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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 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.

RubyRhod ,

Stg I got out just in time.

witx ,

The truth is in the better days of Reddit I would’ve paid 2 or 3 dollars to access Reddit if that helped maintain it sustainable and if some of that money reverted to mods. Now? Reddit can burn

a_guy_at_home ,

That was the first sales pitch for Reddit gold. That they just needed a couple bucks a month to pay for the servers. Lots of power uses back then did just that, and felt pretty good about themselves. There were people also arguing even then that anybody who paid Reddit’s bills for them was an idiot, but lots of people did.

witx ,

I mean I get their feelings. Netflix et Al started with reasonable prices and then the greedy fuck heads raised the prices, so I bet Reddit would do it as well.

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

I definitely bought Reddit gold to support them. Then they got all greedy. Today I pay Sync for a nice app and donate to my Lemmy and Mastodon hosts.

thehatfox ,
@thehatfox@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah this feels like a move that would have worked a lot better before Reddit had burned a bunch of bridges with their most active users.

The pool of people with enough goodwill to pay now is likely small, and shrinking. The causal new users probably are that keen to pay up either.

KingThrillgore ,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/0aa8bee3-8cd8-4e0f-9e7d-7f4ef079b093.webp

StealThisComment ,

Burn, baby, burn!

infinitevalence ,
@infinitevalence@discuss.online avatar

The enshitification will continue until all value is extracted.

MataVatnik ,
@MataVatnik@lemmy.world avatar

I kinda love to see it. These companies can’t help themselves.

Banichan ,
@Banichan@dormi.zone avatar

I kinda love to eat, but I’m paying more for less of a worse version.

Arkouda ,

Care to explain how Reddit shitting the bed impacts your ability to eat?

Banichan ,
@Banichan@dormi.zone avatar

I was referring to the enshittification of all things, which has impacted my eating habits

Arkouda ,

I find this comment funny.

BmeBenji ,

Businesses really are just artificial mines, aren’t they?

2pt_perversion ,

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.

Cataphract ,

I could also see them banning outside links for patreon etc if they’re trying to take over that space and get a cut. Huh, guess they’re not happy just getting money from user content, they might feel like they deserve part of the creator’s profits as well.

2pt_perversion ,

As long as the creator knows what they’re getting into when they make a paid subreddit it doesn’t really bother me. And it’s honestly probably a good plan monetarily for reddit. But just like when games started adding microtransactions it’s likely to change the core of reddit even further from what I used to like about it. But I’m on lemmy now anyway…

billwashere ,

Fuck spez

WatDabney ,

Altruistic? ALTRUISTIC?!

Just who in the fuck does he think he is?!

The only altruists on Reddit are the users who freely provided the content that this fucking parasite feeds off of.

I’m so glad I left that awful shithole of a site.

BradleyUffner ,

And the moderators

ShepherdPie ,

Yeah that word choice is quite a bold strategy after all the bullshit they’ve put their revenue generators (the users and mods) through over the last couple years.

g0nz0li0 ,

This got under my skin too.

That parasite constantly refers to user content and comments and as being the property or Reddit, and his schemes to generate profit off the back of that asset are almost always to the detriment of the user base who are keeping him in business.

Like all rich assholes, he’s got this expectation that everyone will deeply respect and admire his mission to enrich himself by exploiting whatever market he has access to.

tiramichu ,

“I think the existing, altruistic, free version of Reddit will continue to exist and grow and thrive just the way it has,” Huffman said.

There’s nothing ‘altruistic’ about reddit

Vanth ,
@Vanth@reddthat.com avatar

I guess reddit was feeding me all those ads out of the kindness of their hearts and took no money for hosting them. “Altruistic”, lol.

