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.
And that’s one of the reasons that brought me here.
Maybe it was the permanent banning for creating another account trying to talk to a mod that had banned me in a way I thought was harsh, and muted me before I could even speak.
Regardless, Reddit is starting to remind me of when Digg took a massive shit like 15 years ago. And saying that makes me feel old.
As long as I’m not dealing with AI chatbots spamming these communities, I think I’ll like it here.