I can only imagine we’re going to see it replaced with something altogether more exploitative.
The admin that posted that has been working on blockchain/crypto/NFT stuff for the last year… I can only imagine they have some awful plan relating to that.
technically you aren’t wrong…
there was an APK teardown once the API changes happened that showed the following information because Reddit broke for a bit:
Android authority page on it here: link to article
Fake internet points are finally worth something! Now redditors can earn real money for their contributions to the Reddit community, based on the karma and gold they’ve been given. How it works: Redditors give gold to posts, comments, or other contributions they think are really worth something. Eligible contributors that earn enough karma and gold can cash out their earnings for real money. Contributors apply to the program to see if they’re eligible. Top contributors make top dollar. The more karma and gold contributors earn, the more money they can receive.
Not just anyone can be a contributor. To join and stay in the program, contributors need to meet a few requirements: Be over 18 and live in the U.S. Only Safe for Work contributions qualify Earn xx gold and karma each month Provide verification information. You must have at least 10 gold and 100 karma to begin verification. NSFW accounts aren’t eligible for the Contributors Program
Provide the following information to get verified for the program and start earning: Email Personal Information Tax and bank account information
Once you hit the payment threshold, you’ll automatically be paid out via your Stripe account. Approximate calculation before fees. Exchange rate and payment thresholds are subject to change
apparently these are already active in r/cryptocurrency and r/eth or w.e the Ethereum subreddit is…
definitely not looking good and I’m glad I switched to lemmy when I did
My bet is a “buy karma with money” program, mirroring the “sell karma for money” one, but geared towards advertisers. That means native, built-in advertisement in the platform, that you can’t block through ad blockers because it behaves the same as the content there.
They never actually replace things that they kill though. They just say they have something better lined up and then you never hear about it again. They said the same thing when they removed the setting from your profile to disable the constant app nagging in your browser. They said “we have something better planned”, removed the toggle, and that was it. That was like a year ago.
So, any bets on what’s the next feature that’s getting killed?
My money’s on old.reddit.com.
I don’t think I need to give them ideas. Seems like they’ve got the whole “destroy reddit” thing covered.
I’m surprised old wasn’t next after third party apps. I’m surprised they decided to kill the literal “give us money” button.
I think they had some level of self awareness that it would be too much too soon to kill it with 3PA but they definitely want it gone.
Access on Sundays and Wednesdays.
It has come to our attention they Sundays and Wednesdays aren’t always the best content days. In order to return to smarter thinkin and good design, we are discontinuing reddit’s feature known as “being accessing on Sundays and Wednesdays”.
This comes after much thought. We know some of you have gotten great value out of using Reddit on Sundays and Wednesdays, and we hope you can cherish with us the memory of those days’ access on Reddit.
But the future is progress, and the market has spoken. Despite what the market says, we are listening to management. Not to worry though. Sunday and Wednesday access will still be available until September of 2023, when we will begin a phased shutdown of two sevenths of our service.
Why are we doing this? The current move is a compromise between those who wanted Sunday removed but Wednesday to remain, and those who wanted Wednesday to be removed while Sunday remains.
For those of you who just can’t do without your Sunday or Wednesday Reddit fix, we recommend trying Reddit on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, or Saturdays.
We are absolutely dedicated to continuing to bringing 24/5 news, cultural, and community-driven content straight to your web browser or Official Reddit App.
My money’s on automod. It’s yet another of those “pesky tools” used by the “landed gentry” against advertisement disguised as content.
I also predict that a few subreddits criticising corporations might get banned, such as r/hailcorporate and perhaps r/assholedesign.
I don’t think that they’ll get rid of old.reddit now because the ghost of Digg still haunts Greedy Pigboy.
I think you might be right about the removal of anti-corporate or anti-capitalist subreddits. They’re not exactly suited for ad placement, so they’re pretty much worthless to reddit at this point.
I’m honestly surprised it’s lasted this long. Especially given the third party app shutoff.
