Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO - 9to5Mac

UngodlyAudrey🏳️‍⚧️@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 210 points – Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO - 9to5Mac
9to5mac.com

“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.”

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Lol I was just about to post this. Yeah this is a decision for sure. Wouldn't be surprised if this causes another big spike in Lemmy usage

Probably not. People will hang onto stuff because "everybody's there" and "but lemmy doesn't have enough content" 🤷‍♂

Anti Commercial-AI license

I think it could be the "digg v4" of reddit. People want to use the most popular free platform. If faced with a paywall on reddit, they'll just go somewhere else. Most likely people will go over to Threads, but maybe some will find Lemmy.

Don't forget "it's too complicated"

"Selecting a server is too complicated". Won't ever understand that.

Anti Commercial-AI license

Well probably the average Joe may not even know what a server is, not even being able to chose a server which is the best suited for him.

Spikes are not that interesting. In fact, hey can harm more than be useful (server problems during peak, maybe for days, sudden cost increase for maintainer) if its not an organic and slow increase. The longterm conversion rate is much more important.

"Unlock the door" is a really strange way to say "lock the door." What a dolt.

Sounds like a way for them to tap into the OnlyFans market...

Sure, but also the broader “join my Patreon to get access to my Discord server” market. It’s actually a pretty clever move, if there’s a market for it (there is) and if it replaces more insidious revenue streams (it won’t).

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was exactly what he was referring to.

We need to shore up all the porn instances for the coming wave of users - it only makes sense that’s what they’d wall off.

I can’t think of any audience that would be worse to interact with for Only Fans type content than redditors.

It's the Conservative/Elon Musk version: censorship and lies are "Freedom of Speech", falsehoods are truth, everything is projection, etc.

I've been waiting to see how they're going to fuck up NSFW subs and I'm willing to bet that's where this is going.

I can only hope it affects the ones that focus on self-promotion, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just decide to charge users directly for access to NSFW subs entirely, since they already removed it entirely from the free API, which apps like RedReader use.(*)

I know I'm not the only one who basically only has an account for that stuff, although a lot of those subs have turned to shit over the last year or so, anyway. AI generated nonsense, self-promotion even when it's discouraged, bad moderation, some disappearing entirely because they were abandoned back last year...

(*) Technically, you can still view that content without an account via Old Reddit (or at least you could a few months ago, haven't checked recently), but that's inevitably going to be killed as well, it's just a matter of "when".

NSFW subs are exactly where my mind went as well, but monetizing some of that content could prove legally fraught. Instead, I'd wager the scope narrows a bit to a very specific OnlyFans type of model. Weren't they already looking at paid awards that provide a cash reward to the recipient? Sure sounds like a tipping model to me 🤔

I find a lot of good content on Reddit, but its different now as opposed to the early days. The good content used to be on Reddit. Now its not, its on one of 6 other sites, and Reddit is just the ad service they're posting on. I am sick of the in joke comments and inane comments like "this". I want discussion.

Reddit no longer has that.

It's going back to the roots, just in an extremely twisted way - I'm old enough to remember when Reddit was just a link aggregator. You put your stuff on your own site/blog/forum (remember those?), and linked to that from reddit.
People could then upvote and comment on it on reddit, but the idea of posting something there directly was ridiculous - how could anything be found later when it would get buried under the new stuff in a few hours, and bumping isn't a thing at all?

Fuck reddit and social media, I want my forums back :(
Also my back hurts, music these days is terrible, and the 90s' were just a decade ago or so.

I remember a quote from spez a while ago where he basically said reddit isn't profitable, so we're not going to stop until it becomes profitable. Apparently that translates to "our platform isn't profitable, so we're not going to stop fucking it up until it becomes irrelevant."

I like how companies not being profitable never stops people there from paying themselves millions of dollars.

hahahaha....altruistic....hahahahahahahaha.....grow....hahahahahahaha

Altruistic. ALTRUISTIC.

Usually 1984 comparisons are whack, but this is some "Ministry of Love/Peace/Truth" shit where you coat all the terrible things you do with a glurgy layer of ultra-positivity.

He has no idea what that word means. The word he is looking for rhymes with needy.

