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.

    • Erasmus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1931·
      5 months ago

      Taking lessons from Elon.

      Maybe they need to charge users a monthly fee and add blue check marks. Lol

    • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
      97·
      5 months ago

      It’s kind of indicative of how bad the web has gotten that twitter and reddit still have users. Digg completely imploded over much less than this. Just that back in 2010, there was somewhere else to go.

      inb4 Lemmy. I get it, but we’re not there yet.

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
        591·
        5 months ago

        I love Lemmy but I really, really miss the old web. Back when people would just create their own website and put it out there to share their niche interest with the world. People just organically linked their sites to each other to form web rings, an easy method of federation without any reliance on sophisticated server-side software.

          • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            2·
            4 months ago

            Does anyone find your stuff? Search engines seem to be less and less capable of finding indie websites and show most results for shopping and/or image results (ie the paid ones), or else if it’s a question it goes Reddit/quora/stack exchange before any search results.

            I finally shut off my old self hosted Wordpress last year because traffic had dwindled to a couple hits a month or less. Besides the constant bot traffic trying to hijack the site.

        • The_v@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10·
          5 months ago

          The heyday of the forums. For about 2 years the combination of Tapatalk and forums was awesome. Centralized interface with no ads, all the discussion.

          Then they both gutted their functionality and spammed in the ads.

      • thehatfox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        5 months ago

        The makeup of web users has changed a lot since 2010. The average web surfer was a lot less passive in attitude in decades past.

        • balancedchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          5 months ago

          I hate listening to my younger brother talk about technology. He is just a sheep in an apple pen, and perfectly happy. I don’t get it.

      • Telorand@reddthat.comEnglish
        16·
        5 months ago

        What will likely happen is the worst assholes will be the ones paying for this stuff, much like Xitter, because it is a demonstration of being a part of the alt-right, ultra-capitalist in-group.

        • rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          5 months ago

          Huffman is a greedy bastard, but I don’t think he’s alt-right. He’s a bland neoliberal hypocrite. He is an advisor at the ADL and made a post saying that black lives matter, while not actually doing anything to help and actively profiting from what he said he was against.

            • btaf45@lemmy.worldEnglish
              91·
              5 months ago

              Yes. More than a little. It was a huge event for lemmy. Did you think the entire reddit userbase was going to switch in one week? Reddit didn’t get their userbase in one week. It’s a process. Now there is a well known alternative to reddit. Everything in reddit looks shittier than it was before the exodus. It’s nearly impossible to become a ‘new user’ on reddit and with the rando-bans they keep giving out they are just going to keep shrinking.

                • manualoverride@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  31·
                  5 months ago

                  If you’d like to post evidence that contradicts my source, please do. “Leaving” for a few days doesn’t count.

                  I was not discussing anything to do with “switching”, I was discussing users leaving Reddit.

                  Maybe they encountered so many charming people like you on Lemmy they had to go back to Reddit in case they turned nice?

                  Would that mean they switched and switched back? Or left and re-joined?

            • cygnus@lemmy.caEnglish
              7·
              5 months ago

              There’s also no correlation between creating a Lemmy account and completely quitting Reddit.

              • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
                1·
                5 months ago

                No, but it’s a reasonable assumption that individual will be spending less time on the platform, at the very minimum.

                Personally, I haven’t used Reddit on my phone since they killed third party apps, although I have used the desktop site for a few subreddits that don’t really exist here.

          • IMongoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            5 months ago

            Reddit has over 1,000,000,000 active users per month. Lemmy has about 50,000. The API fiasco was a big deal for lemmy, but it was not a big deal for reddit. Lemmy is a rounding error to them.

            I would also bet that a lot of lemmy users still visit reddit for their niche communities. I know I do, even though I host a server for my own niche hobby, but I’m the only one who’s ever posted anything to it.

        • j4yt33@feddit.orgEnglish
          15·
          5 months ago

          How many of them are real users vs bots though? It’s easy to inflate numbers

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        Meh, I deleted my account and moved on. Other than snarky comments I don’t really care what happens to it anymore.

