Desperate or just business as normal?

Thief@lemmy.myserv.one to Technology@lemmy.world – 701 points –
US Redditors to Earn Real Money for Gold, Karma: Reddit App Hints at Rewarding Contributor Program
techtimes.com

Make content, get paid.

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As soon as users are paid for sharing someone else’s copyrighted content, wouldn’t companies like media outlets start pursuing it as theft for profit?

Sounds like Reddit is headed down the road of YouTube where UMG is going to start slamming users everywhere with strikes for their revenue, and DMCA will be abused a lot more heavily.

Just gonna hijack your comment for visibility. reddit started trialing a "Community Points" program in 2019 in /r/ethtrader, /r/cryptocurrency and /r/fortnite , where posters and commenters could earn "Community Points" that were supposedly backed up with crypto that you could eventually cash out. They announced an expansion of the program in December 2021 but, afaik, they never actually did so. Which might have something to do with the fact that one of the /r/cryptocurrency mods made $10,000 by selling community points. I don't know if the program has actively continued since then; maybe someone who was in the three trial communities can say.

My point is that reddit has been working on something similar to this program for at least five years now. And this article isn't based on any announcement by reddit, but by someone examining their source code. It's possible that this code has been present for a while and reddit has leaked it's existence to try to attract back some of their lost contributors. Or even that it hasn't been present but they included the old code in the newest app release and then pointed it out for the same reason.

In any case, this article isn't based on any official announcement, and reddit has been "trialing" a similar program for over four years. I wouldn't hold out any hope that this actually sees daylight anytime soon, or that it'll work well if it's actually released.

Yeah this is going to make a fucking mess with attribution. Expect to see even less OC on Reddit if posting it means you lose your rights AND someone else gets to profit off reposts.

So…we can actively harm Reddit by going on reporting sprees? Yes?

Maybe, if you have sufficient accounts to do so and not get caught. It's probably not worth the time and effort. Living well (elsewhere) is the best revenge.