities.
  But I'm just saying I fully expect some ads are gonna happen, and I hope we can prevent full enshittification when that happens.
  
  No, it will never have ads. If the devs put ads in, it will get forked. If server admins put in ads, they will be defederated. That's nonnegotiable if you want a free (as in libre) fediverse.
  Mastodon is way bigger than Lemmy and it doesn't need ads. Donations and subscriptions (for severs that choose that path) are enough.

Next wave of reddit exodus coming soon...
- I followed Reddit Sync to Lemmy during the API fiasco. Even then, it was better than reddit had been in years. It's only gotten better.
  
  Same bro, I'm still on Sync typing this to you 😄👍
  
  What’s Reddit sync to lemmy?

Reddit executives also discussed how they might introduce more ads into the social media platform.
Oh how exciting!

It's not even worth using for free

I hope all the lemmy instances are ready for a surge of users. Let's encourage redditors to join Lemmy and learn the kinks and quirks by trial and error. Let's be kind to the newcomers.
- This is the mindset to have when new people discover anything you enjoy. Great way to put it.

As soon as I read that I thought I'd make an account here.
- Welcome! It's weird here, but it's great.
- Same, fresh refugee here. I’ve tried mastodon before and I didn’t feel good with Fediverse, but only because I never really used Twitter. Surprisingly I only discover Reddit few weeks ago (to properly spend some time there… where was I all these years lol) I’m starting to like this fediverse though 😁
  
  Honestly, same. Mastodon is fine if you like the Twitter format, but I never did. Lemmy works for me, largely cuz Reddit also worked for me, until the API debacle.
- Welcome! Hope you like it here. I'm happy to see people are jumping ship despite the "it's too complex to switch to Lemmy" false narrative.
  
  Just gotta compare it to signing up for an email. You gotta choose a provider.
- Same here.
- Saaaame

Curious to see the comments about it on Reddit
Edit:
https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1ipfaz0/with_reddit_announcing_paywalled_subreddits_this/
!fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- You made a great comment showing some easy ways to join Lemmy, and that's what I appreciates about you!
  
  Thanks!
  
  It'll be a great comment for a few hours until Reddit deletes it all and bans OP.
- I wonder how long this will stay up.
  
  Curious as well
- sounds like they are coping

service that owes its popularity largely to its low barrier to entry signals higher barriers to entry
cool! please do.
- The whole reason reddit became as popular as it is now is because of bots in the beginning. The founders admitted as much.
  
  In the great reddit to lemmy migration of 2023, a lot of users complained about the lack of content and engagement on lemmy. A number of lemmy moderators who came from reddit basically said the same thing and that they were working on deploying bots over here.
  It looks like they did make some progress as there is a lot more content than there was 2 years ago. However, SOOOOO many niche subs just do not exist over here yet. Including most of my favs.
  I am not that interested in linux or computers anymore.
  
  and bot is the reason its still active, i think i read a reddit post about how most of the bots on the site are from places like RUSSIA, sowing dissent with thier troll farms. it make sense since reddit isnt doing much to removing much of those bots, instead targeting people like us and OF FANs. as soon as they did thier usual purges of bots, which include some from RU, reddit because eerily quiet and non-engaged(nobodies raging about what the other party did in alrge numbers), and the well known conservative subs, are silent. until the troll farms reorient thier trolls to come back. its easier for them to evade bans, because of thier resources. on some posts that were discussing it, reddit doesnt do enough against them.
  
  Over moderation is also an issue. See the digg to reddit move in 2010 or 2011. Corporatize, moderate, lose engagement

Goodbye Reddit, Hello Lemmy.
- Hello friend.
  Here, take this:
  
  Thank you
- 2 hours fresh out of the oven!

