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.
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?
Rotating paywalls on any sub greater than 10,000 users.
I hope they do that. Another brick in the wall for reddit’s demise.
Honestly, they’ll probably paywall porn first
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!
K I t t y I n s u b r e d d I t
That very very unlikely.
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
Don’t make me dream…
Back in the day, we called them subreddit mods. /j
How is a mod from /r/pics going to know that some random picture happened to be from a private paid subreddit?
edit: I missed the /j
As others have pointed out, it’ll be more like OnlyFans most likely.
Totally. This could be reddits premium answer to a Patreon community with an exclusive Discord server.
So… a Reddit community with an exclusive Discord server?
I can’t tell of you’re just joking or not - so no, just straight up as a replacement for both, Patreon+Discord. You have a creator you like on YouTube let’s say, and so you sign up for their premium subreddit to support them. You get the community on reddit as a replacement for how creators use Discord, and then if they integrated Patreon-like features such as a host for members only videos or premium podcast feeds from the creator, and giving the creator a place to upload and share members only photos or polls. Meanwhile it operates just like any other subreddit operates for community discussions. No need for multiple services integrated, if reddit offers an all in one solution.
Reddit is not a great replacement for Discord and its live chat features IMO.
Well, they would presumably develop premium subreddit features to reach parity or develop an otherwise useful feature set. As it is now, you’re certainly right.