Reddit plans to lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says
arstechnica.com
How will Reddit generate content for paid-for subreddits?

Reddit is planning to introduce a paywall this year, CEO Steve Huffman said during a videotaped Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Thursday.

Huffman previously showed interest in potentially introducing a new type of subreddit with “exclusive content or private areas” that Reddit users would pay to access.

When asked this week about plans for some Redditors to create “content that only paid members can see,” Huffman said:

It’s a work in progress right now, so that one’s coming… We’re working on it as we speak.

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.

Reddit executives also discussed how they might introduce more ads into the social media platform. The push for ads follows changes to Reddit’s API policy that, in part, led to the closing of most third-party apps used for accessing Reddit. Reddit makes most of its revenue from ads and can only show ads on its native apps and website.

Reddit started testing ads in comments last year, with COO Jen Wong saying during an AMA that such ads are in “about 3 percent of inventory.” The executive hinted at that percentage growing. Wong also shared hopes that contextual advertising, or ads being shown based on the content surrounding them, will be a “bigger part of” Reddit’s business by 2026.

    • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      23·
      2 months ago

      Yep. When RIF was killed, I closed that door immediately (was not easy). It was to be expected though, I think. Once a site reaches critical mass, money interests enter the picture and greed can always screw up a good thing. It’s a shame.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      2 months ago

      Bad news is that we’re still not setup for Reddit-level user counts. Lemmy needs much better moderation tools to allow communities to stay on top of reports.

      Hopefully a lot of new users will also produce new people contributing to Lemmy. Or, maybe some people will form some sort of nonprofit that allows dedicated designers and engineers to continually work on Lemmy. When people contribute as a side gig, most give up after a few months. Most of the Lemmy clients that were build during the Reddit APIocalypse are no longer alive.

    • Grassgrowz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      same here lol. If they paywall subreddits ive been visiting for the past FOURTEEN years, i will lose my shit. by throwing it at the reddit headquarters.

    • CrowAirbrush@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      I wouldn’t be too sure just yet, seeing how annoying youtube and it’s ads have gotten yet it isn’t replaced still.

      We might have an increase, but plenty will never leave.

  • njordomir@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    2 months ago

    Is there anywhere I can find a complete scrape of Reddit threads and comments from before the 3rd party app apocalypse? There was a lot of useful info shared on there, but I don’t want anything to do with what that site has become. I’m happy just to CTRL+F a big dataset. It’ll probably still work better than either Reddit or Google does nowadays. Without media I imagine I could fit it somewhere.

    Also, Spez is a greedy little pig boy.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    15·
    2 months ago

    I’m surprised they aren’t talking about subscriber subreddits. With the amount of porn/OnlyFans posts, I would have thought they could position Reddit as a friendly and familiar OF alternative.

  • CastorSulMush@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    2 months ago

    More ads? There’s already a bunch of them mixed with posts and comments. What more, force people to watch an ad before loading pages?

      • underfreyja@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        2 months ago

        Yeah, people like me and I assume you, who used to browse reddit via a third party app or with RES + an adblocker on pc did not see it but it’s a bit insane how much ads there’s already on reddit right now. I migrated to GNU and firefox last week and forgot to add the extensions as I was just looking for some information in the Endeavour subreddit and I was shocked at the state of “default” reddit… I’m glad I left and I hope most of the userbase will…

  • Rando@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    13·
    2 months ago

    Hopefully this will drive even more users to switch over. I find myself finding Reddit less useful as time passes by

    • shyguyblue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 months ago

      Whenever i search for a problem now, most of the posts that contain actual answers are more than a year old, and increasingly out dated.

      Fortunately, Lemmy is tech savvy and small enough that I can ask questions without worrying about the down vote brigade.

      • dindonmasker@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        Yea and sometimes these older posts are filled with answers that just say “this user deleted all their data using “whatever service””.