    • stealth_cookies@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      5 months ago

      The way I interpret what he is suggesting is that they are planning on going after Patreon type websites that provide a private paid for space for a creator’s supporters. It’s unlikely, but they could also pretty easily go after OF to keep that traffic on site.

      • JonnyJ@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        5 months ago

        i mean, this is the site that blocked nsfw content from hitting the front page

  • witx@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    186·
    5 months ago

    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@lemmy.worldEnglish
      861·
      5 months ago

      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@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        20·
        5 months ago

        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.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lolEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        Yeah I immediately thought of the funding bar for gold back in the day.

        It was honestly fine. Made sense. Showed if they had made enough revenue to cover costs and let you make a personal choice beyond that.

      • Gestrid@lemmy.caEnglish
        11·
        5 months ago

        I never directly paid for Reddit Gold (in the sense that I had a subscription to it), but I definitely gilded others’ comments a lot.

    • thehatfox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      23·
      5 months ago

      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.

    • glockenspiel@programming.devEnglish
      4·
      5 months ago

      Fark still exists with that small monthly payment to support the site model. Drew, the owner, regularly meets up with folks, too. And if you’re a subscriber he must buy you a beer if you ask him per the “terms” of service.

      A nice, relatively small, community. That’s what Reddit used to be. Your post really resonated with me.

  • tiramichu@lemm.eeEnglish
    157·
    5 months ago

    “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

      • pleasejustdie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        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
          16·
          5 months ago

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

          • pleasejustdie@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            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
              4·
              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
          7·
          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.

          • Gigasser@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 months ago

            Might help just to subtly edit your comment in a way that make any advice or content you’ve given shittier. Like if you have some sort of tech support comment, just edit it in a way so that the piece of tech support you’ve offered is some standard answer for the problem that doesn’t fix anything. And while you’re at it, move the comment which offers the fix or piece of advice to Lemmy.

          • btaf45@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 months ago

            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.

            https://loremipsum.io/

      • EnderMB@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        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.

    • Vanth@reddthat.comEnglish
      29·
      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
      4·
      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.

    • Chespirito@lemmy.worldEnglish
      231·
      5 months ago

      I’ve switched to using this as well but it has very little user interaction. I hope it grows and is able to compete with Reddit one day. It would be nice to be able to go to a basketball or political subreddit (what do we call them here?) and actually be able to have a nice conversation.

      • clickyello@lemmy.worldEnglish
        18·
        5 months ago

        they’re called lemmy communities, and there’s plenty of interaction! honestly it reminds me of the old days on Reddit before it ballooned into the monster it is today, I legitimately prefer it in every way other than lacking the niche communities (looking at you !2007scape@lemmy.world >.>)

        you can find good political discussion in !politicalmemes@lemmy.world or !news@lemmy.world

        dunno if there’s any good basketball communities tho, not my bag lol

        • Chespirito@lemmy.worldEnglish
          7·
          5 months ago

          Thank you! And I like the interactions I’ve had so far. It’s just that I’m a huge NBA fan and that’s where I spent most of my time on Reddit. The nba Lemmy community isn’t very big yet but I’m trying to change that by being more active here. I really enjoy this and it feels like actual discussions can be had here unlike on Reddit.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        12·
        5 months ago

        Where Reddit has “subreddits” Lemmy has “communities.” Which is a 4 syllable word with 9 or 11 letters depending on singular or plural and no convenient abbreviation so most of us especially the Reddit expats lapse back into calling them “subs.”

        • Chespirito@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8·
          5 months ago

          Thank you for information! I’m happy to have joined this community. For the most part there’s actual discussions here and not just meme answers at the top of every post

          • MataVatnik@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            5 months ago

            For the most part there’s actual discussions here and not just meme answers at the top of every post

            Preach, no karma chasers here.

