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Reddit Plans To Lock Some Content Behind a Paywall This Year, CEO Says (arstechnica.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Reddit is planning to introduce a paywall this year, CEO Steve Huffman said during a videotaped Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Thursday. Huffman previously showed interest in potentially introducing a new type of subreddit with "exclusive content or private areas" that Reddit users would pay to access.

When asked this week about plans for some Redditors to create "content that only paid members can see," Huffman said: "It's a work in progress right now, so that one's coming... We're working on it as we speak." When asked about "new, key features that you plan to roll out for Reddit in 2025," Huffman responded, in part: "Paid subreddits, yes."

Reddit Plans To Lock Some Content Behind a Paywall This Year, CEO Says More | Reply

Reddit Plans To Lock Some Content Behind a Paywall This Year, CEO Says

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  • Imagine all this bullshit, but you're also poor. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 ) on Friday February 14, 2025 @11:46AM (#65166517)
    No significant fraction of users is going to pay to Reddit. If you make it a requirement, they'll just move on to Orangit, and you will become RedSpace.
    • Orangit?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      scored.co is a very suitable reddit clone/alternative.
    • Some Redditors already pay for awards and reactions. They will definitely pay for private subreddits, especially the NSFW kind.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      if you read between the lines it's probably about porn, they just don't say so because theatrics > everything, gotta dodge the inevitable advertiser NIMBY they want those juicy adbux on top (on top-top of selling you for AI, of course)

      inb4 redditfans

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Less crap for google to AI, doesn't break my heart as reddit content is a waste of search space and time ANYWAY.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Tx ( 96709 )

      They're talking about being able to have paid subreddits, not about paywalling the whole site. I don't see the problem. It just means that, for example adult content creators who currently post on Reddit but also have paid Patreon or Onlyfans accounts, will now be able to do the paid stuff right on Reddit instead. That will make Reddit more profitable, and so could actually be a good thing for all the free subreddits.

      • they're talking about locking specific post in specific subreddits behind paywalls. They've already beta tested it and you can talk to mods on certain subreddits about it (they all hate the idea)

    • I think the same kinds of people who pay to watch sports on TV or pay to read paywalled news will be happy to pay for access to a subreddit if that meant the sub was professionally moderated and had expert content creators posting content.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gavron ( 1300111 )

      Poverty is not people with laptops on the Internet 24x7 whining about not being allowed to post on a website freely offered to them.

      Poverty is lack of food, water, shelter, medicine, freedoms, and the right to leave.

      The next time you want to pontificate about "you're also poor" think about countries in South America, Africa, India, China, who piss and poop in the street because they have no running water at home, no food to speak of, and disease-ridden water.

      But hey, you go girl, because Reddit (sux due to

    • No significant fraction of users is going to pay to Reddit.

      Given the number of users on Reddit you don't need a "significant fraction" of users to pay in order to make a small fortune. It's the same argument as to why spam exists. Or why free to play games exist. A small subset of users will part with money.

  • Users will just look elsewhere for information. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Smonster ( 2884001 ) on Friday February 14, 2025 @11:46AM (#65166519)
    Doesn't this kind of defeat the entire purpose of Reddit. While they very well may exist, but doesn't a paywall kind of defeat the entire purpose and premise of Reddit?

    • I wouldn't go that far, but realistically nearly no one is willing to pay for what is effectively a large discussion forum. Those things have existed on the internet for ages, and they've always been free.

      Traditionally these were run by people who were just really passionate about a particular topic and weren't really intended to make any profit. If Reddit went pay-walled I'm sure many people would return to such forums (they're still out there and in use).

      • Re:Users will just look elsewhere for information. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Friday February 14, 2025 @12:02PM (#65166551)

        I wouldn't go that far, but realistically nearly no one is willing to pay for what is effectively a large discussion forum. Those things have existed on the internet for ages, and they've always been free.

        The value of Reddit is its historical trove of information. However, Reddit is already selling that data to OpenAI and Google, and those chatbots are free. So, why would anyone pay to browse Reddit when they can get free curated access via the chatbots.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by taustin ( 171655 )

          So, why would anyone pay to browse Reddit when they can get free curated access via the chatbots.

