Reddit CEO confirms paywalled subreddits coming

[Cindy Claveau]

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

The thing that bothers me a lot is that social media companies can't figure out how to survive in a way that's both ethical and free. Facebook is very profitable but it comes at a great privacy cost.

Reddit was described by a friend of mine as "an anarchist commune sitting on top of a for profit company." It's community will bitterly resist any monetization. I think reddit had a chance to become a non profit and survive by selling "gold" on a voluntary basis. Now that ship has sailed, and they have squandered basically all the good will or trust the community had for them. Reddit will collapse as soon as there is a decent competitor. Their most valuable asset is that most people capable of building such a thing are also aware of how hard it is to make money in social media.

 

[Noodles]

The problem is like everything, no one is ever satisfied just making money.

Let's say it, hypothetically, costs $500,000 to run Facebook's servers for a year, employees, benefits, electricity, etc, I know this is low.

They would never be happy just making $500,001 a year and covering the costs.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Reddit Diggs in.

 

[Free]

Ooh. Will there be Reddit OnlyFans-like subreddits?

 

[Essence Lumin]

This big image without a link is deceptive. They are not planning on paywalling existing content. Only new content where the author chooses to make it free or not much like Medium.com

Reddit CEO Teases Paywalled Subreddits

In an earnings call, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman mentions the possibility of 'exclusive content or private areas' on the platform, which is looking for more revenue sources after a March IPO.

www.pcmag.com

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

However, Huffman claims any new business models will be able to coexist with the traditional Reddit. “Whenever we add basically a new way of using Reddit... it expands Reddit," he said.

Oops sorry I can't read this on my third-party app that does't work anymore because you paywalled the API, Steve-o.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

The problem is like everything, no one is ever satisfied just making money.

Let's say it, hypothetically, costs $500,000 to run Facebook's servers for a year, employees, benefits, electricity, etc, I know this is low.

They would never be happy just making $500,001 a year and covering the costs.

Of course... but I think with a site like reddit, their realistic options are to be a non profit that just covers costs or a for profit that bleeds cash. This is because of how the community bitterly resists any monetization. By comparison, meta users are also not okay with their business practices, but are less willing to fight it.

I of course also realize as I type this that many of these corporate people are too greedy to think about this realistically.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

DO NOT WANT!