The_Picard_Maneuver ,
@The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world avatar

If anything, they’re the ones benefiting from altruistic users giving them free labor to profit off of.

pleasejustdie ,

Pretty much, when they removed search engines who wouldn’t pay them was the final straw and I went back to reddit (after not being there since the API debacle) 1 last time and replaced all my 26,000 karma worth of comments with “Comment removed in protest of Reddit blocking search engines.” Took me a while, but meh, if they want to hasten its enshitification, I don’t mind doing my part.

kitnaht ,

Some users have actually reported Reddit going back and restoring those very comments.

pleasejustdie ,

yeah, I had heard of that, I’m hoping that since it was a while ago and most of them were the ones done by automated systems and not going through it comment by comment editing them, but I’ll keep at it, if I have to sneak one edit through a day or something.

Shdwdrgn ,

If it’s an automated system, wouldn’t it be written to just look at the original post date, and if the comment was changed (say a month or a year) later, then the script restores the original post? I mean you could get fancy and have the script check if a user is changing all of their comments to the same message, but that seems like overkill. On the other hand, I’ve been running into quite a few posts lately where it’s obvious a single person has simply deleted all of their comments, and I don’t think those are getting reverted?

Cephalotrocity ,

Can confirm. At least, mass deleting via api no longer worked last I tried.

Fapper_McFapper ,

I did the same thing except I deleted all of my comments instead of replacing them. Not only did Reddit undo my deletion they locked me out of my account and no matter what I tried to do I was never able to gain ownership of the account again. Then they sent me letters asking me to buy into their shitty IPO. Fuck Reddit and a very special fuck you to spez.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

They have an edit history for every piece of content on the site. All you’ve done is post a giant flagpole on all your content stating “this account was previously owned by a real live human” and increased the value of those comments for AI scraping. Unfortunately your protest has done nothing but help them.

The best way to stick it to reddit these days is to not interact with it at all. Don’t add to their data store, don’t give them traffic, don’t click on them in search results. Don’t protest-edit your content because you’re just helping them separate wheat from chaff.

btaf45 ,

Don’t protest-edit your content because you’re just helping them separate wheat from chaff.

How about just replace some of your content with this stuff from time to time.

loremipsum.io

EnderMB ,

Spare a thought for those that have bought Reddit Gold over the years, only to then discover just how much the CEO was paid, up against how much Reddit actually makes as a platform.

It’s not just free labour. They’re literally paying him.

AutomaticUpdates ,
@AutomaticUpdates@monero.town avatar

The altruistic, free version of Reddit is Lemmy.

Telorand ,

Free*

*Except for very real server costs.

AutomaticUpdates ,
@AutomaticUpdates@monero.town avatar

Free*

*as in Freedom, but you’re absolutely right

Telorand ,

Not saying you meant it that way, but people often forget that the Fediverse costs money to run; unlike companies like Reddit, though, the admins are usually not trying to also turn a profit at the same time.

ImplyingImplications ,

My guess is he wants to monetize the onlyfans posters. “Subscribe to my subreddit for $5 a month!”

Delta_V ,

Yeah, creating a venue for sex work is the only plausible use case.

Nusm ,
@Nusm@yall.theatl.social avatar

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.

sunzu ,

Cute of you to assume this is right v left issue... actually it dilatory.

This was always bottom v top...

Atrichum ,

I am 100% convinced Twitter is being intentionally destroyed by a cabal of evil oligarchs and nation states.

wildncrazyguy138 ,

So then they’ll move here, not such a bad deal.

But then, who makes sure that ActivityPub doesn’t sell out?

DandomRude , (edited )
@DandomRude@lemmy.world avatar

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.

alien ,

But they’re going to split the profits with content generators users, right? Right?

DandomRude ,
@DandomRude@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, 1$ for 5.000 high quality posts - but only if it is content that you would otherwise only find in scientific journals; no AI stuff, of course.

postmateDumbass ,

Reddit: what are users for but to extract money from?

aeharding ,
@aeharding@vger.social avatar

Oh no. anyways

frezik ,

Right, you guys keep on penning that really long suicide letter.

friend_of_satan ,

“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

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

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.

conciselyverbose ,

Luckily it can still be subverted through old.reddit.com

Wait, really? That’s hilariously stupid.

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