12h ago

Reddit plans to lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says

arstechnica.com Reddit plans to lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says

How will Reddit generate content for paid-for subreddits?

Summary

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confirmed plans to introduce a paywall this year, allowing users to create exclusive content for paid subreddits.

While free Reddit will continue, the move raises questions about compensating content creators and moderators. Reddit is also exploring monetizing user transactions within subreddits.

Additionally, the company is expanding its ad strategy, testing ads in comments and increasing contextual advertising.

These changes come as Reddit reported a Q4 2024 net income of $71 million but missed its global daily active user target.

17 comments

Cool. I been permabanned from reddit for as long as I remember. They can suicide with this stupid paywall idea. They'll have only themselves to blame.

Do the people who provide all of Reddit's content need to pay a subscription in order to provide Reddit their content?

It will be porn subs, onlyfans style
I always suspected that was their Plan B when everything else fails.
Edit: That would explain the accidental banning of all NSFW subs a week ago. Some testing in reddits usual incompetent ways.
- What a trap that would be.
  "Please pay to access a sub to see endless 20 second teasers for OF content."

Fuck u/spez
- Happy to let/watch him continue to enshittify that platform in it's entirety...
  🤣😂

Here's to hoping more users jump ship to Lemmy.

Lol, please do it.

There are a number of option of how to monetize the platform.
You could
paywall nfsw subs as suggested in the other comments
limit the number of subs a free account can access in one day
limit the number of comments a free account can post daily
add some sort of paid tag for everyone to see
I'm sure there are a lot of other ways that make reddit inconvenient for free accounts.
- No one complained about TotalFark. I’d say that’s paid done pretty decently.

More surprised this hasn't happened already.
The NSFW subs are the most logical targets. It can be spun as those mean advertisers not wanting to be on the same page as someone getting spitroasted. But it also has the added benefit of making any "protest" of flagging a board as NSFW almost immediately anger the users more than the corporate staff because those jokes about how paw patrol is NSFW means that "nobody" can access it anymore. Although, that might run afoul of the various puritan laws the US is pushing to get rid of porn sites.
I also fully expect there to be a way to restrict comments to subscribers either on a per board basis or site overall. Stuff like fauxmoi already get off on only allowing "regulars" to comment (which massively boosts engagement) and I can see places like squaredcircle turn that on for any AMA to avoid the problems of people tearing into shitheads who just want to advertise their book.