Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO

ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 1279 points –
Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO - 9to5Mac
9to5mac.com

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.

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That dude is really trying to kill his own platform, isn't he?

Taking lessons from Elon.

Maybe they need to charge users a monthly fee and add blue check marks. Lol

Taking lessons from Elon.

Wasn't Huffman singing Elon's praises after the Twitter purchase?

So Reddit gold?

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Ooh, I wonder if he'll sue all the users that left Reddit to join Lemmy.

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It's kind of indicative of how bad the web has gotten that twitter and reddit still have users. Digg completely imploded over much less than this. Just that back in 2010, there was somewhere else to go.

inb4 Lemmy. I get it, but we're not there yet.

I love Lemmy but I really, really miss the old web. Back when people would just create their own website and put it out there to share their niche interest with the world. People just organically linked their sites to each other to form web rings, an easy method of federation without any reliance on sophisticated server-side software.

The heyday of the forums. For about 2 years the combination of Tapatalk and forums was awesome. Centralized interface with no ads, all the discussion.

Then they both gutted their functionality and spammed in the ads.

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The makeup of web users has changed a lot since 2010. The average web surfer was a lot less passive in attitude in decades past.

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Lot of wishful thinking in here. Fact is, Reddit isn't going anywhere.

What will likely happen is the worst assholes will be the ones paying for this stuff, much like Xitter, because it is a demonstration of being a part of the alt-right, ultra-capitalist in-group.

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The way I interpret what he is suggesting is that they are planning on going after Patreon type websites that provide a private paid for space for a creator's supporters. It's unlikely, but they could also pretty easily go after OF to keep that traffic on site.

i mean, this is the site that blocked nsfw content from hitting the front page

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The enshitification will continue until all value is extracted.

I kinda love to see it. These companies can't help themselves.

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Businesses really are just artificial mines, aren’t they?

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The truth is in the better days of Reddit I would've paid 2 or 3 dollars to access Reddit if that helped maintain it sustainable and if some of that money reverted to mods. Now? Reddit can burn

That was the first sales pitch for Reddit gold. That they just needed a couple bucks a month to pay for the servers. Lots of power uses back then did just that, and felt pretty good about themselves. There were people also arguing even then that anybody who paid Reddit’s bills for them was an idiot, but lots of people did.

I mean I get their feelings. Netflix et Al started with reasonable prices and then the greedy fuck heads raised the prices, so I bet Reddit would do it as well.

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Yeah this feels like a move that would have worked a lot better before Reddit had burned a bunch of bridges with their most active users.

The pool of people with enough goodwill to pay now is likely small, and shrinking. The causal new users probably are that keen to pay up either.

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I’d happily pay 29.99 to access /r/japancirclejerk2

Fark still exists with that small monthly payment to support the site model. Drew, the owner, regularly meets up with folks, too. And if you’re a subscriber he must buy you a beer if you ask him per the “terms” of service.

A nice, relatively small, community. That’s what Reddit used to be. Your post really resonated with me.

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“I think the existing, altruistic, free version of Reddit will continue to exist and grow and thrive just the way it has,” Huffman said.

There's nothing 'altruistic' about reddit

If anything, they're the ones benefiting from altruistic users giving them free labor to profit off of.

Pretty much, when they removed search engines who wouldn't pay them was the final straw and I went back to reddit (after not being there since the API debacle) 1 last time and replaced all my 26,000 karma worth of comments with "Comment removed in protest of Reddit blocking search engines." Took me a while, but meh, if they want to hasten its enshitification, I don't mind doing my part.

Some users have actually reported Reddit going back and restoring those very comments.

yeah, I had heard of that, I'm hoping that since it was a while ago and most of them were the ones done by automated systems and not going through it comment by comment editing them, but I'll keep at it, if I have to sneak one edit through a day or something.

If it's an automated system, wouldn't it be written to just look at the original post date, and if the comment was changed (say a month or a year) later, then the script restores the original post? I mean you could get fancy and have the script check if a user is changing all of their comments to the same message, but that seems like overkill. On the other hand, I've been running into quite a few posts lately where it's obvious a single person has simply deleted all of their comments, and I don't think those are getting reverted?

