Reddit will lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says
arstechnica.com
How will Reddit generate content for paid-for subreddits?

When asked about “new, key features that you plan to roll out for Reddit in 2025,” Huffman responded, in part: “Paid subreddits, yes.”

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.”

A critical aspect of any potential plan to make Reddit users pay to access subreddit content is determining how related Reddit users will be compensated. Reddit may have a harder time getting volunteer moderators to wrangle discussions on paid-for subreddits—if it uses volunteer mods at all. Balancing paid and free content would also be necessary to avoid polarizing much of Reddit’s current user base.

    • gk99@beehaw.org
      2·
      3 days ago

      Great way to lose all of the traffic. This would require two things:

      1. Accounts, which is automatic friction. Whether that’s people who have no account and only come to browse, whether that’s people having to make a second account or choose to be horny on main, this is definitely going to cause some user loss.
      2. Willingness to pay reddit for porn, which like, no. They’d be better off giving paid user pages and simply taking a cut so OnlyFans creators can treat reddit similarly. I don’t think many people are gonna want to pay for what amounts to teasers for other paid options.

      Additionally, this would mean reddit is acknowledging the porn on their site and taking responsibility for it by profiting off of it. Therefore, because reddit is an American company, this will kill off their audience in Texas and Oklahoma where, effectively, American-hosted porn websites are banned.