Reddit is planning to introduce a paywall this year, CEO Steve Huffman said during a videotaped Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Thursday.
Huffman previously showed interest in potentially introducing a new type of subreddit with “exclusive content or private areas” that Reddit users would pay to access.
When asked this week about plans for some Redditors to create “content that only paid members can see,” Huffman said:
It’s a work in progress right now, so that one’s coming… We’re working on it as we speak.
When asked about “new, key features that you plan to roll out for Reddit in 2025,” Huffman responded, in part: “Paid subreddits, yes.”
Reddit’s paywall would ostensibly only apply to certain new subreddit types, not any subreddits currently available.
Reddit executives also discussed how they might introduce more ads into the social media platform. The push for ads follows changes to Reddit’s API policy that, in part, led to the closing of most third-party apps used for accessing Reddit. Reddit makes most of its revenue from ads and can only show ads on its native apps and website.
Reddit started testing ads in comments last year, with COO Jen Wong saying during an AMA that such ads are in “about 3 percent of inventory.” The executive hinted at that percentage growing. Wong also shared hopes that contextual advertising, or ads being shown based on the content surrounding them, will be a “bigger part of” Reddit’s business by 2026.
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I’m not on Reddit much these days but every time I am and I see threads with people discussing these Reddit policy changes Lemmy gets mentioned. Usually with people complaining they already tried or couldn’t figure it out or that it isn’t good enough…
I think as the enshittification marches on they’ll be some more exodus from Reddit but generally I think everyone is just getting used to all online social media being a total corporate disaster.
I just joined yesterday because of this article. Honestly I feel like I’m using Apollo to access Reddit again. My Reddit account was 12 years old and I deleted it.
Wave incoming
In order for lemmy (or any alternative) to really take off, efforts need to be made to mass migrate content. The biggest inhibitor of adoption is the lack of communities, and the user submitted info backing them. Not only would it be beneficial for alternatives to have this on their servers, efforts should be made to index and back up the mountain of how to and general hyper specific sub reddit information for the good of society. The world already lost so much during the last purge of users comments and posts, further enshitification of reddit will only lead to more getting lost. Are any groups working to scrape all (or the most important data) from reddit and break it out in a searchable format here?
That is something that some tech savy Lemmy users could already easily do. I repost stuff from all over the web. But some systematic preservation of good old subreddits aught to be automated.
It does seem like a lot of ads for “3% of inventory”. I can’t ever see a reason to pay for a subreddit.
It’s crazy how everything slowly turns into shit in the end
Kholer, American standard, and other toilet manufacturers are scrambling to match Toto’s ad popularity in “the go” ad business.
If you’ve changed your extractor fan recently, you might have come out of the restroom humming something new or maybe something familiar like the McDonalds jingle. But such feats of advertising have never been part of the true #2!. Things like bidet splash modulation… Lara papa pa!!! Right in the butt! Or flush ads! A display banner integrated on to the flush tank, and if you open the lid you’ll get ads around the bowl and in the back of the lid.
Clorox is coming up with a brad new cleaning chemical family. If you forget to clean you’ll be presented with scum in the shape of the clorox logo and the proper code and link to Amazon.
Oh yes please! Enshittify the one and only sanctuary we believed we had!
Another day of thanking my past self for leaving
Ok tidy up this place. We have visitors coming soon.
Still no frictionless account migration…
What’s to migrate other than your name? My reddit usage was limited to lurking so I genuinely don’t know.
The announcement is why I created a username here. I doubt I’m coming alone.
Welcome! We can definitely still use a few more people, especially if they’re willing to contribute to content.
well Hexbear is just about gone so that should help
great timing for them to lose both of their domains
great, hopefully more people leave the sinking ship
Just came to lemmy again after learning this shit!! mass exodus coming soon
I wouldn’t be too sure just yet, seeing how annoying youtube and it’s ads have gotten yet it isn’t replaced still.
We might have an increase, but plenty will never leave.
Youtube is not easily replacible.
Creating quality videos are much more difficult than memes on Reddit/Lemmy type of sites.
No content creators is gonna move because of the issue of monitization. And most couldn’t care less about Youtube’s enshittification. You cant say “Just use Peertube” when there are like nothing interesting to watch. It’s like trying to stop watching popular Movies / TV shows because “big corp media bad”. Piracy would be the best mitigation in the Movies / TV situation, and that in Youtube’s situation is just using an adblocker.
In contast, Reddit/Lemmy type of sites are just strangers talking to strangers. You are moving from Stanger Group A to Stranger Group B. It’s the easiest transition ever.
Not to mention, the storage for Lemmy instances is like in the GBs. Get a 1TB harddrive and you’re good for a long time. A Youtube replacement? On you’re gonna need PETABYTES, and all the bandwith to serve the content.
YouTube hasn’t been replaced because adblockers still work.
same here lol. If they paywall subreddits ive been visiting for the past FOURTEEN years, i will lose my shit. by throwing it at the reddit headquarters.
Digg: “join us reddit…”
We all float down here 💩💩💩
Hi, I think I’m doing this right. Just joined Lemmy lol because of this. Can people see my comment?
hunter2
Nope, cannot see this.
😉
yep, even from my solo instance
Same here.
si
One of us!
yes we can :) welcome!
Hi mate
Yes! Welcome to the fediverse
One of us!
One of us!
Happy cake 🎂 day!
Welcome!
watch them lock old reddit behind a paywall just because it’s the best part about reddit
Can’t wait to see the mental gymnastics subreddit moderators will perform to defend this!
It was wild how spineless most of them were when the API stuff happened, and it showed how attached they are to their little bubble of power.
And some of them acted even more pathetic with virtue signaling.
Like the r/de mods allowed memes for a full week in “protest”. Such rebels… they sure showed spez with that one…
I was proud of them for those subreddit blackouts, but when communities started to come back online after the mods were threatened with replacement - I knew I had to get out of there for good.
Yeah it really was pathetic.
Like they took a stand while it was cool, but then capitulated rather than face removal.
Second influx to the Fediverse?
