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Reddit plans to lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 week ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When asked about "new, key features that you plan to roll out for Reddit in 2025," Huffman responded, in part: “Paid subreddits, yes.”

Reddit's paywall would ostensibly only apply to certain new subreddit types, not any subreddits currently available. In August, Huffman said that even with paywalled content, free Reddit would "continue to exist and grow and thrive."

A critical aspect of any potential plan to make Reddit users pay to access subreddit content is determining how related Reddit users will be compensated. Reddit may have a harder time getting volunteer moderators to wrangle discussions on paid-for subreddits—if it uses volunteer mods at all. Balancing paid and free content would also be necessary to avoid polarizing much of Reddit's current user base.

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[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 30 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Paid subreddits. I mean look at the free to play live service games, how people like to buy stuff that not everyone has. We can laugh as much as we want and think how dumb this is. But people are dumber. It will drive away some people from Reddit, most won't care and just stay using the "Free" stuff. Some will pay for the subreddits.

Maybe NSFW content or support subreddits for paying customers.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

NSFW is the only one that makes sense tbh. Reddit's interface would actually be pretty good for an OF like subscription service considering how much OF advertising already exists.

But I strongly suspect they are going to try to do something dumb like tech support or tutoring which nobody is going to pay for.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Remember when porn subs were people just having fun and posting instead of this endless stream of monetization efforts? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

[–] leetnewb@beehaw.org 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Unmoderated user generated nsfw forums were (are?) a beacon for dubious to illegal content. I forget the specifics, but didn't Pornhub have to pivot from accepting a firehose of free user submitted content after failing to moderate sufficiently? User generated nsfw + free just seems like an impossible balance.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 3 points 1 week ago

Realistically, Reddit has been useless for porn for quite some time.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

That was the avatar NFTs: most people didn't care, some jumped on the FOMO and paid through the nose to "catch them all".

If they had opened that to 3rd party apps, even as a requirement to use the API, or better yet if they gave a cut to 3rd party apps, instead of blindly charging for the API, they could have got a great net to catch whales, while most people would just ignore it and keep contributing their time (mods) and content (comments).

Instead... well, this.