Well I think we're gonna see another influx
- Can confirm. That's why im here. Figured I'd just jump earlier with the whole avoiding US companies vibe too.
- Yep, hi, here am I. Usually I think news like these are fearmongering for clickbait, like those old "Facebook is going to be paiiidd!" (As if "being free" wasn't at the very core of its appeal and selling point) but reading the room this day and age I don't think I'd be that surprise if a change like that did happen to Reddit. The only good think about this shitstorm of an age is that it made me find the fediverse and I will never forgive myself for not caring enough to find it earlier.
  
  a few days ago i saw how r/redditalternatives has only "lemmy bad!" posts and i know for a fact folks here have been spreading the word about lemmy in a positive way so don't blame yourself, reddit has been actively censoring any good thing said about lemmy or the fediverse in general
  i looked marginally deeper into this and it's apparently all the way to shadow bans :) link
- Yea, I'm one.
  
  one of us one of us
- Same, just got fed up about all this bullshit and degoogled every device in my life, as time passes we get more and more exploited by these giant companies.

I was going to say something snarky about how they're going to fail because who would pay for social media, then I remembered blue checkmarks.
- Yeah, people are fantastically stupid
- Reddit also has the trophies/reward bullshits.

Watch them fuck up the implementation and suffer the worst PR disaster in recent history when they slap a paywall on r/suicidewatch.
- You should read the article:
  Reddit's paywall would ostensibly only apply to certain new subreddit types, not any subreddits currently available.
  
  Because when reddit was introducing the new API pricing and said it would be affordable and they would work with developers of 3rd party apps to make a smooth transition, that was obviously how things went. Everyone knows that because reddit makes a claim they follow through on it with 100% accuracy. You're not wrong to read the article and cite info from it, but there's no reason to believe that's what's going to happen either.
  
  I’m sure they’ll let mods flip a subreddit to paid-only and offer them a cut.

Recent recruit from Reddit. Finally made the jump. Love the apps like Boost, Thunder and Voyager.
- I like Voyager too. Im on Android but prefer the Apple design right now in terms of look and feel.

fun fact: you dont have to use websites

Just keep doing the Fediverse favors Steve!

Eat shit spez!
- You mean the guy who claimed credit for his dead friend's work?

Is fine hosting nazis and now is getting internal paywalls. I didn't know spez wanted to be Substack so bad.

Imagine paying actual money for shitty memes and mean comments.
- It'll probably be the porn. What seems a bit bizarre to me is presumably you'd have to pay the subscription to post there, who's going to pay to provide content for someone else to make money off?

Reddit is just borderline unusable because of the API thing.. The app is unusable, and Red Reader is just too bland to use.
- The official Reddit app and new Reddit layout drive me crazy... The amount of suggested content and the confusing algorithm for best sort really turned it into facebook. I find myself much happier here on Lemmy. I understand the algorithm. I'm even pleased to see that posts can last more than a day at the top of the "active" page. I think it means that Lemmy encourages discussion and going back to a topic even if it is a few days old. Probably better for our collective attention span.
- Not to mention bloated and loads like crap on older mobile devices.
- Red reader is perfect. I wish they would add Lemmy support.

Just jumped the ship at the right time. The API wars were just a preview...

I forget the word for this, outpoopification? Insufficification? It escapes me.

Reddit has been shit since 2014, some would argue since its inception. It never properly replaced serious forums that specialized on their own niche, like PC hardware, gossip, cars, or whatever. The subreddit replacements always felt like lower quality EVEN THOUGH Reddit mods are (in general) more trigger happy than those running proper forums. The astroturfing, the deception, the lack of respect for its users, the UX dark patterns, it has all been getting worse and worse. Some haven't gotten the memo yet, that Reddit serves no one but itself, it's a cancer.
- The amount of hatred I feel when I'm on my PC using a VPN and trying to look up something on reddit since it's first in search results.
  
  I can totally relate to what you are saying.

Seems like a bad time to be introducing such a thing in the immediate future when European users are already seeking out alternatives to US tech giants and US users are losing their jobs and facing rising grocery prices.

Time to move on over here I guess.

mfw someone makes r/paywalledwhatever then someone else mirrors it with r/unpaywalledwhatever

Lemmy admins, hold onto your butts

CEO, tell me you don't know what you're doing without saying you don't know what you are doing.
- You're, please.
  