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They have an edit history for every piece of content on the site. All you've done is post a giant flagpole on all your content stating "this account was previously owned by a real live human" and increased the value of those comments for AI scraping. Unfortunately your protest has done nothing but help them.

The best way to stick it to reddit these days is to not interact with it at all. Don't add to their data store, don't give them traffic, don't click on them in search results. Don't protest-edit your content because you're just helping them separate wheat from chaff.

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I did the same thing except I deleted all of my comments instead of replacing them. Not only did Reddit undo my deletion they locked me out of my account and no matter what I tried to do I was never able to gain ownership of the account again. Then they sent me letters asking me to buy into their shitty IPO. Fuck Reddit and a very special fuck you to spez.

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I guess reddit was feeding me all those ads out of the kindness of their hearts and took no money for hosting them. "Altruistic", lol.

The users used to be altruistic, helping other people just because they wanted to be friendly. Because the site used to feel like a real community. But, now that the site is so clearly for-profit I think a lot of users are going to be much less helpful to strangers.

It's hard to quit the site because it gets so much traffic, which means so much stuff gets posted there. On the other hand, I think the high-quality comments from someone trying to help out are less common.

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I just made a Lenny account because of this. Fuck them

I’ve switched to using this as well but it has very little user interaction. I hope it grows and is able to compete with Reddit one day. It would be nice to be able to go to a basketball or political subreddit (what do we call them here?) and actually be able to have a nice conversation.

they're called lemmy communities, and there's plenty of interaction! honestly it reminds me of the old days on Reddit before it ballooned into the monster it is today, I legitimately prefer it in every way other than lacking the niche communities (looking at you !2007scape@lemmy.world >.>)

you can find good political discussion in !politicalmemes@lemmy.world or !news@lemmy.world

dunno if there's any good basketball communities tho, not my bag lol

Thank you! And I like the interactions I’ve had so far. It’s just that I’m a huge NBA fan and that’s where I spent most of my time on Reddit. The nba Lemmy community isn’t very big yet but I’m trying to change that by being more active here. I really enjoy this and it feels like actual discussions can be had here unlike on Reddit.

Where Reddit has "subreddits" Lemmy has "communities." Which is a 4 syllable word with 9 or 11 letters depending on singular or plural and no convenient abbreviation so most of us especially the Reddit expats lapse back into calling them "subs."

Thank you for information! I’m happy to have joined this community. For the most part there’s actual discussions here and not just meme answers at the top of every post

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"Sub" is a generic term from the BBS days, short for "subforum", "subcommunity", whatever, so I just use that. I don't like to use "community" because it's long and clunky.

I wasn’t aware of that! Thank you for educating me on the term.

Try posting on asklemmy, it may not be big enough for individual communities but I think you could bring in a crowd on a post about a particular episode, game, or event if you posted there

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My guy create a Lemmy community about whatever topic and I will post something weird and offputing there, high-five !

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What’s next? Change the name of the platform to Y.com?

Then following up by threatening to sue all the users who deleted the comments they made and left

I did that in June last year, after 13 years of reddit and thousands of comments, all "gone"

Go back and check again. They are actively restoring deleted comments. About once a month I log back on and delete another round. Usually another 10-15 "mysteriously" pop back up again.

Son of a bitch your right. All my posts got restored! I ran one of those scripts that went through and deleted them all... and sure as fuck I can find them if I search for my reddit account name.

I deleted 12 plus years worth and they are still gone.

I think they're catching people who are mass deleting comments at once. I recall reading that people were having more success deleting comments in smaller batches during the whole API debacle.

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lol I saw this on reddit and was like fuck it, and made a lemmy account.

The best thing is how many different servers people are from here. No single gatekeeper who can wreck it.

I'm honestly a bit worried because I've noticed that most users are from lemmy.world, and the whole point of Lemmy should be decentralisation.

