Highly dependent on what subs you visit. I generally go to smaller or more niche subs, so there’s less bot/AI bullshit. Subs with lots of pics or lots of “real” stories tend to attract more...
Highly dependent on what subs you visit. I generally go to smaller or more niche subs, so there’s less bot/AI bullshit. Subs with lots of pics or lots of “real” stories tend to attract more attention, and thus, more bots.
Not particularly. I don't think most posts I see are from bots, at least. But that being said, I don't really on /r/all or default subs anymore. And, to be honest, there's not all that much...
Not particularly. I don't think most posts I see are from bots, at least. But that being said, I don't really on /r/all or default subs anymore. And, to be honest, there's not all that much different from karma whores/reposters and bots anyway, other than the flesh and blood of the latter.
Eh, the incentives of karma whores and advertising are pretty different. Old-school power users that post for clout usually aren't posting for business reasons.
Eh, the incentives of karma whores and advertising are pretty different. Old-school power users that post for clout usually aren't posting for business reasons.
Am I the only person who can't tell bots? Hate starting a question with Am I the only one, but I really see probably 30-50 comments about bots in the thread for every one comment that looks like a...
Am I the only person who can't tell bots?
Hate starting a question with Am I the only one, but I really see probably 30-50 comments about bots in the thread for every one comment that looks like a bot to me.
I notice it in subtle ways. Like when a bot says "Thanks for sharing that" by the OP. Ive been on reddit for 15 years and those kinds of comments are very rare as redditors are notoriously not...
I notice it in subtle ways. Like when a bot says "Thanks for sharing that" by the OP. Ive been on reddit for 15 years and those kinds of comments are very rare as redditors are notoriously not that polite.
Or when I check a users name and they have 400 short comments but no posts. Who makes 400 short one line comments?
And sometimes the wording is just a bit odd. A little too descriptive, a little too well written for the topic.
The biggest one is when an entire sub shifts. r/Canadian was famously left leaning for much of its life, in the last year its been VERY right leaning/pro Conservative, and since Trudeau stepped down and the Liberals started their leadership race now its absolutely flooded with anti-Conservative rhetoric. I dont think they're all AI bots, so much as a large contingent of volunteers doing their darndest to swing the narrative. And emboldened Liberals Im sure. But the swing has been so abrupt that it causes whiplash.
Case in point. I made some comments and three redditors replied with nearly the same comment. I decided to rebut and found all three of them had blocked me. Most redditors dont even use the block user feature but certainly not three in a row who had just made nearly identical comments. Sigh. Oh well, it was a fun place while it lasted.
I only use the website version in Firefox with uBlock Origin, I never see an ad on it. Their app is so terrible that this is the best way I've found to use it. Most of the subs I visit aren't huge...
I only use the website version in Firefox with uBlock Origin, I never see an ad on it. Their app is so terrible that this is the best way I've found to use it. Most of the subs I visit aren't huge ones, so hopefully less likely to be bot-filled.
Honestly, no--assuming you avoid the default subs and /r/all and /r/popular. You still see bots sometimes in the smaller niche-interest or city-based subs like the kind that I subscribe to but...
Honestly, no--assuming you avoid the default subs and /r/all and /r/popular. You still see bots sometimes in the smaller niche-interest or city-based subs like the kind that I subscribe to but there's not much incentive for bot activity there because there's not enough traffic to meaningfully farm for a purpose. It does also depend on the quality of the sub's current mod team, which can vary greatly.
I don't see ads on Reddit at all because I use uBlock Origin as well as Reddit Enhancement Suite, which lets you flip the new, crappier site layout to the old link aggregation style among other useful features. I would find Reddit unusable without them both.
As is, using browser plugins and sticking to a small list of niche but active subreddits, it's good enough for me to justify visiting regularly. It's not so good that I would pay even a small amount of money to continue having access to it, however.
I sort of suspect this is less of a "parts of Reddit that are free now will become paid" and more of a competitor to the "join my Patreon to get access to my Discord" type of thing. Probably less...
I sort of suspect this is less of a "parts of Reddit that are free now will become paid" and more of a competitor to the "join my Patreon to get access to my Discord" type of thing.
Probably less bad for users, but I'm not sure I think that fits the relatively impersonal model of Reddit-like sites. On a Discord server I find myself recognizing usernames pretty fast. On a site like Reddit (or this one) I never really notice usernames and think more about "posts" and "comments" than people. Feels like a weird fit for that monetization model to me...
Awesome news. The more Reddit hurts itself in confusion, the easier it'll be to rid myself of them. Go ahead and break up with me Reddit, I can take it.