That and the mobile website. They’re already running an A/B test where they just flat out block mobile users and instead demand they download the app. That fucking app man… They’ll try anything to push the app, anything except making it actually enjoyable to use that is.
Blocking mobile browser users will be the beginning of the end. Very few casual read-only users will download the app just to read some content on Reddit. Reddit is highly ranked in search engines and the kind of users that flock into Reddit via Google and the likes for sure make up a decent percentage (perhaps the majority?) of traffic on Reddit. I for sure hope they will enforce this policy, that will only increase Reddit’s downfall.
For those that don’t want to give Reddit traffic, this is the post by the reddit admin:
Hi all,
I’m u/venkman01
from the Reddit product team, and I’m here to give everyone an early look at the future of how redditors award (and reward) each other.
TL;DR: We are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. As part of this, we made a decision to sunset coins (including Community coins for moderators) and awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards), which also impacts some existing Reddit Premium perks. Starting today, you will no longer be able to purchase new coins, but all awards and existing coins will continue to be available until September 12, 2023.
Many eons ago, Reddit introduced something called Reddit Gold. Gold then evolved, and we introduced new awards including Reddit Silver, Platinum, Ternium, and Argentium. And the evolution continued from there. While we saw many of the awards used as a fun way to recognize contributions from your fellow redditors, looking back at those eons, we also saw consistent feedback on awards as a whole. First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right now, but who’s counting?) and all the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more valuable to the recipient.
It’s become clear that awards and coins as they exist today need to be re-thought, and the existing system sunsetted. Rewarding content and contribution (as well as something golden) will still be a core part of Reddit. We’ll share more in the coming months as to what this new future looks like.
On a personal note: in my several years at Reddit, I’ve been focused on how to help redditors be able to express themselves in fun ways and feel joy when their content is celebrated. I led the product launch on awards – if you happen to recognize the username – so this is a particularly tough moment for me as we wind these products down. At the same time, I’m excited for us to evolve our thinking on rewarding contributions to make it more valuable to the community.
Why are we making these changes?
We mentioned early this year that we want to both make Reddit simpler and a place where the community empowers the community more directly.
With simplification in mind, we’re moving away from the 50+ awards available today. Though the breadth of awards have had mixed reception, we’ve also seen them - be it a local subreddit meme or the “Press F” award - be embraced. And we know that many redditors want to be able to recognize high quality content.
Which is why rewarding good content will still be part of Reddit. Though we’d love to reveal more to you all now, we’re in the process of early testing and feedback, so aren’t ready to share official details just yet. Stay tuned for future posts on this!
What’s changing exactly?
- Awards - Awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards) will no longer be available after September 12. - Reddit Coins - Coins will be deprecated, since Awards will be going away. Starting today, you’ll no longer be able to purchase coins, but you can use your remaining coins to gift awards by September 12. - Reddit Premium - Reddit Premium is not going away. However, after September 12, we will discontinue the monthly coin drip and Premium Awards. Other current Premium perks will still exist, including the ad-free experience. - Note: As indicated in our User Agreement past purchases are non-refundable. If you’re a Premium user and would like to cancel your subscription before these changes go into effect, you can find instructions here.
What comes next?
In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about a new direction for awarding that allows redditors to empower one another and create more meaningful ways to reward high-quality contributions on Reddit.
I’ll be around for a while to answer any questions you may have and hear any feedback!
It’s so on-brand for Reddit to announce killing these features without any explanation of what is to take its place. Just a vague mention of more communication “in the coming months”.
How exciting.
Reminds me of when they killed Reddit Gifts/Secret Santa.
Reddit and Twitter are racing to see who can kill themselves faster.
We mentioned early this year that we want to both make Reddit simpler and a place where the community empowers the community more directly.
The community isn’t empowered at all. u/spez is a dictator who doesn’t care about the community.
Yep the leaked coming moves will be the death of Reddit. Screwing your users doesn’t really matter because the vast majority will obviously contribute to tolerate it.
This will just make Reddit a shitty place to be. They just need to admit that there’s no viable business model.