  Damn, thanks.

They should pay me to swallow US regime garbage.

Each time I visit a reddit link and see the word "Deleted" in OPs post, my heart fills with joy.
- I deleted my history on reddit (10+ years) and am moving over here. Still figuring out how to find the communities I want but I'll get it.

So Reddit wants to move to a pay model, which would mean they'd have banking information on record for any user that might be of interest to the federal government.
No thank you.
- I just got permabanned because the admins didn't like me saying "the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi"
  I don't know about you, but I'm fucking done with social media companies kowtowing to Nazi, racist, and outright fascist bullshit with the intent of "not inciting violence". By tolerating intolerant people, they fell victim to the paradox of tolerance.
  
  Welcome! The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi!

Good. At this point reddit is just a weak sauce place for bots/marketers to post where other bots/marketers scrape them. It's rumored that 10% of their revenue is from content deals with Google. At this point, most of the interesting communities on reddit have gone elsewhere and it's long ago jumped the shark.
It's clear that the corporate goons in charge are busy just trying to squeeze any remaining nickles out of the userbase. At this rate it won't be long before a private equity firm buys reddit and you start seeing articles "Reddit: what happened?"
Too bad, it was a site that used to be so good and was sold out 5 ways to Monday and the corporate overlords have fucked it again. At least lemmy is around... it doesn't have the scale of reddit but it's way better in a lot of ways already.

Let me guess. These will be the AI-content subreddits, right?
- Nope, the NSFW and OF ones.
  They're trying to direct creators to stay on Reddit instead of just using it for an advertising platform

Paywall forum, what can go wrong ?

I hate reddit as much as the next guy but from time to time I find myself searching in subreddit like newborns, New parents etc. These subreddits do have a lot of experience shared from the past which has not yet come over to lemmy. And now reddit is pulling this subscription shenanigans I'm like WTF??
- The article says it won't affect existing free subreddits. It's also worth pointing out that Reddit Lounge (a subreddit exclusive to Reddit premium members) has been a thing for a long time. So really, this probably isn't that big of a deal, Reddits most profitable asset is its huge user base and I don't think they're dumb enough to torpedo it. Then again, look at what happened to tumblr, you never know...
  
  Idiots will absolutely drop a dollar chasing a nickel, but still believe they were so clever that they came out ahead. I wouldn't put any amount of stupidity past them at this point.
  
  Reddit lounge was innocuous, and not at all the same. (Even if the basic mechanic is the same.)
  
  The article says it won’t affect existing free subreddits
  for now...
  
  they do see the advertising revenue from/per user more than the prenium accounts. seems like they are trying to copy facebook model.
- !parenting@lemmy.world ?
  
  Last post was a week ago! Pretty fresh!

Niche subreddits need to start archiving posts and wikis immediatly.
- Too late with the API changes. There are lots of old guides that were deleted or changed in protest, and whole subs that went MIA or got banned.

This will be good. They will eventually drive everyone away!
- Who's on there except bots?
  
  Soon, bots will be here too. I know how this works. It's better that the worst Redditors stay there, contained by the bot army, than then bringing bots here.

like how every other comment has a new account flair
- The fediverse is expanding!

Holy crap good thing I just moved to this platform!

screw the haters I'm going to make a porn one. i am valid
- lemmy.nsfw is calling for you
- At that point, wouldn't making an OnlyFans be easier and more likely to attract paying customers?

Hello to all the new users!

I don't think that is a good idea.
- I think it's a great idea. It might finally pry me off the reddit teat once and for all.

Just. Fukken. Lol
- I know it won't affect current subs, but the thought of a paid Piracy subreddit is amusing nonetheless.

Ever been on /r/lounge? If you have you've probably got a pretty good idea of what to expect from these subs.
- What an incredibly uninteresting sub that was.

The bonfire is about to be lit.
- nah, people will pay the fee.

Welcome to the world of quarterly earnings reports