Awesome news. The more Reddit hurts itself in confusion, the easier it'll be to rid myself of them. Go ahead and break up with me Reddit, I can take it.
Yep. They are just another source of information when I need now. I’ll use them for what I think might be accurate information after anything with a solid reputation, Wikipedia, and StackExchange...
Yep. They are just another source of information when I need now. I’ll use them for what I think might be accurate information after anything with a solid reputation, Wikipedia, and StackExchange (not necessarily in that order).
I’ll use them as a kind of last resort, but I’ve long since deleted all my posts and comments and absolutely don’t participate in discussions anymore. They depend on users for free content, censor it, sell it, and are now going to try and sell it back to you too? No thanks. They don’t get my IP anymore.
I tried after APIgate. Left for like 3-4mo. But I still didn’t entirely leave, since there were some subs that were useful for work. When it seemed like nothing really changed on the site, I ended...
I tried after APIgate. Left for like 3-4mo. But I still didn’t entirely leave, since there were some subs that were useful for work.
When it seemed like nothing really changed on the site, I ended up going back. I def spend more time on other sites/communities now (like here). But reddit is still No.1.
Only plus side is that I barely access reddit on my phone now. Screw the official app (I was an Apollo user). If I need to view reddit on mobile, I just use old.reddit.com on browser.
I left after that same event, and only occasionally head back for specific search results that come up. Otherwise, I've left it for good. That being said, I was a mobile only user, and RIF was how...
I left after that same event, and only occasionally head back for specific search results that come up. Otherwise, I've left it for good.
That being said, I was a mobile only user, and RIF was how I accessed it... Which makes it wonderful that I can continue to support @talklittle here!
Someone mentioned this would likely apply to porn subreddits and all of a sudden this started making a lot of sense to me. Gating porn subreddits would be nothing but upsides for reddit, without...
Someone mentioned this would likely apply to porn subreddits and all of a sudden this started making a lot of sense to me. Gating porn subreddits would be nothing but upsides for reddit, without pissing off most of their userbase.
They've also been seeming to be trying to shadow remove NSFW subs. There's been a lot of subs I've seen closed down the last year for being "unmoderated" even if they weren't. The ones with active...
They've also been seeming to be trying to shadow remove NSFW subs. There's been a lot of subs I've seen closed down the last year for being "unmoderated" even if they weren't. The ones with active mods would open back up after yelling ad the admins, others didn't. And the ones that didn't, Reddit now won't give them to people who've requested to take over it on the Reddit Request subreddit.
Which, I certainly get not wanting unmoderated communities open - but when you're removing an entire subreddit because it's unmoderated instead of just putting it in view only -AND- not allowing new people to moderate it...to me that says trying to get stuff removed in a shadow manner rather than being preventitive.
I'm sure Reddit is in a pickle with porn. It drives a lot of traffic but it can affect ad revenue. There's also all of the porn ID laws going up which haven't been really enforced but could be at...
I'm sure Reddit is in a pickle with porn. It drives a lot of traffic but it can affect ad revenue. There's also all of the porn ID laws going up which haven't been really enforced but could be at any moment. Reddit isn't going to risk the rest of the site for porn but they don't want to do anything unless they're forced to. So it feels like they're making subtle changes to try and be ready for the laws to be enforced while also keeping their heads down.
I've heard they're going a step further- they're actually removing moderators from subreddits, and then they can say it's unmoderated, which results in removal. This aligns with what you're saying...
I've heard they're going a step further- they're actually removing moderators from subreddits, and then they can say it's unmoderated, which results in removal. This aligns with what you're saying about active mods complaining enough to get some of these subreddits reinstated. But realistically, if someone is a mod of some niche subreddit that the reddit admins/executives want gone, what's the likelihood they're going to push on the admins to bring it back? I'm sure some mods will, but I'd imagine others will view it as the last straw and leave reddit.
Yeah I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if thats not just conjecture, as it would explain a lot of things to me. Because there’s some subs where I can’t guarantee they had “active” mods, but were...
Yeah I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if thats not just conjecture, as it would explain a lot of things to me. Because there’s some subs where I can’t guarantee they had “active” mods, but were very active subs and at least had some moderation. Then poof.
From what I gather, the current state of porn subreddits are that they're filled with "sampler" content from models with links to their individual OnlyFans for "The good stuff." Adding a money...
From what I gather, the current state of porn subreddits are that they're filled with "sampler" content from models with links to their individual OnlyFans for "The good stuff."
Adding a money barrier to the porn subreddits would solve quite a few issues, but it would leave users in a weird state, where they're paying money for what's essentially "ads," and it forces models with the decision: put more of "The Good Stuff" on Reddit and forgo OnlyFans, or forgo Reddit altogether?