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Heyyy!!! Happy to have you here. Enjoy it while it's small ;) feels like old Internet here.

Hey nice to have ya!

Friendly reminder that the Fediverse is awesome, and you have the power to control the content in your feed not only by which subs you subscribe to or instances you make an account on, but also which you can block - including specific users if it comes to that. Of course, instance admins can do the same, and if that happens to content you want to see, you can always make a new account on a different instance and see everything.

It takes a little to understand the Fediverse structure, but imo it's one of the best ways social media can be structured.

Remember to try hiding vote display and see how it changes your usage. It’s underrated feature that imo makes you focus on the quality of the content rather than popularity.

I haven't been over there in a while but I noticed the AIs are starting to show up here. How was it over there? Rough percentage of how many?

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Now the IPO is done Reddit has to continually feed the investors at the expense of the quality of the thing that's supposed to make money to feed the investors.

This is gonna be fun.

They don't care as long as they can get in, make a few bucks, and get out. Long-term stability isn't the priority anymore, just quick profits.

Aaron Schwartz didn't die for this.

The decent ones always either die or turn into a boomer parasite

Altruistic? ALTRUISTIC?!

Just who in the fuck does he think he is?!

The only altruists on Reddit are the users who freely provided the content that this fucking parasite feeds off of.

I'm so glad I left that awful shithole of a site.

This got under my skin too.

That parasite constantly refers to user content and comments and as being the property or Reddit, and his schemes to generate profit off the back of that asset are almost always to the detriment of the user base who are keeping him in business.

Like all rich assholes, he's got this expectation that everyone will deeply respect and admire his mission to enrich himself by exploiting whatever market he has access to.

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I think this comes down to what the intentions are

Paywall /r/videos? Fuck off.

But create a system like Patreon where a content creator can put their own content and interact with their own users and there's a revenue share between reddit/creator that doesn't sound terrible.

If they're gonna do it on Patreon, why not try and lure them to reddit?

Okay now which one are we all expecting?

Starting with the second but eventually the first

Welcome to /r/PremierCatPics where only the best of the best cat pics are allowed to be posted, moderated only by yours truly, ME!

If you want to see the best of the best cat pics, that'll be $9.99/month, you won't find cat pics this good in one spot easier anywhere on the internet!

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Just had some more thoughts on this as well.

If Reddit can lure Patreon users, they could also likely protect that content creators data from being shared on the platform. The creator uploads a commissioned drawing for it's paid users, and then someone tries to copy it and show it in /r/pics. But since reddit has the source image, they could be scanning for identical images by hash, or matching images via AI and then prevent it from being posted outside the community.

It definitely isn't THAT easy, but it opens up the potential, and being able to tell your potential customers you have tools to help prevent unauthorized sharing on a prolific platform probably has some merit.

Optimistic on reddit project management abilities considering their app and website is so fucking broken

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As others have pointed out, it'll be more like OnlyFans most likely.

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Why do all of these companies decide they are so tired of existing?

They think that their domination is strong enough so that after an initial backlash, the users will come back since they have nowhere else to go. And they’re kind of right.

They think they are so entrenched that the thought of users leaving is not a consideration at all. He said it himself and been proven right. Governments are also asleep at the wheel. Their users are prisoners.

That works until it doesn't. Though it has been a few years since there was a nice notable example.

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Self destructive addiction even happens to corporations.

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After seeing this article on Reddit, that’s what made me finally jump ship and join in here. It’s been nice so far.

Reddit is hardly even the same site it used to be. Especially with bots taking over. And I just don’t think it makes sense to make people pay for what was meant to be a user-generated experience. We’ve sadly come a long way from the narwhal baconing at midnight.

But here’s to new beginnings!

Much like you I saw this article on my reddit feed today, googled 'reddit alternatives, and ended up here.

Me too! I just made an account. I’m discovering Lemmy right now. This is my very first reply. Hello Lemmy world!

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Wouldn't the contributors to those subs just make a new one that's not paywalled?

Reddit is going to be asking users to pay to generate content on specific subs, but they're forgetting again that the sub isn't the important part, it's the users.

