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Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO (9to5mac.com)

submitted 3 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] MataVatnik@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I got to the front page and got invited to a private community, forgot what it's called. It was just random people posting random boring shit. I mean it was nice, felt like people just sharing stuff and hanging out but I wouldn't pay money for it.

The only way I would see this working is if it was like a patreon/discord model where user get exclusive access to creators content. But in that case you would need big creators to participate to bring them into these gated communities and the creator get a competitive share of the user's money.