          Because they want to see the actual posts, not whatever the chatbot hallucinates was posted?

          • The AI tools which cite sources do a far better job than traditional search engines. I used to do Google/ddg searches with site:reddit as a crutch but that's not necessary anymore. Perplexity will pull info from all sorts of discussion boards in addition to reddit, summarize the results, and link footnotes to the actual posts so I can confirm they say what the AI says they say.

            • This is true. Subscription search is becoming a thing, and more interestingly, making sites like Wikipedia quiver.

              Reddit was never authoritative, just full of links.

              Paywalling is just another step on the enshitification trail for Reddit, monetization schemes only an MBA would love, and certainly not Reddit users. Look for the stock shorts soon.

          • So, why would anyone pay to browse Reddit when they can get free curated access via the chatbots.

            Because they want to see the actual posts, not whatever the chatbot hallucinates was posted?

            Part of the power of the AI models is the ability to consider the mass of information all at once. When I browse Reddit or another site, I do get to use my own judgment about what is accurate or relevant to my query. However, I can only sample a very small portion of the messages, so my browsing is almost always very skewed, relative to what I would have concluded had I been able to browse the entirety of the database.

            In a way, this was what led to Yahoo's demise. Hierarchies of curated information are n

        • So, why would anyone pay to browse Reddit when they can get free curated access via the chatbots.

          Context. Those chatbots may be able to quote you random bits of reddit, but you lack the all important context of the conversation that may completely change the meaning, such as the idea that gluing cheese onto the pizza was actually a joke, not a the serious suggestion those chatbots present them as.

    • Reddit has always been a lot about porn. My guess is they want in on the OnlyFans cash and let that type of creator just stay on Reddit and monetize directly there instead of going to OnlyFans. I guess there could be other types of subscription based subreddits but can't think of many others people would readily pay for.

    • If you get information from Reddit it's only incidental. Generally it's marketing slop, propaganda, fake stories, karma farming, lies, bots, and damned lies.

      • Totally depends on the subreddit. The ones with wide and broad appeal are generally garbage, yes. But the ones with a narrow focus tend to have decent information, on par with any other topic-specific message board. Some of these will have shedloads of personal anecdotes which may or may not be useful or represent the larger picture, but that's true of any medium where individuals can add their voice.
    • The purpose of reddit, now for sometime, is to make money.

  • Enshitification (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spinlock_1977 ( 777598 ) <Spinlock_1977@ya h o o . c om> on Friday February 14, 2025 @11:49AM (#65166521) Journal

    The enshitification of Reddit continues, on it slow decent into irrelevance.

    • I guess I read this as them allowing communities to charge for access, so long as Reddit gets a cut. Maybe they want to compete with OnlyFans.

      • That's how it might start. However, there are some communities that would also consider charging, and then the waters become murky as to what you have to pay for. So then the whole thing is maybe a paywall, and so it feels less convenient or accessible to use. Another forum will take its place in a couple of years.

        • Interesting takes - handn't thought of the a la carte option. But the point about one paywalled community becoming many sounds likely, so it would likely turn into a confusing morass indeed. When google searches start resulting in paywalled links, I believe the end of Reddit will be nigh.

  • Copying Twitter? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 ) on Friday February 14, 2025 @11:54AM (#65166535) Homepage

    What was once an open social network (Twitter) now requires a subscription (X):
      * To make comments seen (no $10 a month checkbox, and your posts are almost never shown to others)
      * To PM others
      * To get any kind of support from the company

    Since Reddit has even less original content than X, I guess they will just follow suit and make the same changes.

    Sadly Musk will not get the money from me, nor will Reddit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      There are two ways to finance a web site like Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/Slashdot:
      1) Charge the users
      2) Sell the users

      I prefer option 1. But apparently, every other person on the entire planet prefers option 2, then complains about it. If you don't want enshittification, then pay up. Because you are either the customer, or the product. So choose.

  • So ... (Score:3)

    by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Friday February 14, 2025 @12:00PM (#65166549)

    So what happens when a mod in one of these subreddits decides they disagree with you and ban you?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rinnon ( 1474161 )
      You reach out to Reddit support, only to have them tell you that you've already paid for a full year of access and there are no refunds.