This would just fracture the biggest subs and destroy the communities.

The common thread I've seen online is this:

  • Google's search algorithm sucks. I always append reddit.com to get good forum results
  • Reddit's search algorithm sucks.

These two tools are quickly becoming coupled for Google-Fu expert users. The historical forum history that goes back 3-5 years on Reddit is their goldmine. You can't just make a new subreddit overnight when a sub gets paywalled. All of that historical data will be lost and paywalled.

I think a paywall could be an effective money maker for Reddit because they've basically become their own Google - in that each subreddit acts like a unique website with real, human, responses. The only problem is that reddit has a god awful search algorithm that they refuse to improve. So people use Google to essentially search reddit. The "whales" so-to-speak are the only people they need to capture. People like myself (frugal people) aren't in their peripherals. But the people that think "I'll pay each month for NYT" or "it's just a few dollars for the WSJ" are going to use the same logic for Reddit: "it's a small amount of money to have access to high quality forums on X, Y, and Z".

In addition, this might bolster Reddit's content even further. Since paywalled subs will automatically reduce the amount of AI content spammed on them, they will inherently increase the legitimacy of each forum.

Lastly, this will give them a path towards monetization for moderators which doesn't require them skimming off of their own pay checks to achieve it.

Do I like this? No. Is this fair? Also no. People contributed to Reddit under the impression that their data would be available and accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. That implicit guarantee is being violated. It's an afront to the hard working individuals that have developed these communities brick by brick.

But does this "solution" make a lot of business sense? Possibly. As long as they survive the changeover in the short term, I think they'll thrive from this choice for the reasons I stated above.

Again, it's going to give them a pathway for:

  • Monetization
  • Reduce AI spam (a big fear of all forums)
  • They could make even more money off the back of this

I'm pretty much over Reddit anyways. Lemmy has been my backup social media for a while now. The Internet is still free - for now. I just hope we can all find better search engines and forums in the future. Google has been degrading. Reddit has been locking things down. We obviously need to pivot to other platforms. Or maybe just go back to the old days where you find niche forums hosted by some dude in his basement. Nothing wrong with that.

I've seen some content creators having a discord channel that is pay to get into where the content creator participates in it as a way to generate additional money. I suspect Reddit wants to do something similar and take a cut of fee.

And I fully expect this to devolve into becoming a new OnlyFans.

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This is the reason i created an account here lol

Hey! Welcome!

I recently joined as well. It's actually very nice here.

Let's make something nice ^_^

What's going to stop people from creating a new community and migrating the second reddit pay walls it.

Oh pics is now paywalled, looks like everyone is using pics_free

"Oh pics_free exists let's quickly ban that community before we loose revenue ... I mean because they violated the rules"

pics_free_free it is.

I prefer the _farthuffer suffix as a juvenile jab at Huffman who off course cannot stop huffing his own farts.

The problem with media platforms like Reddit and Twitter is that they take place in a single Instance, with thousands of communities. So it's easy for one person (like an Elon Musk) to completely screw it up for millions of people.

With Lemmy, everything is decentralized. Communities are spread out and duplicated over hundreds of Instances in many countries. So if somebody ruins one Instance or community, people can just hop over to the second or third most popular Instance, and the original instance will dry up and disappear.

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Second wave of Reddxiters on Lemmy in 3...

I just joined - in fact this is my first comment. I was tired of my page (and now comment sections) getting flooded with ads.

The Reddit experience isn’t going to get better, it’s just going to get more profitable for shareholders.

Welcome! I came over during the API lockdown because I didn't want to use their shitty app on mobile.

I generally like it more over here, I'm not doom scrolling as much, and while not all of my niche community's are here, I do feel like I have more of a quality experience in them though.

If Reddit pulls these kinds of moves two more times or so, I'm 100% certain Lemmy will have all the niche communities you'd ever want. This place is much better!

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Porn, they're going to monetise it.

I always wondered when they will do it. They have the set up.