Reddit would surely have to ban users from creating new subreddits for certain (previously allowed) topics, or else users would just create an alternative "free" subreddit and everyone would post there, right? This can't work like something like YouTube Premium originals or else they're going to have to pay certain popular people to post to the paywalled subs - but nobody uses Reddit to follow individuals.

"You're not fooling anyone, r/TigTooty - banned."

Slowly running the site right into the ground. This shit ain't gonna work.

Dude, what a bummer. Like, I'm glad we have lemmy but there's certain subs and such that reddit had that aren't available here.

On one hand it has completely cured my reddit addiction, which is awesome. I've put a lot of time into more productive endeavors. But on the other hand, I do miss finding niche subs that had amazing communities.

Aaron Swartz wouldn't have wanted this

Good good! Let the exodus to Lemmy begin!

Give me your trolls, your shitposters, your politically challenged yearning to breathe hate. The wretched refuse of society's most failed. Send these, the angry and brain-tossed to me, I open the ports on the router to Lemmy!

So basically r/lounge?

I imagine they'd be eyeing things like having a partnership with patreon so patrons get access to an exclusive subreddit at a certain tier (with reddit getting some cut). Not saying patreon specifically would go for that but I imagine that type of monetization is what they'd be mostly considering. Or maybe a better example would be something in the realm of substack. Paying directly for access is hard to get people to go for without a third party with financial incentive to drive content.

There are private/paywalled Discord servers and forums out there, too, so this could replace some of those. I think the Reddit format is better than a lot of alternatives, so I don't actually hate this idea.

It could also provide an alternative to patreon’s usual communities for patrons (aka discord lol)

What an absolute disaster, you gotta love it

Enshitification marches on - why anyone chooses to stay on sites like Reddit or Twitter (and its Twitter until they stop referring to themselves as Twitter in their emails), I don't understand.

If they're already giving exclusive access to Google for search and AI training, my bet is it's all in a bid for 'please buy us daddy Google', and let them handle it from there.

What would be the point? Reddit doesn't make any content. They're just a platform. If they go ahead and paywall subs, those subs are going to have a tiny potential subscriber base. Therefore, they will be less attractive to post to (smaller audience, fewer upvotes etc).

About the only place I can maybe see it working is AskHistorians. And you pay the Historians to answer the questions. Which would of course reduce the amount Reddit takes from the paywall. Doesn't seem worth it, to me.

Even then, I think the Historians would rather reply in a new free sub with wider readership than take $20 for putting in three hours of work responding to something. They do it because they're passionate. Not for money.

It's spez so of course they're going to go for NSFW subs. Pretty sure that'll just cause people to move to Onlyfans and other, already NSFW platforms.

Can't really see anyone paying for sub access apart from porn.

Maybe paywalled subreddits are more intended to become competitors to maybe patreon and only fans rather than present day subreddits? Like a lot of patreons have discord access as a perk, the paywalled subreddit could potentially fill that role instead. Don't think it seems like a good idea and don't think it'll become more than a gimic

This sounds like testing the waters, then dipping their toes, then doing a little splashing. Then jumping right in to completely subscription based.

i mean if they don't paywall existing subs, and just make it an option for future subs...I could see a world where people use that for like their Patreon or something, like with invite-only Discords. But then, in my mind, that's people paying Patreon to get access to an exclusive Reddit, and that wouldn't bring Reddit new money, so maybe this isn't working the way i'm thinking...

There would still be some users that would rather pay through reddit for access than make an account on patreon and connect their account

That's nothing new though. With reddit premium you already got access to exclusive sub's.

I mean people that didnt care about what reddit has done so far, will probably not care for this either and pay anyways, so they figured why not milk the idiots that are left.

Probably a good thing, imo. Better than selling data for AI farming and blitzing the site with ads. Hopefully it isn't the start of the entirety of Reddit going behind a subscription wall. Curating private digital communities is a good option.

During the call, the Reddit co-founder said the company would begin testing AI-powered search results later this year [and] that search could one day be a significant source of advertising revenue for the company.

this does not seem to be an alternative to the existing method of profiting from ads etc., but more of an additional way to make loads of money

Fair, I presume you are correct in how it will be applied. That said, given that Reddit has only ever burned cash, there has to be some connection to gravity...I think?

r/BigBooty is going to be bone dry...

Unless Reddit actually monetizes the process for content creators, in which case, we need them to open up their books - because then they'll be running a marketplace.