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.netEnglish
        11·
        5 months ago

        “Sub” is a generic term from the BBS days, short for “subforum”, “subcommunity”, whatever, so I just use that. I don’t like to use “community” because it’s long and clunky.

      • MataVatnik@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        5 months ago

        Try posting on asklemmy, it may not be big enough for individual communities but I think you could bring in a crowd on a post about a particular episode, game, or event if you posted there

      • Magister@lemmy.worldEnglish
        25·
        5 months ago

        I did that in June last year, after 13 years of reddit and thousands of comments, all “gone”

        • The_v@lemmy.worldEnglish
          33·
          5 months ago

          Go back and check again. They are actively restoring deleted comments. About once a month I log back on and delete another round. Usually another 10-15 “mysteriously” pop back up again.

          • CaptPretentious@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            5 months ago

            Son of a bitch your right. All my posts got restored! I ran one of those scripts that went through and deleted them all… and sure as fuck I can find them if I search for my reddit account name.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
            4·
            5 months ago

            I think they’re catching people who are mass deleting comments at once. I recall reading that people were having more success deleting comments in smaller batches during the whole API debacle.

            • The_v@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              5 months ago

              They were a bit more tricky than that I believe. They capped the user page at 3 years of search. So when you delete everything using those scripts it deletes the newer stuff but misses all the older ones. Then after the script runs it shows - no comments.

              • glockenspiel@programming.devEnglish
                1·
                5 months ago

                There’s also credible reports that Reddit is testing an even sneakier method. They will hide the “deleted” comments when you are logged in and looking for them in your history. But other people can still see them; Reddit just understands you are a hostile actor in their eyes so they pull manipulation games like with shadow banning.

                • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
                  1·
                  5 months ago

                  I only have a layman’s understanding of this but wouldn’t that violate the GDPR in Europe if say your IP address somehow changed to an EU country? I thought the GDPR gives you the right to delete your information permanently, though maybe there is some legal loophole where your comments in a forum don’t count?

  • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.worldEnglish
    107·
    5 months ago

    Now the IPO is done Reddit has to continually feed the investors at the expense of the quality of the thing that’s supposed to make money to feed the investors.

    This is gonna be fun.

    • RobertoOberto@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      21·
      5 months ago

      They don’t care as long as they can get in, make a few bucks, and get out. Long-term stability isn’t the priority anymore, just quick profits.

  • WatDabney@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    82·
    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
      6·
      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.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      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.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
    653·
    5 months ago

    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?

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      5 months ago

      Just had some more thoughts on this as well.

      If Reddit can lure Patreon users, they could also likely protect that content creators data from being shared on the platform. The creator uploads a commissioned drawing for it’s paid users, and then someone tries to copy it and show it in /r/pics. But since reddit has the source image, they could be scanning for identical images by hash, or matching images via AI and then prevent it from being posted outside the community.

      It definitely isn’t THAT easy, but it opens up the potential, and being able to tell your potential customers you have tools to help prevent unauthorized sharing on a prolific platform probably has some merit.

    • Tilgare@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      5 months ago

      Totally. This could be reddits premium answer to a Patreon community with an exclusive Discord server.

        • Tilgare@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          5 months ago

          I can’t tell of you’re just joking or not - so no, just straight up as a replacement for both, Patreon+Discord. You have a creator you like on YouTube let’s say, and so you sign up for their premium subreddit to support them. You get the community on reddit as a replacement for how creators use Discord, and then if they integrated Patreon-like features such as a host for members only videos or premium podcast feeds from the creator, and giving the creator a place to upload and share members only photos or polls. Meanwhile it operates just like any other subreddit operates for community discussions. No need for multiple services integrated, if reddit offers an all in one solution.

          • Gestrid@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            4 months ago

            Reddit is not a great replacement for Discord and its live chat features IMO.

            • Tilgare@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              4 months ago

              Well, they would presumably develop premium subreddit features to reach parity or develop an otherwise useful feature set. As it is now, you’re certainly right.