So they will make money of people's nudes and they will still expect them to post them for free?

Or maybe they will share it with users? but still this isn't good for actual communities.

Why do you think it would work like that? Why would anyone post content under that model?

I'm guessing there will be some compensation. Something like the streaming model. Company makes $ and gives a cut to user. The most popular ones can make quite a bit. I believe Twitter does this now too if I'm not mistaken. You can get paid based on total impressions to your post

This is a terrible idea for a site that relies solely on user-generated content and even user-moderation. It's not like Twitter hasn't tried this before - didn't work out so well, I'd say. But hey, this concept probably works for the upper management. I guess it doesn't matter to them if all that's left is scorched earth, as long as they can cash out.

But they're going to split the profits with content generators users, right? Right?

Sure, 1$ for 5.000 high quality posts - but only if it is content that you would otherwise only find in scientific journals; no AI stuff, of course.

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So...this is for porn.

Only fans, but on Reddit.

I suspect it will work out sickeningly well for them.

Proof of concept for allowing super users to have a patreon model maybe?

Though I can't remember the last time there were site wide famous users. Last I remember is that bird lady.

If this is their endgame the bot problem would get even worse as the value proposition improves for abusers

So...this is for porn.

Only if those subreddits have something where the user... creating that gets a portion of every subscription payment.

Not only that, reddit won't be able to take more that 15% in order to be competitive with onlyfans. And also, the subs will have to be exclusive to one creator otherwise how would you spread payments

Only if it's a competitive model, only fans takes 15%, not sure about patreon, fansly, and other platforms. So reddit will need to take no more than 15% for creators to want to participate. And if you monetize a sub with multiple users, how will you spread the money? And how are you making sure reddit is paying out the fair share? So pay wall subs won't really work unless they are exclusive to one creator.

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But... How? What's stopping people from cross posting ? Creating new subreddits that mirror closed ones?

I mean that's a lot of effort for very little reward...

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Just joined, gonna see how I like it then probably move over and leave Reddit.

I've been here since they shut down third-party apps. It gets better each time they piss off more of the user base and ya'll join the rest of us. Hahaha.

I hate how everything has to be monetized nowadays, or how money is to be expected for everything. Eventually people who provide free service or altruism will be seen as competition.

It's called digital enclosure. Enclosure was a movement that began in Britain in the 1700s (but really it's always been going on...) to close off the commons that pastoralists had been using to publicly graze their sheep. It happens to all new media because it's the only way capitalists can imagine their operations.

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Just created an account here because of this.

I dont usually upvote posts about Reddit...

...but when i do they're shooting themselves in the foot

I bet it’s for the porn. I bet you he’s going to paywall the porn.

It’s steve huffman so it’s definitely for jailbait porn.

Who goes to Reddit for porn when so many other better options exist? I always thought that was weird. That'd be the last place I'd look for it.

Also, commenting about porn is creepy as hell to me. Like, I do not want to read some other person's opinions/fantasies about a piece of media I'm jerkin' it to. It's like the people that try to make smalltalk at the urinal. Get in, do your business, get out, and keep that shit to yourself.

I use it only to get niche porn that can be a pain to find manually online.

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This post on Reddit reminded me that I made a Lemmy account long ago.

Go forth and post memes in your favorite community

There is aint a shortage of memes lol

we need quality shit posts!

That's why I'm here testing Lemmy.

Sad if it ruins reddit since I like that place.

....He does realize this isn't going to work on a platform that bans you for breathing the wrong way right?

Yeah. 4 accounts getting randomly banned was enough for me. This will just prey on the clueless who don't know your account can get shadow banned for any reason (or no reason).

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Medium's paywall gets lots of hatred, but at least they use it to pay the authors of the paywalled posts, so it kind of makes sense - you pay to consume content and get payed to create content. But Reddit is a forum, not a blogging platform - the separation between content creators and content consumers is much more blurred. If a subreddit gets paywalled, then the Redditors who create the content there - both the posts and the comments - will need to pay. Which will instantly ruin these subreddits when most of the posters will just take their posts elsewhere.