Another option: reddit begins competing with OnlyFans. YouTube offers "memberships" to channels now, it wouldn't be a stretch for reddit to muscle in on paying content creators directly by having...
Another option: reddit begins competing with OnlyFans. YouTube offers "memberships" to channels now, it wouldn't be a stretch for reddit to muscle in on paying content creators directly by having premium subreddits that creators get a cut from access fees from.
horrible from a financial perspective. Wonderful from a business perspective of "we accept 18+ content but we basically don't". Thing is, people were asking for proper 18+ filters for well over a...
horrible from a financial perspective. Wonderful from a business perspective of "we accept 18+ content but we basically don't".
Thing is, people were asking for proper 18+ filters for well over a decade now. This would also mean distinguishing different kinds of 18+ content. r/TheLastOfus is marked18+, for instance.
I'm...OK with this? You could have certain subreddits that are alternatives to substack, patreon, or onlyfans. Depending how long they want to let their videos be, you could have podcasts or even...
Reddit's paywall would ostensibly only apply to certain new subreddit types, not any subreddits currently available.
I'm...OK with this? You could have certain subreddits that are alternatives to substack, patreon, or onlyfans. Depending how long they want to let their videos be, you could have podcasts or even Netflix-type subscriptions. As long as they aren't messing with the community-oriented side of the site, it's fine.
edit to note: I've already left the site with the API protest. Just saying I don't think this change is necessarily bad.
I just take it to be the boiling frog approach, as usual. I'll give it a year and see how that evolves. As for the feature itself; I don't see a premium subreddit having any value. OF models get...
I just take it to be the boiling frog approach, as usual. I'll give it a year and see how that evolves.
As for the feature itself; I don't see a premium subreddit having any value. OF models get harassed enough on reddit, its hosting isn't really good enough that I'd move off of patreon nor Spotify nor substack.
The audience for such a change really is "other redditors". Because a premium subreddit would have less reach and you'd need a built in rapport of users who trust to subscribe to your premium reddit. And even then I feel that would simply make it more likely that premium content simply gets reposted and you spend more time DMCA'ing those reposts.
I am confident that the old Reddit could have pulled off building a Patreon competitor, or an OnlyFans competitor, or even Something Awful. The new one I'm fairly confident is looking to extract...
I am confident that the old Reddit could have pulled off building a Patreon competitor, or an OnlyFans competitor, or even Something Awful.
The new one I'm fairly confident is looking to extract money more than they're looking for a way to use costs and transfers to make a community function.
Yes agreed. Discord did a similar thing a couple years ago and people FREAKED OUT. But my view is that any action like this is just creating new competitors to Patreon, and that's fantastic for...
Yes agreed. Discord did a similar thing a couple years ago and people FREAKED OUT. But my view is that any action like this is just creating new competitors to Patreon, and that's fantastic for everyone
oh yeah sorry, discord now has subscriptions that you can enable in a server (i think it has to be a "community" (not a personal/friends server) and it's only available in the USA. As part of...
oh yeah sorry, discord now has subscriptions that you can enable in a server (i think it has to be a "community" (not a personal/friends server) and it's only available in the USA. As part of subs, you can also restrict access to certain channels unless someone subs to the server. People FLIPPED OUT about this, but it's no different from a patreon integration giving a special role in discord (already super trivial to set up, pretty sure there's off-the-shelf bots that will do it), it just makes everything more integrated and gives creators an alternative to patreon, which is a great thing because patreon is honestly awful and has way too big a monopoly on creator support so they can charge basically whatever they want as a % of revenue
i’m in the same camp. i think they’ll try to have something like patreon and onlyfans available for creators. it’s not like /r/pizza will be paywalled.
i’m in the same camp. i think they’ll try to have something like patreon and onlyfans available for creators. it’s not like /r/pizza will be paywalled.
That is a great idea. It will drive people to other platforms. It would be great if I wasn't forced to open Reddit because it's the only place with good answers.
That is a great idea. It will drive people to other platforms. It would be great if I wasn't forced to open Reddit because it's the only place with good answers.
The quality of those older posts has gone downhill too. Enough former Reddit users have bulk deleted their comments and removed helpful responses to make some of the "how do I" topics as useful as...
The quality of those older posts has gone downhill too. Enough former Reddit users have bulk deleted their comments and removed helpful responses to make some of the "how do I" topics as useful as "thanks I figured it out" posts without any details.
Although of course they aren't really permanently deleted, plus by the time they were deleted reddit had already sold them to train an LLM (section 5). It's interesting how in their Public Content...
Although of course they aren't really permanently deleted, plus by the time they were deleted reddit had already sold them to train an LLM (section 5).
