Reddit could be working on a Contributor program, letting top contributors earn real-world money from the gold and karma they receive.

Reddit could be working on a Contributor program, letting top contributors earn real-world money from the gold and karma they receive.

  • Nepenthe@kbin.social
    49·
    1 year ago

    “Site I only still care about to laugh at thinks I am going to give it my tax information.” I’ll have to think real hard about that one.

    Investors should themselves have a good think about how the CEO that self-reported making zero profit in over a decade as one of the most popular social media sites — a site whose ad revenue has stuttered in the face of what is officially a month long protest — can afford to be handing out money to shitposting bot farms now.

    • NearSightedGiraffe@kbin.social
      6·
      1 year ago

      I don’t know, while I won’t be going back there, I can see it help make reddit more mainstream, by attracting influencers. Imagine IG Influencers or Youtubers encouraging people to engage with them personally on reddit. I can see it actually working out alright for Reddit and possibly a small number of already successful influencers and celebrities. I don’t see it making the experience any better for the average redditor, though

        • e_t_@kbin.pithyphrase.net
          2·
          1 year ago

          There definitely were personalities on Reddit, like poem_for_your_sprog, who gained a following. I could see sprog making appreciable money with the proposed system.

          • nicetriangle@kbin.social
            4·
            1 year ago

            Teah but it’s not like the predominant mode of the website and it’s not the same kind of like cult of personality you get with youtube creators. Poem for your sprog is like a novel little thing you randomly run into on the site and are like, ah cute. But if that kinda gimmicky shit was all the site revolved around it would for sure not be the same place anymore and I think it would lose a lot of people.

          • Pandantic@kbin.social
            1·
            1 year ago

            u/SchnoodleDoodleDo in the r/aww community (known for their cute animal perspective poems) was another. I could see all their upvotes being worth something.

      • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
        4·
        1 year ago

        I can see it help make reddit more mainstream, by attracting influencers. Imagine IG Influencers or Youtubers encouraging people to engage with them personally on reddit.

        …please like this post and friend me, and ring that bell. Oh man, you’re right, they’re going to go the tickytocky YouTube route.

  • Candelestine@lemmy.world
    27·
    1 year ago

    So the incentive to make the best spambots won’t just be some project for influence, but an actual financial reward? Truly, reddit will be at the forefront of innovation.

    • Ranessin@feddit.de
      2·
      1 year ago

      Musk did the same stupid thing just now, rewarding accounts with many retweets/views with money (of course Fascists), making sure bots will bot the shit out of other bots to make a dime, of course Musk-lover Spez follows suit.

  • e_t_@kbin.pithyphrase.net
    19·
    1 year ago

    Why do I suspect that, even if one were to spend 8 hours a day on Reddit, making comments that all were gilded, you’d still earn less than minimum wage?

  • athos77@kbin.social
    12·
    1 year ago

    Copying my comment from the other threads:

    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.

    • Chozo@kbin.social
      6·
      1 year ago

      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”.

      • mrbubblesort@kbin.social
        3·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • e_t_@kbin.pithyphrase.net
          3·
          1 year ago

          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.

    • PabloDiscobar@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      Food for the AI. This is where the money is.

      Look at a big sub of reddit: today it’s made of one liners that we collapsed. This is worthless to an AI.

      Would you ask questions to an AI if it gave you a reddit like answer? No.

      They want the content creators, and the content is in the comments.

  • abff08f4813c@kbin.social
    8·
    1 year ago

    Shows how desperate they’ve become for content creators after the fiasco that was the third party app protest. Like, they’re not profitable yet, and they want to give money away? C’mon already.

  • TimeMuncher2@kbin.social
    8·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Pandantic@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      And the fact that they still can’t see the value of good moderation after all the protests is just beyond moronic.

  • PabloDiscobar@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    It’s a war for content. If you have ever written a comment of more than five coherent lines then you have been working for free all this time.

    We are the value, we fill the websites, we create the distraction between two ads and we teach the AI.

    • explodingkitchen@kbin.social
      5·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • lazy@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      We are the value, we fill the websites, we create the distraction between two ads and we teach the AI. <

      and we are the musicmakers and we are the dreamers of dreams.