Did Reddit decide to imitate the business model of academic journals?

Over the last few years I've started to notice this weird increase in people misspelling the word paid as 'payed'. Where is this coming from ?

I don't even get how this would work. If you paywalled, say, /r/gaming, could you just make a new community called /r/freegaming? And do the moderators get paid for the communities they created?

It all feels really half-baked and a desperate plea for money from investors when the money well is drying up.

Then they'll skate around that by implementing a paywall for creating new subs.

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It’s pretty crazy to watch enshittification play out in real time.

It's hilarious. Huffy's idea is to turn Reddit into the Company Store.. what's that, all you unpaid moderators, all you users who spent countless hours posting essays of valuable information? You all want to ACCESS this content that was provided to us free, FOR FREE? EF YOU PAY ME.

He's got to justify his $193 million compensation on the backs of the unpaid labor of moderators and users who provided the actual thing that made reddit valuable.

Steve Huffman is a carbuncle. When I quit Reddit, I ran a browser plug-in that deleted every single post and comment I ever made. I hope more people do this, and slowly lance this $193 million abscess.

While I look forward to the continuing demise of Reddit, I'm not looking forward to the influx of even more Redditors.

I am looking forward to more non-tech communities.

Funny, I'm looking forward to the Lemmy tech communities expanding and becoming active. I only follow All because it's so damn slow otherwise.

The only really active communities I've seen are the tech communities and the politics/ news communities. So, yeah, I agree with the other guy: I'm looking forward to much more variety.

One that I miss is r/Accounting. Mostly non-tech community but with a relatable degree of cynicism about the corporate world and high quality memes.

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Some of us are from there. We can't all be that bad.

Most Redditors are okay but a lot of the tankie witch hunt and assorted vote seeking grandstanding nonsense is from .world users, who are largely from Reddit.

I thought that most people from here are just from various influxes of redditors.

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Hey! I just read this on Reddit before I made this account! 🥲

Do it. Fucking do it, man, I WANT it to happen. Mash that self-destruct like there's no tomorrow, Spez, see how low you can go!

I got offered a chance to buy into reddit's IPO. Im glad i didn't

"How DARE you take your subreddit private? Then Google can't index it and people can't access it! I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DO THAT!" - spez

Woo! Paywalled porn subreddits! Commodify everything!! :D

I can't even imagine the creators in those subreddits would be thrilled since so many of them seemingly use those subs as a free advertising spot for their onlyfans. More of them are trying to be creative with overtly sexual questions in askreddit and people just stumbling in to their profile.

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hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

wait, let me catch my breath, turning purple over here

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hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

They already are. They put all nsfw content behind a privacy paywall (pay with email and browsing habits). Luckily it can still be subverted through old.reddit.com - but the question is for how long.

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And that’s one of the reasons that brought me here.

Maybe it was the permanent banning for creating another account trying to talk to a mod that had banned me in a way I thought was harsh, and muted me before I could even speak.

Regardless, Reddit is starting to remind me of when Digg took a massive shit like 15 years ago. And saying that makes me feel old.

As long as I’m not dealing with AI chatbots spamming these communities, I think I’ll like it here.

digital champagne room

They had that, you get enough gold you get access to the lounge where people with internet money just talk about how to spend their points in other people.

Funny, you get enough virtual gold folks just want to share it. Real money, not so much

I got to the front page and got invited to a private community, forgot what it's called. It was just random people posting random boring shit. I mean it was nice, felt like people just sharing stuff and hanging out but I wouldn't pay money for it.

The only way I would see this working is if it was like a patreon/discord model where user get exclusive access to creators content. But in that case you would need big creators to participate to bring them into these gated communities and the creator get a competitive share of the user's money.

You got access to mega lounge if you never bought the gold for yourself and were instead gifted it

Ha. Line must go up or it affects the stock price. Profit first, users last.

They already exist! r/TheLounge is an example, but any sub can lock itself to premium users.

If I ever become the CEO of a multibillion dollar company, I'm going to say nothing at my first shareholder meeting.