    • Re:So ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Friday February 14, 2025 @12:15PM (#65166581) Homepage Journal

      What, are you going to post a link to some aspect of reality that contradicts their fragile false-narrative world view?

      AsmondGold's recent video about a gamer subreddit banning the entire staff of the company that makes the game is worth a listen.

      They declared the CEO to be a Literal Nazi for asking if his games should go back to male and female body choices. Apparently 80% of the players want this but the Reddit staff back the mods.

      I can't imagine who wants to be a shareholder in such companies.

      Who can be upset if they want to try to compete with Discord, though?

  • Wasn't the whole point of reddit was that it was the users that made and/or moderated the content? What content could they put behind a paywall that the users themselves did not choose or create? Is there some reddit run creation team that is making original content we have never heard of? Sounds like stealing to me.

  • If enough Reddit content goes behind a paywall, bye Reddit!

    I will find a re-Reddit knockoff that works similar, which I assume will be popping up.

  • ...could be worth paying for?
    Porn?
    Illegal stock tips?
    Drugs?
    Hacking tools?
    It will almost certainly be something on the edge of the law

  • Joined, participated, eventually ran in to toxic mods and bailed. Now I occasionally lurk there to see what the zeitgeist has to say on a subject, but I will never sign up for an account.

      If they paywall, I will stop even doing that, and I'll shed exactly zero tears over it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dskoll ( 99328 )

      I have an account. But I belong to exactly three subreddits: r/my_hometown, r/learndutch and r/linux. I also configured Reddit not to show me content from other subreddits on my home feed.

      Makes it (barely) usable.

    • The nice thing about Reddit is that you can lurk there without an account. That's not possible with X, Discord, Facebook, or really anything else.

  • Awwww, they don't know Reddit died a long time ago.

  • It's not really their content, but they think it is.

  • If you ever hated Reddit's "administration" and over the top censorship and removal of mods' rights and just outright enshitification (thanks, Cory Doctorow!) then this is the final nail in that proverbial coffin.

    Fuck reddit "owners" and for all the people who contribute and who write and who edit and who mod -- see you on Bluesky.

  • That way I wont be bothered to not click ten year old threads that keep popping to the top of search results displacing a useful recent answer.

  • You can still spin up a forum on your own hardware in your closet and a free dynDNS service will update DNS to point at your residential IP whenever it gets updated. The very people who know how to do that are the same people who bring any value to reddit.

    Go ahead reddit. Lock away your users.

  • Reddit has become such a mess at this point they have to pay me to use it. Good luck with that paywall

  • Unless you limit yourself to very specific sub-reddits, that site is an absolute dumpster fire in progress.

    Too much hate, trolling and politics there for my tastes.
    One has to dig pretty deep beyond the front page before the politics and hate posts level off a bit.

    If you dare post anything that doesn't fall in line with the echo-chamber, you'll get karma-bombed back into the stone age
    at best. Worst case is the mods will simply ban you from whatever sub-reddit you dared to post an opposing opinion in.

    The sit

  • RIP (Score:1)

    by kc-guy ( 1108521 )
    If this kills reddit, I'm all for it. The platform people moved to for free speech is long dead, and replaced by censorship and things like r/Xfinity that's obviously run by corporate employees doing PR damage control.

  • https://fedecan.ca/en/guide/ge... [fedecan.ca]

    I left for the fediverse during the 3rd party app purge and I can say the grass is greener on the other side. Were also trying to fix the communication issues with new users being overwelmed by which instance to choose and having to set up their own filters. Just pick an instance, if you dont like it, make an account on one you do.

    There are a bunch of projects that mimic larger platforms, Mastodon looks like the artist formerly known as Twitter, Lemmy mimics Reddit, Pixelf

  • If that happens I will simply adblock it sitewide, just like twitter and facebuck.

  • If this is about allowing content creators on Reddit to decide that their content should be paid, that's OK.

    If this is about allowing specific subreddit owners to decide that their subreddit should be paid, that might be OK.

    But if this is Reddit just telling people "hey, your subreddit/content is going to be paid" that's bad.

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