Reddit is getting rid of its Gold awards system

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 468 points – Reddit is getting rid of its Gold awards system
theverge.com

Reddit is going to sunset its current coins and awards systems, meaning you won’t be able to buy Reddit Gold for posts you like. However, it is working on a new system for awards.

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idk how else to express my appreciation for this except to tell you that I gazed upon it with love and admiration for a good minute, long enough that I made my own self uncomfortable with how happy this goofy picture made me. It feels like a true representation of the casual, homemade, "let's just try it!" vibe of lemmy. This is beautiful, thank you.

Not to take away from this beautiful piece of art, but it's a take on "reddit silver", an equally silly pic of a MSPaint coin that's used on reddit as a tongue-in-cheek (and free) alternative for reddit gold awards.

Beyond the simple reason "don't have money for that right now", it became especially popular since lots of people wanted to show appreciation for posts without supporting reddit's model.

I'm okay with Alemmynum, I'm pretty low cost.

That would be Alemmynium in British English

Dayumn gotta get me some Lemmy plat to be a big baller.

Based on code in the Reddit’s Android app, Reddit appears to be working on a “contributor program” that would let users cash out gold or karma (basically, points you get for posts, comments, or giving awards) they receive into real money.

So rather than start paying the volunteer moderators that keep their site running, Reddit is going to pay the repost bots and low-effort karma farmers? Surely that will improve the quality of content on the site... /s

Yea ... all around, it's looking more and more likely that big social may become something rather embarrassing and dystopian.

The best reason I can think of for why big social is going to die is that it was born out of a particular economic environment that either inaccurately assessed the technological-financial situation or just doesn't exist anymore. Namely, that having a bunch of users on your platform and the data that follows will always magically just produce a profitable business model such that blindly investing in such a business is an obvious move.

I'm guessing that big social just isn't that profitable, or is only profitable at the sort of mega monopoly level that facebook and google operate at, but even then risks fading over time due to how social spaces are generational. And that the belief that big social was super profitable was born out of a vague big data web2.0, that convinced itself it had found the new oil.

Beyond that, throwing VC cash at big-data businesses may just not be something anyone believes in any more, partly because of the above, and partly, I'm wondering, because the power of actually creating new technology and new types of platforms has always been a bigger business prospect and AI and chatGPT has basically forced the tech world to remember that.

If I'm on to something, the awkward thing for Twitter and Reddit is that their finances and corporate structures are probably bound up in the older presumptions and have no choice but to do their best to return on the promised profits, however dumb they look, while the rest of us can easily and happily move on, because that's what the internet is fundamentally about.

Facebook/IG have certainly made a ton of money. Twitter and reddit haven’t I believe because they’ve been less aggressive about monetizing their data, and having a site with content attractive to advertisers. This also attracted users who were on Twitter or reddit because they weren’t doing what FB does, which I guess makes it difficult to increase monetization.

Spez is following twitter's playbook down to the letter. Aren't twitter just starting to enable revenue sharing program with their most popular users?

It seems like Twitter was basically copying YouTube, which sort of makes sense (Instagram and TikTok also pay people) but I get the impression reddit is mainly copying Twitter.

Spez mentioned he thought Twitter was doing great and wanted to emulate them, which is confusing considering nothing they’ve done has been popular or successful. Mark Zuckerberg said he also was impressed, but with recent events, I think he was psychologically tricking musk, like “you’re doing great! Just keep doing that!”.

And all that after killing any automated moderation that utilized public API

The amout of shooting themselves in the leg is through the roof

Can’t wait for more NFT shit to replace it, mark my words

A lot of people are saying this is another reaction from /u/Spez, he doesn't like that "fuck /u/Spez" posts keep getting all the rewards.

I just went and gilded a bunch of fuck u/spez posts with gold I apparently had but never bought

People could reward gold, or was it that you got gold for receiving rewards, one of the two, maybe both.

I finally figured out what's going on. Someone at reddit asked, "ChatGPT, what are the 10 most damaging things reddit could do to alienate users and decrease its value?" They then began working on the checklist... they're up to, what, 5?

For interest's sake I asked ChatGPT...

  • Implementing heavy-handed censorship: If Reddit were to significantly increase censorship and suppress user-generated content without clear guidelines, it could lead to frustration and a loss of trust among users.
  • Allowing unchecked harassment and hate speech: If Reddit fails to address or take action against harassment, bullying, or hate speech, it could create a toxic environment that drives away users who seek a more inclusive and respectful platform.
  • Manipulating voting and rankings: If Reddit were to manipulate voting algorithms or rankings to favor certain posts or opinions, it would undermine the platform's integrity and erode user trust in the democratic nature of content discovery.
  • Selling user data without consent: If Reddit were to compromise user privacy by selling personal data to third parties without explicit user consent, it would breach trust and potentially result in a mass exodus of users concerned about their privacy.
  • Implementing excessive and intrusive ads: If Reddit were to inundate the platform with excessive and intrusive advertisements that disrupt the user experience, it could lead to frustration and cause users to seek alternative platforms.
  • Neglecting community feedback and suggestions: If Reddit fails to listen to user feedback and suggestions, and ignores the needs and desires of its community, it could lead to a sense of disconnect and disengagement among users.
  • Engaging in biased or politically motivated moderation: If Reddit's moderation practices become heavily biased or politically motivated, favoring certain ideologies while suppressing others, it could alienate users who value a fair and impartial platform.
  • Ignoring widespread harassment campaigns: If Reddit were to turn a blind eye to coordinated harassment campaigns or fail to take swift action against them, it would harm the safety and well-being of users, prompting them to seek alternatives.
  • Neglecting transparency in content moderation: If Reddit were to lack transparency in its content moderation practices, such as unclear guidelines or inconsistent enforcement, it would lead to confusion and frustration among users.
  • Disregarding the needs of niche communities: If Reddit were to neglect the needs of smaller, niche communities that rely on the platform for specific interests, it could result in a loss of engagement and diminish the diverse range of discussions.