It's interesting how in their Public Content Policy reddit claim that posts in private communities are not public and therefore not sold. But they have also been known to forcefully (re)open private communities. Some people definitely made posts in private communities with the expectation that they were not going to be sold, then reddit forcefully made those communities public and sold those posts. Should anyone trust these people to be ethical when monetizing other people's content?
My guess is that they think it will drive some people to other platforms, but the increased monetization of the remaining users will make up for it. I'm skeptical that it'll work out for them...
My guess is that they think it will drive some people to other platforms, but the increased monetization of the remaining users will make up for it. I'm skeptical that it'll work out for them however, since Reddit's business model relies on users working for free to generate content for other users, and adding a paywall somewhere in there throws a huge wrench in the works.
Yet. Good quality discussion is always a moving target. The local pub, GOPHER, AOL message boards, Geocities, ICP, Fast Company and Wired Forums, MySpace, Digg, FaceBook (for some), even WP blog...
Yet.
Good quality discussion is always a moving target.
The local pub, GOPHER, AOL message boards, Geocities, ICP, Fast Company and Wired Forums, MySpace, Digg, FaceBook (for some), even WP blog comments and blogs, etc. etc.
Reddit and Twitter are on the decline currently. Discord and Twitch and whatever else are on the rise.
I’m taking this opportunity to reaffirm that despite entrenched powers, greed, and grifters, we’ll be okay so long as we don’t succumb to entropy.
Edit: Twitter, Google +, GitHub, SlashDot, StackExchange, email listservs… what else am I missing? Go!
I'm curious how this will work from a moderation perspective. Will these new pay-to-access subs have paid mods too? Or if they're volunteers will the mods themselves have to pay as well? Will they...
I'm curious how this will work from a moderation perspective. Will these new pay-to-access subs have paid mods too? Or if they're volunteers will the mods themselves have to pay as well? Will they all be admin-run? People are saying that the system might be used to paywall porn subs but I simply can't see the mods being okay with their subs being paywalled without their consent, nor can I see the admins rushing to find new mods for porn subs when the old ones quit. Not to mention how the whole anti-porn movement on the internet is being pushed nearly entirely because of pressure of card payment companies by Christian lobbyist groups, so specifically making Reddit's income based on these porn subs rather than the "normal" content seems a bit backwards.
What's utterly bizarre to me is that they all ready had a pretty decent monetization system in place with the Reddit Premium stuff. Reddit Gold back in the day, then they expanded it out to Silver and Platinum too, then they turned it into a million awards, and then they just... Scrapped the whole thing one day. Premium still exists but it's basically worthless outside of the ad-free part (and as a firefox+oldreddit+ublock user I often just forget it exists entirely). I assume they had a reason for getting rid of it but I sure can't think of anything.
Great points. I’m inclined to add many of Reddit’s moves onto that vaguely shaped pile of internetty things done where money is involved but it also doesn’t make sense. That pile that foments...
Great points. I’m inclined to add many of Reddit’s moves onto that vaguely shaped pile of internetty things done where money is involved but it also doesn’t make sense. That pile that foments conspiracy and futile frustration and enshittification.
Like Musk & Twitter.
You know, the light that this moth’s doom spiraling is compulsively drawn to. Oy.
Yeah, I may be wrong, but I don’t see a lot of Reddit users being willing to pay. As so many people pointed out a couple of years ago, Reddit itself doesn’t produce any content, and that’s what...
Yeah, I may be wrong, but I don’t see a lot of Reddit users being willing to pay. As so many people pointed out a couple of years ago, Reddit itself doesn’t produce any content, and that’s what people go there for. Whether it’s fair or not, users don’t see value in the platform as such.
I know this will be a controversial take, but IMO this is a very smart move. Reddit at this point is completely riddled with bots and trolls, to the point of being unusable, especially the bigger...
I know this will be a controversial take, but IMO this is a very smart move.
Reddit at this point is completely riddled with bots and trolls, to the point of being unusable, especially the bigger subs. And there is nothing you can do about it because even if you start banning accounts, setting up new ones is so trivial.
A paywall will significantly limit that problem. Is a bot runner just gonna purchase entry for another 500 accounts to spam with, if they just got banned for the third time? Is a troll gonna keep paying a fee every time they get kicked out, which could be several times per day if they keep trolling?
I know people on the internet demand everything to be free, but frankly that's not sustainable.
Does this really work in practice though? This was also part of the rationale for Twitter's monetising checkmarks, but (at least anecdotally), there's more spam there than ever, including from...
Does this really work in practice though? This was also part of the rationale for Twitter's monetising checkmarks, but (at least anecdotally), there's more spam there than ever, including from blue-checkmark accounts.
