They'll make everyone work like slaves and when payment time comes, they could easily change the rules to avoid paying out too much. They'll change rules and blame the content creators for it.
Pretty sure that's exactly what they want. Those are way more neutral/marketable qualities to advertisers than "Sometimes your ad will be shown next to a 10-page, expletive-ridden tirade about poop-knives, and no, they won't explain what it is".
In the short term, yes. And in the context of them trying for an IPO, that's probably what they want. But it absolutely will kill the site in the end because no one actually wants to hang out in an ad riddled wasteland.
I'm still on Facebook because of that's how I keep up with friends I no longer live near, but you know what Facebook has been loath to show me recently? Posts from my friends. Easily 75% of my feed is sponsored or "recommended" content. If they're not going to show me the one and only thing I come to the site to see, I might as well not come to the site.
reddit started trialing a "Community Points" program in 2019 in /r/ethtrader, /r/cryptocurrency and /r/fortnite , where posters and commenters could earn "Community Points" that were supposedly backed up with crypto that you could eventually cash out. They announced an expansion of the program in December 2021 but, afaik, they never actually did so. Which might have something to do with the fact that one of the /r/cryptocurrency mods made $10,000 by selling community points. I don't know if the program has actively continued since then; maybe someone who was in the three trial communities can say.
My point is that reddit has been working on something similar to this program for at least five years now. And this article isn't based on any announcement by reddit, but by someone examining their source code. It's possible that this code has been present for a while and reddit has leaked it's existence to try to attract back some of their lost contributors. Or even that it hasn't been present but they included the old code in the newest app release and then pointed it out for the same reason.
In any case, this article isn't based on any official announcement, and reddit has been "trialing" a similar program for over four years. I wouldn't hold out any hope that this actually sees daylight anytime soon, or that it'll work well if it's actually released.
I just saw someone mentioning that on mastodon maybe ten minutes ago, and then it instantly made sense. How innovative he is. Even when he can see the fallout before engaging in it
So killing a feature before any replacement is ready; cool. I’m sure those who pay for premium and will stop receiving a stock of coins will see a commensurate price reduction. Right?
I think part of it is about retention .... retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.
I'm currently in the process of ending my four accounts I have on reddit. Two of them are over 100,000 in karma and when I read this post, the very first thing that popped into my mind was .... HOW MUCH WILL MY ACCOUNTS BE WORTH?
So it's now making me think ... if I can just keep up my account for another while, maybe I can cash in on all that karma I accumulated.
I am sure that many other redditors are thinking the same. The way this reddit admin posted the info is really weird too ... it sounded like some salesman just enticing people into an idea but not fully being able to say much about it and instead making vague suggestions that something big is coming in the future.
I know a sales job when I see one .... and this is a sales job. Many people will fall for it ... if not just to hang on to see if they can at least cash in our something ... anything when the announcement happens.
Say or think what you want about me ... but I'm ending this relationship and deleting my accounts ... I don't trust big corporations to say or do anything that might give me a chance at anything. Any action they elicit from me or any user will be gamed to only benefit them. If not enough people figure that out ... reddit will make bank in the short term and that is all they are counting on.
I think part of it is about retention … retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.>
If they were actually serious about retention of high karma users they could at least consider not suspending/ banning such users without a very good reason. My previous account on there was nuked for reasons I dont understand to this day, I would have happily stayed on otherwise. I have a temporary account there now which I had no intention of putting any money into - well now the one reason i might have been tempted to do so is going away anyway.
The award/ coin system was great, and I spent a bit of money on it, it was also a very good way to pay for or be paid for small international transactions - I assisted a few people with minor things and they paid my costs such as they were with reddit coin, saving them and me international bank transaction fees. I also liked rewarding intelligent and incisive comments that needed recognition as such.
The irony is that the comments that got me the most karma weren't the ones I considered of highest value. A detailed, genuinely helpful response in a small subreddit might only garner a half-dozen upvotes while a snarky one-liner in a big sub can boost karma by thousands.
It’s surprising to hear this; given reddit’s current mass-enshittification I don’t expect to see a change that both improves user experience and reduces the money they’re making. Clearly they’ve got something more sinister planned, but awards were a blight on the reddit experience and had I not already left I’d appreciate this change (for now!)
I never bought coins or whatever, but I had inherited a bunch somehow. I jumped on reddit just now to find an old thread I'd saved and found this in my inbox:
Hello from Reddit,
We’re reaching out because you have Reddit Premium and/or Reddit Coins on your account.
TL;DR: We're making updates to awards and coins on Reddit that we'll complete by September 12, 2023. As part of this, we made a decision to move away from Reddit coins and awards. This includes the 700 monthly coins* and Premium Awards, which are currently part of the Reddit Premium experience.
You'll still be able to use your Reddit Coins until September 12, after which they'll be removed from your account.
Note: all other current Premium perks will still continue to exist, including the ad-free experience.
As we looked at our current awarding system, there was consistent feedback from redditors that stood out – particularly around the clutter from awards and all the steps involved with awarding content. We also learned that redditors want awarded content to be more valuable. With that, we are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. We will have more updates to share soon.
If you have further questions please check out our announcement post to read more about the update.
This perk is part of the paid Reddit Premium experience.
Thought it was kind of funny considering I never once cared about coins in the first place. Just checked and apparently I have "13325 coins to spend." I'm just going to let them go unless someone has a more maliciously compliant suggestion.
I can’t think of anything too maliciously compliant. Maybe give Reddit Gold to posts describing how to join Lemmy or something? Awards should boost visibility. It’s at least a little ironic to use Reddit 's own awards to help people escape.
RedditMigration
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.