this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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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.

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[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (39 children)

That dude is really trying to kill his own platform, isn't he?

[–] Erasmus@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Taking lessons from Elon.

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

[–] Technofrood@feddit.uk 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)
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[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Taking lessons from Elon.

Wasn't Huffman singing Elon's praises after the Twitter purchase?

[–] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Huffman is a full on Musketeer.

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[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Ooh, I wonder if he'll sue all the users that left Reddit to join Lemmy.

[–] SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Quarterly reports demand that line go up.

The line must always go up.

[–] stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] puppy@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

If only there was a free and open platform as an alternative to Reddit.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago
[–] infinitevalence@discuss.online 0 points 5 months ago (6 children)

The enshitification will continue until all value is extracted.

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[–] Red_October@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Do it. Fucking do it, man, I WANT it to happen. Mash that self-destruct like there's no tomorrow, Spez, see how low you can go!

[–] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 0 points 5 months ago

Why not all?

[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago (7 children)

There's nothing 'altruistic' about reddit

[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 0 points 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.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] pleasejustdie@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

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.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win 0 points 5 months ago

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

[–] pleasejustdie@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.xyz 0 points 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?

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[–] TalesOfTrees@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago

From the article "helping users dive deeper into products, shows, games" - that right there is their focus. It's spelled right out that it's going to be primarily an advertising platform.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

...

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.

[–] originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago

Sure till they copystrike their own subs

[–] captainjaneway@lemmy.world 0 points 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.

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[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Proves yet another time that Aaron died for nothing

[–] WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

What a fucking moron

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

So OnlyFans for Reddit. More spam incoming.

[–] echo@lemmings.world 0 points 5 months ago

Paywall all of them... don't care. Why do you think I'm on Lemmy?

[–] kemsat@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I bet it’s for the porn. I bet you he’s going to paywall the porn.

[–] jprice@kbin.run 0 points 5 months ago

It’s steve huffman so it’s definitely for jailbait porn.

[–] lefty7283@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Oh no! Where will I go to see OF spam bots now???

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[–] almost1337@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Trying to stop scrapers, I would imagine.

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[–] eeltech@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 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

[–] SlapnutsGT@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

What’s next? Change the name of the platform to Y.com?

[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (7 children)

Then following up by threatening to sue all the users who deleted the comments they made and left

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[–] Dark_Dragon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 5 months ago

If they grandfather existing subscribers in it might work for a few months or years, and what does the current Reddit leadership care if that community survives longer than they stay at the company. They also might make a few sales with paywalled celebrity IAmA threads. In any case I will watch from the sidelines and enjoy the spectacle 🍿.

[–] admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] index@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 0 points 5 months ago

I'm glad I've overwritten all my comments.

The easiest tool: PowerDeleteSuite
Don't forget to make the script prepare a backup file and download it once complete. In the replacement string, link to your Lemmy account so that anyone looking for the content can just PM you.

[–] KhalBrogo1@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

I want to switch aswell, but what is to stop bigger servers from doing the same on Lemmy?

Also where can I find the best instance for each of the Reddit equivalent? For instance I want wall street bets, where is the most active instance of that?

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