I think the twitter situation was different. They were replacing a functioning authentication system (where people had to actually prove who they are) with a system where you can pay to seem...
I think the twitter situation was different. They were replacing a functioning authentication system (where people had to actually prove who they are) with a system where you can pay to seem authentic. Of course that would just increase and empower bad actors. For just a few bucks you can appear like you are the real Bill Gates or something and scam people.
I don't know if it will work for reddit. To be honest I think this probably has more to do with monetizing content than fighting bots. Think about all the OnlyFans girls that post samples on NSFW subreddits to get free publicity and then redirect people to their OF page. Reddit makes nothing out of it. If instead the coomers get redirected to a paywalled section on reddit, then reddit can make a percentage out of every sale.
A thought of mine: Every NSFW subreddit lately (except maybe Gonewild or the rare few places that ban self-promotion) seems to be astroturfed by e-girls plugging their OnlyFans. Spez could easily...
A thought of mine: Every NSFW subreddit lately (except maybe Gonewild or the rare few places that ban self-promotion) seems to be astroturfed by e-girls plugging their OnlyFans. Spez could easily cut out the middle-man, allow these models to paywall their stuff behind a subscription on Reddit and take a smaller cut compared to the likes of OF and Fansly.
Reddit Inc could genuinely make some fucking bank from this. But it's more likely that this will be a shitshow.
I wonder if the business strategy will be to paywall more things, or find some way to deliver value for dollar. I don't mind paying for things but not interested when it's simply a short term cash...
I wonder if the business strategy will be to paywall more things, or find some way to deliver value for dollar. I don't mind paying for things but not interested when it's simply a short term cash grab at the expense of the community. That being said, please remember to donate for Tildes :). It's a blessing that Tildes isn't overrun with the same problems as a public company.
My guess is that those new for-a-price subreddits will be porn, gambling, or for-a-fee sports feeds backed by businesses who will provide their own moderators. It will be interesting to see how it...
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."
My guess is that those new for-a-price subreddits will be porn, gambling, or for-a-fee sports feeds backed by businesses who will provide their own moderators.
It will be interesting to see how it will turn out. Reddit subculture, I think, will not be keen on Reddit having their credit card numbers.
I used to be a big Reddit user, but now I only look at the tropical weather subreddit, and that only during hurricane season. It hasn't been otherwise worthwhile for me for a very long time....
I used to be a big Reddit user, but now I only look at the tropical weather subreddit, and that only during hurricane season. It hasn't been otherwise worthwhile for me for a very long time.
Although my only viral 15 minutes of fame was there, with the Pete Peterson paint block, lol.
I have a feeling Reddit will continue its march of enshittification. The public or free portions will probably just be bot and ad-filled shite.
Highly dependent on what subs you visit. I generally go to smaller or more niche subs, so there’s less bot/AI bullshit. Subs with lots of pics or lots of “real” stories tend to attract more attention, and thus, more bots.
I try to stay away from reddit overall. But any time I am there and on r/all the quantity of fake AITAH, AIO, etc. posts is outrageous.
I mute all those shitty subreddits. It does require that you actually go to the subreddit to mute it but whatever.
I...uh...okay. Yeah. Thats fair.
But for the most part I stick with local city subreddit and its not complete dog-ass.
Not particularly. I don't think most posts I see are from bots, at least. But that being said, I don't really on /r/all or default subs anymore. And, to be honest, there's not all that much different from karma whores/reposters and bots anyway, other than the flesh and blood of the latter.
Eh, the incentives of karma whores and advertising are pretty different. Old-school power users that post for clout usually aren't posting for business reasons.
Am I the only person who can't tell bots?
Hate starting a question with Am I the only one, but I really see probably 30-50 comments about bots in the thread for every one comment that looks like a bot to me.
Hah I see what you did there.
I notice it in subtle ways. Like when a bot says "Thanks for sharing that" by the OP. Ive been on reddit for 15 years and those kinds of comments are very rare as redditors are notoriously not that polite.
Or when I check a users name and they have 400 short comments but no posts. Who makes 400 short one line comments?
And sometimes the wording is just a bit odd. A little too descriptive, a little too well written for the topic.
The biggest one is when an entire sub shifts. r/Canadian was famously left leaning for much of its life, in the last year its been VERY right leaning/pro Conservative, and since Trudeau stepped down and the Liberals started their leadership race now its absolutely flooded with anti-Conservative rhetoric. I dont think they're all AI bots, so much as a large contingent of volunteers doing their darndest to swing the narrative. And emboldened Liberals Im sure. But the swing has been so abrupt that it causes whiplash.
