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.

    • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 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.

    • Erasmus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Taking lessons from Elon.

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

      • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        It was wishful thinking when people revolted for 3 days against the API going away. What happened? Nothing. People were back to Reddit as normal a week later. Reddit’s userbase has only grown since then. People will complain to the ends of the Earth but there’s no amount of abuse you can levy at the them that will convince them to make the minor inconvenience of moving to a different platform. See: Twitter.

        • j4yt33@feddit.orgEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

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

            • cygnus@lemmy.caEnglish
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              4 months ago

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

            • btaf45@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              4 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.

              • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
                0·
                4 months ago

                Yes. More than a little.

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

                Did you think the entire reddit userbase was going to switch in one week?

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

          • IMongoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            4 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.

      • Telorand@reddthat.comEnglish
        0·
        4 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.