Instead, I'm going to climb up on the boardroom table, remove my trousers and pants and drop a great big shit right there on the desk.

I will then say "That's what we're going to do to our users" and watch in awe as my salary and share price goes through the roof.

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The dumbass does not have an original idea or vision in his body. After turning his users into consumer goods, now he's just thinking about reddit r/lounge 2.0 and combining it with reddit awards 2.0 and reddit talk 2.0.

First of all, that only works if moderators get payed or you get some extremely gullible and power hungry ones, which for the first I doubt his money scrounging self could allow and for the second, that's the problem.

It will also open up a whole can of worms that reddit certainly has deserved for some time now, people suing if they are banned from these communities, specially if it was due to personal fickle prerogative of one of the mods. But considering what reddit has gotten away with, this last point is not really that likely.

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A new challenger joins the battle in the Elon / Cloudstrike "ruin an established company any % speed run" challenge?

From the article "helping users dive deeper into products, shows, games" - that right there is their focus. It's spelled right out that it's going to be primarily an advertising platform.

I'm assuming this is going to be more like a creator space type thing like patreon/OF. It will make reddit worse of course because patreon and OF already exist we don't need reddit for that but as long as they aren't trying to paywall user generated content on existing subs I don't really care that much tbh.

If they paywall my old comments that I've left up to help others I'm going to go back and delete them.

I could also see them banning outside links for patreon etc if they're trying to take over that space and get a cut. Huh, guess they're not happy just getting money from user content, they might feel like they deserve part of the creator's profits as well.

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On 2024, July 1, I uninstalled Reddit for good. About two weeks later, I finally made the jump to Lemmy, and added a suffix to my username that reflected on this decision.

I am not looking back.

Go ahead. Only the occasional link brings me to reddit these days and I will treat his paywall just like all the others. By closing the tab and moving on.

I can already imagine how many scams this new feature can enable

"Join our private subreddit to unlock the secret to become rich" and then inside all you find is something like "yolo on Intel" and so on

Reddit is a media company now, they're not a community. Tons and tons of ads, thin skinned moderators with God complexes running completely out of control, and they now have platform profit responsibility.

Will cost them - this is a significant change to, by definition, some of their most popular content. Many people go to Reddit purely to find non-paywalled versions of content.

So, I’m not a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but I absolutely believe the theory that Spez & Musk are being paid handsomely under the table by dark money to do their best to ruin Reddit and Twitter. It was the two largest places that liberals congregated, communicated, and publicly posted, and the right wing wants to hamper and/or destroy both sites. I think both are seriously compromised now, and many of the left have fled. In the case of Twitter, it’s just turning into Truth Social lite, and Spez is trying to monetize what’s left of Reddit as fast as he can to rake in cash off what’s left of the dying carcass/bot farm.

I am 100% convinced Twitter is being intentionally destroyed by a cabal of evil oligarchs and nation states.

Cute of you to assume this is right v left issue... actually it dilatory.

This was always bottom v top...

I absolutely believe the theory that Spez & Musk are being paid handsomely under the table

First of all, it's Steve Huffman, don't use his reddit username. By doing that you're making it hard to tie the asshole to these shitty things he's doing.

Second of all, he doesn't have that kind of power. He's just the CEO. He's answerable to investors who would remove him if he were trying to tank the site. As CEO he also doesn't get to make most of the changes, he's just the guy who might have final say.

What's happening with Reddit is what happens to startups when interest rates rise. Investors who used to be willing to wait to get paid now want their money right away. So, they risked long-term damage to get paid in the short term. They rushed an IPO so the VCs could get their money out. And, now that they're public, they have to keep grinding out short-term profits for their shareholders even if it dooms their long-term prospects. At the moment network effects are keeping people there, and the enshittification of the service isn't enough to chase them away. But, I only give it a few years until it's gone.

Until recently, I would have expected that once it flames out, someone like Meta or Google would buy it. But, now that we're actually starting to see robust anti-trust action, maybe that wouldn't be allowed, and it will just flame out and die.