Case in point. I made some comments and three redditors replied with nearly the same comment. I decided to rebut and found all three of them had blocked me. Most redditors dont even use the block user feature but certainly not three in a row who had just made nearly identical comments. Sigh. Oh well, it was a fun place while it lasted.
Cat.
I only use the website version in Firefox with uBlock Origin, I never see an ad on it. Their app is so terrible that this is the best way I've found to use it. Most of the subs I visit aren't huge ones, so hopefully less likely to be bot-filled.
Oh I see! I don't usually see those on the subreddits I follow unless I'm specifically searching for recommendations or reviews.
Honestly, no--assuming you avoid the default subs and /r/all and /r/popular. You still see bots sometimes in the smaller niche-interest or city-based subs like the kind that I subscribe to but there's not much incentive for bot activity there because there's not enough traffic to meaningfully farm for a purpose. It does also depend on the quality of the sub's current mod team, which can vary greatly.
I don't see ads on Reddit at all because I use uBlock Origin as well as Reddit Enhancement Suite, which lets you flip the new, crappier site layout to the old link aggregation style among other useful features. I would find Reddit unusable without them both.
As is, using browser plugins and sticking to a small list of niche but active subreddits, it's good enough for me to justify visiting regularly. It's not so good that I would pay even a small amount of money to continue having access to it, however.
I will leave if 'old reddit' isn't available anymore. That +RES is the only way I can scroll through that site.
I sort of suspect this is less of a "parts of Reddit that are free now will become paid" and more of a competitor to the "join my Patreon to get access to my Discord" type of thing.
Probably less bad for users, but I'm not sure I think that fits the relatively impersonal model of Reddit-like sites. On a Discord server I find myself recognizing usernames pretty fast. On a site like Reddit (or this one) I never really notice usernames and think more about "posts" and "comments" than people. Feels like a weird fit for that monetization model to me...
"some content behind a paywall"
Will Am I The Asshole be labeled premium? Ridiculous.
Awesome news. The more Reddit hurts itself in confusion, the easier it'll be to rid myself of them. Go ahead and break up with me Reddit, I can take it.
I’m with you. After leaving reddit last year after being an active user for 12+ years I’m now just rooting for it crash and burn.
Yep. They are just another source of information when I need now. I’ll use them for what I think might be accurate information after anything with a solid reputation, Wikipedia, and StackExchange (not necessarily in that order).
I’ll use them as a kind of last resort, but I’ve long since deleted all my posts and comments and absolutely don’t participate in discussions anymore. They depend on users for free content, censor it, sell it, and are now going to try and sell it back to you too? No thanks. They don’t get my IP anymore.
You haven't left already?
There's still a lot of valuable communities over there. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait for the entire site to rot before they're rebuilt elsewhere.
I tried after APIgate. Left for like 3-4mo. But I still didn’t entirely leave, since there were some subs that were useful for work.
When it seemed like nothing really changed on the site, I ended up going back. I def spend more time on other sites/communities now (like here). But reddit is still No.1.
Only plus side is that I barely access reddit on my phone now. Screw the official app (I was an Apollo user). If I need to view reddit on mobile, I just use old.reddit.com on browser.
I left after that same event, and only occasionally head back for specific search results that come up. Otherwise, I've left it for good.
That being said, I was a mobile only user, and RIF was how I accessed it... Which makes it wonderful that I can continue to support @talklittle here!
Someone mentioned this would likely apply to porn subreddits and all of a sudden this started making a lot of sense to me. Gating porn subreddits would be nothing but upsides for reddit, without pissing off most of their userbase.
They've also been seeming to be trying to shadow remove NSFW subs. There's been a lot of subs I've seen closed down the last year for being "unmoderated" even if they weren't. The ones with active mods would open back up after yelling ad the admins, others didn't. And the ones that didn't, Reddit now won't give them to people who've requested to take over it on the Reddit Request subreddit.
Which, I certainly get not wanting unmoderated communities open - but when you're removing an entire subreddit because it's unmoderated instead of just putting it in view only -AND- not allowing new people to moderate it...to me that says trying to get stuff removed in a shadow manner rather than being preventitive.
I'm sure Reddit is in a pickle with porn. It drives a lot of traffic but it can affect ad revenue. There's also all of the porn ID laws going up which haven't been really enforced but could be at any moment. Reddit isn't going to risk the rest of the site for porn but they don't want to do anything unless they're forced to. So it feels like they're making subtle changes to try and be ready for the laws to be enforced while also keeping their heads down.
I've heard they're going a step further- they're actually removing moderators from subreddits, and then they can say it's unmoderated, which results in removal. This aligns with what you're saying about active mods complaining enough to get some of these subreddits reinstated. But realistically, if someone is a mod of some niche subreddit that the reddit admins/executives want gone, what's the likelihood they're going to push on the admins to bring it back? I'm sure some mods will, but I'd imagine others will view it as the last straw and leave reddit.
