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.
I don’t want to ruin the vibe for our newcomers, but… is it? Every subreddit I’ve subscribed to is an order of magnitude more active than all of the equivalent Lemmy communities spread across various instances put together, and from what I’ve read most Redditors remember the API blackouts as “that one time the moderators collectively had a tantrum” and they’re glad it’s over now, if indeed they remember it at all, and mentally group Lemmy in with Linux as that thing enthusiasts won’t shut up about, and yeah, maybe it’s better, for them. For goodness sake, half the content on Lemmy is reposts from Reddit. Don’t get me wrong, I hate spez with the fire of a thousand suns and I can’t wait to see more Redditors make the jump, I can’t help but think that the whole “Reddit is dying” narrative is just copium.
Well, I disagree. I didn’t touch Reddit for a year and finally went back about a month ago.
• THE ADS. Fuck me, the ads now!
• The corporate plug-ins. I had a legit, verified business comment on my post and then PM me after it.
• The videos freeze more often than makes me comfortable clicking on them.
• The pop-up trash now; “follow this”, “click here”, “did you know”, “ICYMI”. The U.I looks like Yahoo’s home page now.
Is it dying? I don’t know. Is it exhibiting every square inch of desperation, turning the corner from what was once cool, to what is now every pixel monetised and sponsored? Yup!