Reddit's new paid ads look exactly like user posts

ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 1343 points –
Reddit's new paid ads look exactly like user posts
zdnet.com

Calling them "free-form ads," Reddit said the new advertisements are its most native format ever, designed to look and feel like community content shared by real people.

The ads, meant to mimic the site's megathreads, will enable advertisers to utilize a variety of formats in one post, including images, videos, and text.

According to numbers from Reddit, free-form ads got 28% more clicks than all other types of ads on the site and saw a jump in community engagement.

The next time you see an interesting post in your Reddit feed, take a closer look - because it might just be a paid advertisement.

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Just deleted my Reddit account. I haven't used it in over a year now anyway. I was waiting for something like this to make a statement.

It's been like one of those long running soap operas.

For at least the last 5 years "today's" front page is nearly indistinguishable from "yesterday's".

You can disappear for 6 months and come back and it's exactly the same. You've missed nothing.

Orange man bad, fascism bad, phobia bad, sexism bad, racism bad, bosses suck, inflation sucks, boomers suck, ooh a celebrity! Celebrity dead so sad.

That's most of the internet now. I mean, yay, we're calling bad stuff bad. I do it, too, and I'm also addicted to orange man news like all you other rubber-neckers, but yawn it's all getting a bit repetitious and homogenized. Unfortunately, as we get bored, the more these nutty politicians do crazy shit for the media to report on, all to keep our attention. It feels like a death spiral.

That’s a lot like Lemmy though.

That can't even be denied at this point. There was a small window before the Reddit API fiasco and everybody showed up here to post the same rat-shit they gobble over there. I had a mini-freakout over a "If your username was a username, what would username username username username?" type question in AskLemmy or something. The moronitude feels inescapable.