Reddit will lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says
arstechnica.com
How will Reddit generate content for paid-for subreddits?
  • Nougat@fedia.io
    215·
    1 month ago

    Some subreddits, like r/Watchexchange, where Redditors “buy, sell or trade watches,” according to the subreddit’s description, are centered on transactions. Huffman said the fact that users are already “transacting on Reddit kind of opens the door” for such monetization.

    “Hey! How dare you exchange things with each other without giving us a cut!”

    • IndescribablySad@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
      94·
      1 month ago

      Whole lot of “Reddit, what are you going to do about the scammers now that we’re paying you?” posts are coming. The answer is nothing. They’ll do nothing.

      Actually, they’ll write their lack of culpability more explicitly into the ToS, and then do nothing.

      • finder@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 month ago

        Actually, they’ll write their lack of culpability more explicitly into the ToS, and then do nothing.

        Ugh, aCtUaLly the almighty Reddit Admins and janitors Moderators will act decisively to ban anyone who dares use the report button.

    • CluckN@lemmy.world
      38·
      1 month ago

      I’m wondering how they would charge people. Who would pay for a subreddit they’ve never been to? Could a non-paying user view the subreddit but be unable to post/comment?

      • pivot_root@lemmy.world
        35·
        1 month ago

        Could a non-paying user view the subreddit but be unable to post/comment?

        Doubtful. If I remember the statistic correctly, 95% of social media users are lurkers. Greedy Little Pigboy wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to milk the remaining 19/20 users.

      • Obelix@feddit.org
        15·
        1 month ago

        Let’s be honest - this will kill many subreddits. Of course some mods will start a paid subreddit next to an existing one and try to bring their users to subscribe. So expect those subs to become like those YouTubers who are constantly trying to push you to their Patreon.

        • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          1 month ago

          or they allowed subs, but with immense amount of ads: require to watch video, or watch this ad for a certain of time to use it for free. just basing it off how aggressively youtube, facebook does it.

      • Yppm@lemy.lolEnglish
        8·
        1 month ago

        Could easily see certain subreddits being like OF or Patreon. Pay for access to content. Pretty tried and true business model and it will probably work well enough to keep it around.

        Even YouTube has “memberships” to channels now where you get bonus content and stuff.

        The people that are interested will pay and those that aren’t won’t.

      • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        could be something like a private sub, where only approved members can enter.

    • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      thats why they have been aggressively going after OF subs/bots this month, they arnt getting a slice from the profit they are earning externally. from another forum,(where people flee after getting banned this way) alot of them lost tons of accts recently. yup one of my accts was temp ban for using the report button, how many is too much? it depends on the mod and the sub, if they dont like that you are reporting are reporting a person that should be reported, or the comment, you get banned for report abuse. these bans seems much severe than a subreddit ban.

  • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
    117·
    1 month ago

    Yes let’s put a site that consists pretty much entirely of user-created content behind a paywall, what could possibly go wrong?

    • icmpecho@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      i usually suck at homework but i think i might understand this assignment :3

  • Rogue@feddit.uk
    86·
    1 month ago

    It’ll be the porn they charge for.

    They know only wankers will give them money.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    70·
    1 month ago

    Well, that’s the death of the free* forum. Went from BBS to newsgroups to phpBB to Reddit, each soft-killing its predecessor. But like WalMart killing Main Street, Reddit is going to kill the free forum.

    Thank goodness for Lemmy and other free* social network software.

    *free with the asterisk because we know it’s not free, we are enjoying the service that others volunteer to pay for.

  • FackCurs@lemmy.world
    48·
    1 month ago

    I hope all the lemmy instances are ready for a surge of users. Let’s encourage redditors to join Lemmy and learn the kinks and quirks by trial and error. Let’s be kind to the newcomers.

    • Nebula_Express_93462@lemmy.world
      11·
      1 month ago

      Same, fresh refugee here. I’ve tried mastodon before and I didn’t feel good with Fediverse, but only because I never really used Twitter. Surprisingly I only discover Reddit few weeks ago (to properly spend some time there… where was I all these years lol) I’m starting to like this fediverse though 😁

      • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
        11·
        1 month ago

        Honestly, same. Mastodon is fine if you like the Twitter format, but I never did. Lemmy works for me, largely cuz Reddit also worked for me, until the API debacle.

    • FackCurs@lemmy.world
      9·
      1 month ago

      Welcome! Hope you like it here. I’m happy to see people are jumping ship despite the “it’s too complex to switch to Lemmy” false narrative.

    • icmpecho@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      same! just hopped on today, for both that reason and because friends are here now as well :)

  • pyre@lemmy.world
    34·
    1 month ago

    service that owes its popularity largely to its low barrier to entry signals higher barriers to entry

    cool! please do.

    • lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      The whole reason reddit became as popular as it is now is because of bots in the beginning. The founders admitted as much.

      • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
        10·
        1 month ago

        In the great reddit to lemmy migration of 2023, a lot of users complained about the lack of content and engagement on lemmy. A number of lemmy moderators who came from reddit basically said the same thing and that they were working on deploying bots over here.

        It looks like they did make some progress as there is a lot more content than there was 2 years ago. However, SOOOOO many niche subs just do not exist over here yet. Including most of my favs.

        I am not that interested in linux or computers anymore.

        • enzo@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
          5·
          1 month ago

          However, SOOOOO many niche subs just do not exist over here yet. Including most of my favs.

          That is actually the only reason I come back to reddit from time to time.

        • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          1 month ago

          i was looking at subs on here that were some of the ones i frequent on reddit, yea its a deadzones in some of the niches, no content for a year, i think alot of them went back to reddit. the ones that stay are usually the ones that get banned from reddit. the ones that are currently evading bans are on another forum(not associated with lemmy or reddit, im in one of those sites)

      • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        and bot is the reason its still active, i think i read a reddit post about how most of the bots on the site are from places like RUSSIA, sowing dissent with thier troll farms. it make sense since reddit isnt doing much to removing much of those bots, instead targeting people like us and OF FANs. as soon as they did thier usual purges of bots, which include some from RU, reddit because eerily quiet and non-engaged(nobodies raging about what the other party did in alrge numbers), and the well known conservative subs, are silent. until the troll farms reorient thier trolls to come back. its easier for them to evade bans, because of thier resources. on some posts that were discussing it, reddit doesnt do enough against them.

      • propofool@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 month ago

        Over moderation is also an issue. See the digg to reddit move in 2010 or 2011. Corporatize, moderate, lose engagement