Wow, this is actually incredibly interesting if this is what ChatGPT spat out. Every corporation now thinks “AI is the future” and what you posted is essentially what Reddit has done the last few years. But I doubt they asked for 10 most damaging things. I’m curious what other prompts would put out similar bullet points, say, “what 10 things should I do with my social media company to ensure a successful IPO”

Yeah, this is the actual output. I was active on Reddit for a long, long time, I wish there was a way to bring across all my content, but even if not, I'm still happy to restart on Lemmy.

Killing off the free api made some sense. Killing off perks for the resisters who actually pay them money is just the dumbest thing possible.

I don’t think many objected to monetizing the API.

The issue is cost, and the lack of time for transition.

The Apollo developer said it clearly: How the hell do you put millions of dollars on a credit card. Oh and I am pretty sure a debit card would not allow a million dollar transaction even IF the user had the money to pay it.

If Reddit had announced reasonable pricing 6-12 months in advance, most apps could have transitioned, including Apollo.

Reddit also could have required Reddit Premium for API access and offered revenue sharing for app developers that onboarded users.

There were so many better ways to handle this.

Are we taking bets on what's coming next?

My money is on disabling old.reddit.com

I’ve been on there browsing at lunch telling people about here, old being gone would be it. That’s the Digg in the dirt for me.

Not even just getting rid of it, they're retroactively removing all awards already given to posts

WTF? Like, I never bothered with the things, but why would they go to the trouble of stripping them out? Somethings weird about that.

Sounds like they’re just ripping the code out entirely. It’s absolutely insane. At the very least leaving them on old posts should be the minimum.

After they introduced several other awards except gold, the awards completely lost its meaning (and value) in my eyes. I still remember the bliss I felt the day I discovered Apollos "hide awards"-setting.

It wasn't that bad, gold just signals that the comment is good (intensity), but some of the other awards made explicit the way in which it is good (hue/flavour) e.g. funny, informative, creative, sarcastic...I actually liked the award system (even if I always was a bit suspicious of who was giving them and what their intentions were)

A few years ago, when the only award available was gold, I used to occasionally buy gold to award comments I really like. Back then buying gold was the only monetization in reddit so it was pretty well received. I stopped doing that around the time they implemented coins and ramping up ads.

I remember when people on Reddit would downvote immediately if someone used an emoji in the comments and then proceeded to pay for awards that are pretty much just emojis.

Honestly I always felt kinda awkward after getting one, knowing somebody paid real money for a stupid icon. What a waste. Good riddance, I say.

I don't understand why people frequently say this. While it's true you can pay money for them, I've never spent a dime on reddit and have given out over 50 golds and have enough coins to give out a half dozen more. I don't know what the mechanics are for earning the coins I have, all I can say is I haven't paid for any of them yet I do have them, so it's not true that when someone gives an award it was paid for with real money.

They gave out a shit ton of coins for years, and when you get gold you get coins to give out more awards. My guess is there are so many unpaid coins flying around that they're just wiping it all out to start fresh with a (maybe) profitable system.

If you had Alien Blue, you got a shitload when Reddit bought it. That’s where I got mine and also never spent a dime on Reddit.

When you buy a subscription to Reddit you get free coins you can use to give out these awards, so at least some of the time the award didn't actually cost anything above what they were already paying for their subscription.

Reddit has also started to rate limit websites like teddit.net , libreddit* thus rendering then useless

To be fair they're attempting to rehost reddit.net's content, right?

Yeah, I'd limit them too.

Not saying everything reddit is doing is great, but at least that one makes sense.

If you disagree with reddit, the best thing to do is cut the cord, not to continue using them in other formats. The only reason to use reddit is to tell people about alternatives.

Oh that's why I keep getting "Too many requests error"

Yeah I’m in the same bucket. Once libreddit dies, I’m off Reddit for good. I still like to browse some of the communities that aren’t fully established on Lemmy yet there and libreddit is he only thing that makes it palatable. I can’t stand reddit deciding to only show you the first comment in a chain of 30 and asking you to log in to see the rest.

I'm starting to think Spez is depressed. He probably had visions of being a Billionaire tech bro by now like Zuckerberg and Musk. His only thought these days seems to be how to monetize Reddit, regardless of how he destroys it.

If he’d had any insight, he’d have realized Reddit’s structure wasn’t a good vehicle for monetization and gone the way of Wikipedia/Jimmy Wales. He’d be popular and respected now and probably able to extract a decent living from it.

But his insistence that a square peg be pounded into a round hole will end up with him being neither popular nor respected—and he’ll never sniff that moonshot IPO.

I think the advertising it can do is a perfectly reasonable way to monetize..

Their problem is they want to be some major player and not a "right sized" organization.. They want to go public and try to be billionaires and be like elon or zuck, but it's just not going to be that.

So in their quest for GREED they'll destroy the very thing that can make them absolute massive amounts of money. It's crazy how many mega corps have fallen to the same fate.

They should welcome 3rd parties and any other means to see reddit and monetize the advertising.. Hell they could even try to work streaming deals with NFL and NBA and whatever.. Cowboys games live threads alone have caused the entire reddit website to collapse lol.

SOOO much monetization possibilities in that. And it's charging billion dollar organizations.. not the people that use the service..

Spez is not a good business man

CEO: Is this part broken yet?

Lackey: No sir.

CEO: Well then grab a sledgehammer and get crackin!

I don't care about the awards that much but Redditors do a lot. This decision will piss off Redditors.

Tomorrow: Reddit removes the sharing and reading posts and subreddit features.