Reddit will lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says
arstechnica.com
How will Reddit generate content for paid-for subreddits?

Reddit is planning to introduce a paywall this year, CEO Steve Huffman said during a videotaped Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Thursday.

Huffman previously showed interest in potentially introducing a new type of subreddit with “exclusive content or private areas” that Reddit users would pay to access.

When asked this week about plans for some Redditors to create “content that only paid members can see,” Huffman said:

It’s a work in progress right now, so that one’s coming… We’re working on it as we speak.

When asked about “new, key features that you plan to roll out for Reddit in 2025,” Huffman responded, in part: “Paid subreddits, yes.”

Reddit’s paywall would ostensibly only apply to certain new subreddit types, not any subreddits currently available.

Reddit executives also discussed how they might introduce more ads into the social media platform. The push for ads follows changes to Reddit’s API policy that, in part, led to the closing of most third-party apps used for accessing Reddit. Reddit makes most of its revenue from ads and can only show ads on its native apps and website.

Reddit started testing ads in comments last year, with COO Jen Wong saying during an AMA that such ads are in “about 3 percent of inventory.” The executive hinted at that percentage growing. Wong also shared hopes that contextual advertising, or ads being shown based on the content surrounding them, will be a “bigger part of” Reddit’s business by 2026.

        • A Wild Mimic appears!@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          9 days ago

          i switched to lemmy after seeing the crackdown after the blackouts where they just repo’ed subreddits that didn’t stand down - it was clear then that internal forces would not be able to change a thing over there. i couldn’t support a site that was doing shit like this. (It’s the reason i keep pestering my wife to leave facebook and instagram after zucks kneefall for trump, and switch to pixelfed and bluesky instead; lemmy wouldn’t be a good place for her, but i can see her enjoying pixelfed a lot)

  • andxz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    By far one of the easiest decisions was jumping on over here - and I barely understand it half the time.

    Second best was ditching Facebook like it was cancer.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      If you don’t mind me asking, how did you find it?

      There are reports of Reddit banning Lemmy mentions, and Google searches floating “Lemmy is bad” Reddit threads to the top.

      • wirebeads@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        I googled Reddit alternatives. I see Reddit as turning into just the next Twitter cesspool. There’s no longer any constructive conversation.

        The problem is you can’t have real conversations that stoke any flames because they’re a public company and answer to the shareholders, so they, reddit, deem what is appropriate to be posted.

      • wabasso@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        8 days ago

        It was word of mouth for me. But now you’ve got me curious about occurrences of the term Lemmy on Reddit.

      • return2ozma@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        8 days ago

        I came over to Lemmy during the Great API third party disaster. The exodus had commenters saying to come over to Lemmy.

    • samus12345@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      I don’t even use any apps and was just planning on boycotting it for a few days in solidarity. Then Greedy Little Pigboy made his statement about how everyone will come crawling back and that was that.

    • kernelle@0d.gsEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      Same, my mouth dropped reading the article.

      Obligatory fuck spez

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      Tbh, I didn’t care about the 3rd party apps.

      I just didn’t like the silencing of opposition.

      If they are willing to do mass censorship for benign things like a 3rd party apps protest, what’s to say they wont booklick governments/corportions and censor info of horrible things that a government/corporation is doing.

      It’s the censorship that I was more afraid of. Besides, I always wanted a decentalized platform, but none of it had any users until June 12, 2023.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 days ago

        That’s the truth. It was tone deafness, a lack of responsiveness, and a clear lack of principles that made me leave during that.

    • MrVilliam@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      Same. I had even paid for the paid tier of my 3rd party app because it was such a good value to me that I wanted the devs to have some of my money. Thanks to that app, I was on the site more and pretty much never via computer anymore.

      I think it was for the best though. Quality over quantity here. I find it to be far less toxic on Lemmy overall. It’s like how people tend to be nicer in a small town because you know you’re gonna run into these people over and over again, but the big city you came from had more variety in stuff to check out. Definitely a trade-off, but I think it’s worth it to have this much more pleasant space that isn’t so packed with content as to be addictive. Good vibes.

      • GingaNinga@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        9 days ago

        Its improving over time, I think it’ll find a decent grove as more communities pop up. I find the comment sections really engaging too I’ve had some solid conversations over here.

      • datavoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        9 days ago

        I’ve gone back to reddit a few times from searches, and after spending time away it is really apparent how negative most of the comments over there are.

        For example, anytime someone asks for help, someone always has to show up and get angry that they didn’t search instead of asking. Then a third person shows up and says that a search brought them to this thread… and no one ever answers the question. Thanks reddit!

        • Pips@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          0·
          9 days ago

          There are some instances where Reddit is still a great source of information just due to the sheer size of the community. But there’s a lot more shit to wade through after the exodus a couple years back. I haven’t signed back in for years.

    • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      Yep. When RIF was killed, I closed that door immediately (was not easy). It was to be expected though, I think. Once a site reaches critical mass, money interests enter the picture and greed can always screw up a good thing. It’s a shame.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    9 days ago

    I’m surprised they aren’t talking about subscriber subreddits. With the amount of porn/OnlyFans posts, I would have thought they could position Reddit as a friendly and familiar OF alternative.

    • OfficerBribe@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      That probably is the idea, to have a competitor to Patreon and OnlyFans. They should have probably mentioned that as an example before some people start thinking /r/worldnews becomes paywalled.

      • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        8 days ago

        Seems like a pretty huge opportunity for Reddit. If the article mentioned it, I missed it.

        • OfficerBribe@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          8 days ago

          It does not mention it and I cannot see any official statement, but that seems like a logical reason. Reddit management however is not famous for being logical so we will see.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      I wonder what the legality is of that when people are posting content from these porn sites and reddit is charging users to access it. How is this any different than paid piracy streaming sites?

  • odelik@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    What I find hilarious is all these companies doing this shit after all the advancements in programming languages and paradigms in the last few years.

    Thanks to tools like Node.js, React, Flask, Reflex, OpenAPI Gen, GoLang, and more, people that are fed-up and have the know-how can stand up competing technology in record time.

    I look forward to see what comes out of this corporate power grab. Hopefully there’s not a lot of pain and suffering alkng the way.

    • boatswain@infosec.pubEnglish
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      8 days ago

      What we’re seeing with Reddit is just the first stage of enshittification: making things worse for the end users who have been captured by network effect and what used to be a good service, in order to benefit advertisers. The second stage is making things shitty for the advertisers who have been captured by all the captive users. Paid subs are probably a harbinger of that kind of thing, but I don’t think advertisers are locked in enough to be really stuck yet.

  • hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    I feel like this is gonna be a cash cow for reddit, just not in a way spez can just openly talk about.

    A huge portion of reddit is OnlyFans promos. Reddit is making zero off of all this, because traditional advertising doesn’t want to associate themselves with porn. A bunch of these “paid subreddits” will basically be a reddit’s attempt to compete with OnlyFans.

    I honestly think it’ll work. There’s a lot of money in porn.n