Reddit CEO hints that subreddit paywalls are on the way

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 288 points – Reddit CEO hints that subreddit paywalls are on the way
mashable.com
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Sometimes we forget that the roof over our heads and the walls that hold it up are temporary. The store at the mall is temporary. The mall is temporary. The ground that the mall is on is temporary. Nothing last forever. Except for the stupidity of Steve Huffman, which seems boundless.

I'm hoping this will be a Patreon/OnlyFans situation where you can make a subreddit for your followers, art or whatever and not a thing where the big subs become $0.99/Month.

It will be the second thing, and it will be more than $.99

The handful of mods that control all the giant subreddits are going to rake it in for the remaining week or two reddit survives after this. This is going to be worse than streaming TV, imagine a subscription per series instead of per service.

That's not fair!

You left out his greed

Awesome. Hopefully it encourages more attrition.

Yeah, and more growth for the fediverse.

I have a feeling that anyone still left at reddit at this point has a serious case of Stockholm syndrome and won't leave no matter what

Reddit still works as a platform because it's where all the users are. It's no different to the rest in that regard. They're not "prisoners", nor are they idiots for staying if the current platform works for them. Joining Lemmy/the Fediverse is a choice, and if they choose to join they should be welcomed.

Maybe, but it’s probably more about apathy and being unaware about alternatives.

My wife very rarely goes on Reddit. She doesn’t even have an account. The only reason she knows about the fediverse is because her nerdy husband won’t stop talking about it.

Reddit still has a lot of content on here yet. A lot of communities are not active, too small or non-existent. Tech communities are thriving here, but that's really it. Many people won't stay until some of those communities fill out.

I was permanently banned because I was banned from a subreddit and made another account years later and was accused of skirting a ban. Was it justified? Maybe. Was it good for me? Yes. It freed me from the shackles.

We're gonna get more Reddit refugees when it happens.

That's probably a good thing. More people are welcome, and it might take the edge off of Lemmy a little.

I moved over today, not becuase of this issue directly but because I have been looking for a reddit alternative for a while and saw someone mention lemmy in the thread about the topic.

So he wants to make a user pay to see user generated content? Or even better he wants to make a user pay to create content in a subreddit where a user has to pay to see the content they made after they paid to do that themself?

Hmm. Sounds like he’s been reading about science research and how publishers make money.

It sounds ridiculous, but non-free forums have existed for a long time. expertsexchange.com ran pretty successfully for a long time.

I don't think Reddit knows how to make that work, and I think it'll backfire fantastically for their user base, but it's not impossible.

Was it better than an amateur sex change?

If I ever decide to change my sex, you better fuckin believe I'm not leaving that to some amateur.

  • the average person does not care, and won't pay for reddit. They do not use it in a way that makes sense paying for it like a subscription.

Redditors will care. Chronically online people will notice. Will it make money? Only from goobers willing to fall for it. It's like a two part joke - unpaid mods couldn't stand against the initial API changes because it meant losing the figment of imagination that they call power. Unpaid volunteers will now eat the other half of the joke - they're going to PAY to moderate these subs. (As the sub will need a subscription presumably). Reddit investors are getting these people to be the joke that just keeps giving. Imagine paying to do work lmao

Surely this would kill the company?

Do you know how many people wouldn't care, at all?

Most people just pick up their phone and pay for whatever. They don't know what the internet has been like and they don't think ahead about what it'll be if they just pay a bit for their favorite subreddit.

Unfortunately, probably true. It's just a really hard sell for me. Probably we need to go back to individual forums for individual sites/interests, instead of this generalized forum website

Damn I actually think this is a good idea.

It wouldn't be /r/politics but paywalled... they might even force the top X subs to be free.

It would be more akin to a Patreon community or a substack readership. There are paywalled communities around, who might like the reddit form factor.

Exactly what I was thinking. Depending on their payment systems this could eat into Patreon and OnlyFans.

Oh yeah paid NSFW subs that will definitely happen.

Hey guys it's ok, Steve Huffman said Reddit is altruistic so he's probably just helping society out of the goodness of his heart.

And this is why I'm back on here

Hah, same. Made an account awhile ago and this made me check to see how things are going in Lemmy land.

This already exists. The premium subreddit is paywalled.

Do you mean r/lounge for Reddit gold users? That place was a wholesome dystopian nightmare. Every post was a wall of text about someone’s day and each comment felt like the user had a gun to their head.