Yeah I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if thats not just conjecture, as it would explain a lot of things to me. Because there’s some subs where I can’t guarantee they had “active” mods, but were very active subs and at least had some moderation. Then poof.
From what I gather, the current state of porn subreddits are that they're filled with "sampler" content from models with links to their individual OnlyFans for "The good stuff."
Adding a money barrier to the porn subreddits would solve quite a few issues, but it would leave users in a weird state, where they're paying money for what's essentially "ads," and it forces models with the decision: put more of "The Good Stuff" on Reddit and forgo OnlyFans, or forgo Reddit altogether?
Another option: reddit begins competing with OnlyFans. YouTube offers "memberships" to channels now, it wouldn't be a stretch for reddit to muscle in on paying content creators directly by having premium subreddits that creators get a cut from access fees from.
horrible from a financial perspective. Wonderful from a business perspective of "we accept 18+ content but we basically don't".
Thing is, people were asking for proper 18+ filters for well over a decade now. This would also mean distinguishing different kinds of 18+ content. r/TheLastOfus is marked18+, for instance.
Lol
I'm...OK with this? You could have certain subreddits that are alternatives to substack, patreon, or onlyfans. Depending how long they want to let their videos be, you could have podcasts or even Netflix-type subscriptions. As long as they aren't messing with the community-oriented side of the site, it's fine.
edit to note: I've already left the site with the API protest. Just saying I don't think this change is necessarily bad.
I just take it to be the boiling frog approach, as usual. I'll give it a year and see how that evolves.
As for the feature itself; I don't see a premium subreddit having any value. OF models get harassed enough on reddit, its hosting isn't really good enough that I'd move off of patreon nor Spotify nor substack.
The audience for such a change really is "other redditors". Because a premium subreddit would have less reach and you'd need a built in rapport of users who trust to subscribe to your premium reddit. And even then I feel that would simply make it more likely that premium content simply gets reposted and you spend more time DMCA'ing those reposts.
I am confident that the old Reddit could have pulled off building a Patreon competitor, or an OnlyFans competitor, or even Something Awful.
The new one I'm fairly confident is looking to extract money more than they're looking for a way to use costs and transfers to make a community function.
Yes agreed. Discord did a similar thing a couple years ago and people FREAKED OUT. But my view is that any action like this is just creating new competitors to Patreon, and that's fantastic for everyone
What similar thing did Discord do? I only use random Discords for some content creators and language learning communities.
oh yeah sorry, discord now has subscriptions that you can enable in a server (i think it has to be a "community" (not a personal/friends server) and it's only available in the USA. As part of subs, you can also restrict access to certain channels unless someone subs to the server. People FLIPPED OUT about this, but it's no different from a patreon integration giving a special role in discord (already super trivial to set up, pretty sure there's off-the-shelf bots that will do it), it just makes everything more integrated and gives creators an alternative to patreon, which is a great thing because patreon is honestly awful and has way too big a monopoly on creator support so they can charge basically whatever they want as a % of revenue
i’m in the same camp. i think they’ll try to have something like patreon and onlyfans available for creators. it’s not like /r/pizza will be paywalled.
That is a great idea. It will drive people to other platforms. It would be great if I wasn't forced to open Reddit because it's the only place with good answers.
The quality of those older posts has gone downhill too. Enough former Reddit users have bulk deleted their comments and removed helpful responses to make some of the "how do I" topics as useful as "thanks I figured it out" posts without any details.
Although of course they aren't really permanently deleted, plus by the time they were deleted reddit had already sold them to train an LLM (section 5).
It's interesting how in their Public Content Policy reddit claim that posts in private communities are not public and therefore not sold. But they have also been known to forcefully (re)open private communities. Some people definitely made posts in private communities with the expectation that they were not going to be sold, then reddit forcefully made those communities public and sold those posts. Should anyone trust these people to be ethical when monetizing other people's content?
If they thought it would genuinely drive people to other platforms, they would hit the brakes. Most people won't go to other platforms.
My guess is that they think it will drive some people to other platforms, but the increased monetization of the remaining users will make up for it. I'm skeptical that it'll work out for them however, since Reddit's business model relies on users working for free to generate content for other users, and adding a paywall somewhere in there throws a huge wrench in the works.
Yet.
Good quality discussion is always a moving target.
The local pub, GOPHER, AOL message boards, Geocities, ICP, Fast Company and Wired Forums, MySpace, Digg, FaceBook (for some), even WP blog comments and blogs, etc. etc.
