Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO - 9to5Mac
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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.

  • WatDabney@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    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.

    • g0nz0li0@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      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.

  • eeltech@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

    wait, let me catch my breath, turning purple over here

    .

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    hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

  • BigDiction@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    If they are trying to monetize popular NSFW subs they cannot monetize with ads, a paywall would probably just kill the engagement.

    If they are trying to compete with OnlyFans and rev share with the sub creator I could maybe see that working.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    …

    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.

    • Captain Janeway@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      The common thread I’ve seen online is this:

      • Google’s search algorithm sucks. I always append reddit.com to get good forum results
      • Reddit’s search algorithm sucks.

      These two tools are quickly becoming coupled for Google-Fu expert users. The historical forum history that goes back 3-5 years on Reddit is their goldmine. You can’t just make a new subreddit overnight when a sub gets paywalled. All of that historical data will be lost and paywalled.

      I think a paywall could be an effective money maker for Reddit because they’ve basically become their own Google - in that each subreddit acts like a unique website with real, human, responses. The only problem is that reddit has a god awful search algorithm that they refuse to improve. So people use Google to essentially search reddit. The “whales” so-to-speak are the only people they need to capture. People like myself (frugal people) aren’t in their peripherals. But the people that think “I’ll pay each month for NYT” or “it’s just a few dollars for the WSJ” are going to use the same logic for Reddit: “it’s a small amount of money to have access to high quality forums on X, Y, and Z”.

      In addition, this might bolster Reddit’s content even further. Since paywalled subs will automatically reduce the amount of AI content spammed on them, they will inherently increase the legitimacy of each forum.

      Lastly, this will give them a path towards monetization for moderators which doesn’t require them skimming off of their own pay checks to achieve it.

      Do I like this? No. Is this fair? Also no. People contributed to Reddit under the impression that their data would be available and accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. That implicit guarantee is being violated. It’s an afront to the hard working individuals that have developed these communities brick by brick.

      But does this “solution” make a lot of business sense? Possibly. As long as they survive the changeover in the short term, I think they’ll thrive from this choice for the reasons I stated above.

      Again, it’s going to give them a pathway for:

      • Monetization
      • Reduce AI spam (a big fear of all forums)
      • They could make even more money off the back of this

      I’m pretty much over Reddit anyways. Lemmy has been my backup social media for a while now. The Internet is still free - for now. I just hope we can all find better search engines and forums in the future. Google has been degrading. Reddit has been locking things down. We obviously need to pivot to other platforms. Or maybe just go back to the old days where you find niche forums hosted by some dude in his basement. Nothing wrong with that.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      I’ve seen some content creators having a discord channel that is pay to get into where the content creator participates in it as a way to generate additional money. I suspect Reddit wants to do something similar and take a cut of fee.

      And I fully expect this to devolve into becoming a new OnlyFans.

    • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Wouldn’t the contributors to those subs just make a new one that’s not paywalled?

      My guess is that the paywalled subs are going to be a way of interacting with celebrities. Like, a House of the Dragon sub featuring AMAs with cast members, but behind a paywall. You could make a House of the Dragon non-paywalled sub, but the celebs wouldn’t post there because they have a side-deal where they get paid for posting in the paywalled subreddit.

    • Sludgehammer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      If scrapers have anything to do with the decision, I’d guess its not so much “stop” as it is “make them pay to scrape”. However I’d guess this is just Huffman trying to squeeze more money out of Reddit.

          • Telorand@reddthat.comEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            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.

      • EnderMB@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        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.

      • pleasejustdie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        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@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

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

          • pleasejustdie@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            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@mander.xyzEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              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?

        • skulblaka@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          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.

    • Vanth@reddthat.comEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      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.

    • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      The users used to be altruistic, helping other people just because they wanted to be friendly. Because the site used to feel like a real community. But, now that the site is so clearly for-profit I think a lot of users are going to be much less helpful to strangers.

      It’s hard to quit the site because it gets so much traffic, which means so much stuff gets posted there. On the other hand, I think the high-quality comments from someone trying to help out are less common.