As for Twitter, that's just a rich guy who thinks he's a genius. Virtually all ultra-rich people own media properties. Because, as the saying goes, "Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel". Jeff Bezos went the traditional route and bought the Washington Post. Musk thought he could do the same thing (and maybe turn a profit) with Twitter. He didn't actually want to buy it though, but he's such an idiot that he was forced to honor something he said as a joke. Once he bought it, he knew that it was a money-losing company, so he thought he could use his ruthlessness and "business genius" to fire most of the useless people and still keep it running. But, he didn't understand the relationship advertisers had with Twitter.

Advertisers spent money on Twitter (not a lot, but a decent amount) because Twitter's trust and safety team made it a relatively safe ad. You might appear next to something goofy, but it wasn't going to be too awful. But, get rid of the trust and safety team and invite Nazis back to the platform and advertisers don't want to be seen next to that content, so they're going to leave. Even if he could credibly bring back the trust and safety team and allow them to do their jobs, it would take a while to re-establish that trust with the advertisers. But, bringing back the trust and safety team goes directly against his other reason for owning Twitter, which is to push a certain agenda that he likes and/or that generates money for him. He wants or needs the nazis on the site for political reasons, but they're destroying the profitability of the site.

I don't buy that Musk is being paid under the table because there's literally nobody rich enough to do that. It would take, at a minimum tens of billions to bribe him. If you had tens of billions to spend, there are a lot more effective ways to use it than bribing musk. Buying a supreme court justice seems to take nothing more than tens of millions. Winning a congressional or senate seat is a similar price.

Now, if you thought Moscow had compromat on Musk, that would be different. I could see him spending half his fortune to make sure that didn't come out. But, I still think that his ego explains what's happening better than some kind of nefarious thing.

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It'll anger Redditors but they'll gladly hand over their money

Right, you guys keep on penning that really long suicide letter.

Tone down the snarky comments already guys. Never interrupt the enemy when they're making a mistake :>

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I got permabanned from reddit by zionists for calling out their bullshit and saying that Netenyahu should face harsh legal consequences.

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Aaron Swartz is rolling in his grave.

Bye reddit, it was fun while it lasted. Comments like this from out of touch ceos make me stop using the product. Same reason I canceled spotify after years of being a subscribing customer to move to Tidal

Proves yet another time that Aaron died for nothing

Why "some"? It should be "all". Select the subs you want to subscribe to and get billed monthly.

I don't see what could go wrong.

"But now we will unlock the door for new use cases" ... like locking doors.

So they want people to possibly pay to visit certain subreddits and the content of those subreddits is most definitely going to stay server submitted and curated. Getting people to pay to be able to submit their own content is going to go over well with the user base. They are probably going to do it with the NSFW subreddits.

Really this just sounds like YT membership, allowing users to create subscriptions for premium/special content e.g. gambling picks, porn, etc.

If that's all it was intended to be, it could have been an actually useful and not intrusive monetization strategy....5 years ago.

Even if that's how the feature gets rolled out now, unless it's an unmitigated disaster, I don't see them being capable of not overplaying their hand.

They will assume that because some users are willing to pay for private porn content, or gambling pick subreddits, that of course most users must also be willing to pay for cat photos and memes.

Personally, I am all for it. I am for Reddit making the worst choices possible and speed running their decline. Mostly, I would like a user exodus that results in Lemmy finally getting growth in a lot of their more niche communities that still keep me using Reddit on occasion.

If only there was a free and open platform as an alternative to Reddit.

I'm glad I've overwritten all my comments.

The easiest tool: PowerDeleteSuite
Don't forget to make the script prepare a backup file and download it once complete. In the replacement string, link to your Lemmy account so that anyone looking for the content can just PM you.

If they are trying to monetize popular NSFW subs they cannot monetize with ads, a paywall would probably just kill the engagement.

If they are trying to compete with OnlyFans and rev share with the sub creator I could maybe see that working.

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And yet people will remain until the site exists. That's the sad part