Reddit and Twitter are on the decline currently. Discord and Twitch and whatever else are on the rise.
I’m taking this opportunity to reaffirm that despite entrenched powers, greed, and grifters, we’ll be okay so long as we don’t succumb to entropy.
Edit: Twitter, Google +, GitHub, SlashDot, StackExchange, email listservs… what else am I missing? Go!
I'm curious how this will work from a moderation perspective. Will these new pay-to-access subs have paid mods too? Or if they're volunteers will the mods themselves have to pay as well? Will they all be admin-run? People are saying that the system might be used to paywall porn subs but I simply can't see the mods being okay with their subs being paywalled without their consent, nor can I see the admins rushing to find new mods for porn subs when the old ones quit. Not to mention how the whole anti-porn movement on the internet is being pushed nearly entirely because of pressure of card payment companies by Christian lobbyist groups, so specifically making Reddit's income based on these porn subs rather than the "normal" content seems a bit backwards.
What's utterly bizarre to me is that they all ready had a pretty decent monetization system in place with the Reddit Premium stuff. Reddit Gold back in the day, then they expanded it out to Silver and Platinum too, then they turned it into a million awards, and then they just... Scrapped the whole thing one day. Premium still exists but it's basically worthless outside of the ad-free part (and as a firefox+oldreddit+ublock user I often just forget it exists entirely). I assume they had a reason for getting rid of it but I sure can't think of anything.
Great points. I’m inclined to add many of Reddit’s moves onto that vaguely shaped pile of internetty things done where money is involved but it also doesn’t make sense. That pile that foments conspiracy and futile frustration and enshittification.
Like Musk & Twitter.
You know, the light that this moth’s doom spiraling is compulsively drawn to. Oy.
It's a lot harder to go from free to paid than it is to increase pricing. Users have expectations about how reddit works.
Yeah, I may be wrong, but I don’t see a lot of Reddit users being willing to pay. As so many people pointed out a couple of years ago, Reddit itself doesn’t produce any content, and that’s what people go there for. Whether it’s fair or not, users don’t see value in the platform as such.
I know this will be a controversial take, but IMO this is a very smart move.
Reddit at this point is completely riddled with bots and trolls, to the point of being unusable, especially the bigger subs. And there is nothing you can do about it because even if you start banning accounts, setting up new ones is so trivial.
A paywall will significantly limit that problem. Is a bot runner just gonna purchase entry for another 500 accounts to spam with, if they just got banned for the third time? Is a troll gonna keep paying a fee every time they get kicked out, which could be several times per day if they keep trolling?
I know people on the internet demand everything to be free, but frankly that's not sustainable.
Does this really work in practice though? This was also part of the rationale for Twitter's monetising checkmarks, but (at least anecdotally), there's more spam there than ever, including from blue-checkmark accounts.
I think the twitter situation was different. They were replacing a functioning authentication system (where people had to actually prove who they are) with a system where you can pay to seem authentic. Of course that would just increase and empower bad actors. For just a few bucks you can appear like you are the real Bill Gates or something and scam people.
I don't know if it will work for reddit. To be honest I think this probably has more to do with monetizing content than fighting bots. Think about all the OnlyFans girls that post samples on NSFW subreddits to get free publicity and then redirect people to their OF page. Reddit makes nothing out of it. If instead the coomers get redirected to a paywalled section on reddit, then reddit can make a percentage out of every sale.
A thought of mine: Every NSFW subreddit lately (except maybe Gonewild or the rare few places that ban self-promotion) seems to be astroturfed by e-girls plugging their OnlyFans. Spez could easily cut out the middle-man, allow these models to paywall their stuff behind a subscription on Reddit and take a smaller cut compared to the likes of OF and Fansly.
Reddit Inc could genuinely make some fucking bank from this. But it's more likely that this will be a shitshow.
Yeah, my thought was that Reddit is trying to cut in on that OF money.
I wonder if the business strategy will be to paywall more things, or find some way to deliver value for dollar. I don't mind paying for things but not interested when it's simply a short term cash grab at the expense of the community. That being said, please remember to donate for Tildes :). It's a blessing that Tildes isn't overrun with the same problems as a public company.
My guess is that those new for-a-price subreddits will be porn, gambling, or for-a-fee sports feeds backed by businesses who will provide their own moderators.
It will be interesting to see how it will turn out. Reddit subculture, I think, will not be keen on Reddit having their credit card numbers.
I used to be a big Reddit user, but now I only look at the tropical weather subreddit, and that only during hurricane season. It hasn't been otherwise worthwhile for me for a very long time.
Although my only viral 15 minutes of fame was there, with the Pete Peterson paint block, lol.