By: Nick Gambino
Reddit has been a popular platform for engaging conversations, hard-to-find answers to questions and toxic cliquing for years now. In other words, it was primed to be one of the biggest social media platforms in the world.
And that’s exactly what’s happened. Subreddits often appear at the top of Google search results for a plethora of queries. The company has maintained the free-to-play model that helps platforms like this get so big. But they’re at a point where they have to monetize and fast and I guess ads just aren’t going to cut it.
“It’s a work in progress right now, so that one’s coming,” Steve Huffman, the CEO of Reddit said in an AMA on the site in response to a paid version of Reddit.
This is in line with an earnings call from last year where Huffman talked about the possibility of putting at least some subreddits behind a paywall.
“I think the existing altruistic, free version of Reddit will continue to exist and grow and thrive just the way it is,” Huffman stated. “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.”
The company went public in 2023 and whenever that happens the bottom line becomes the only thing that matters no matter how much you try to stay “virtuous” and for the people. I guess shareholders are people too, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.
Obviously this is going to cause an uproar amongst die-hard and casual redditors alike. If you offer something for free for long enough people will start to feel like they are entitled to that service.
The thing about Reddit is it’s user generated so it’s not like the opinion of Redditors doesn’t matter. That’s your bread and butter at the end of the day.
And that’s why Reddit has had difficulty monetizing their platform in the past. If a large group of moderators and Redditors don’t want something they’ll let you know. Even if that means they’re going to go on “strike.”
