Gold originally was fine imo. Then it got out of control with so many different medals, some free, some cheap, etc. They made it so confusing and basically every post on the front page had some sort of award. They made it confusing and cluttered… At least they realized it was dumb.
There were always tons of people spamming wholesome rewards on completely inappropriate posts about self harm or trauma too. I’m surprised there’s so much backlash for removing them.
I remember at one point, Talklittle mentioned the addition of rewards, and how he was against them, which was convenient since Reddit didn't give third party apps access to them in the first place. I know at one point I was able to buy gold in RiF, but that was gone the moment that Reddit introduced all the other bullshit rewards.
So they’re getting rid of coins and awards, but don’t have any kind of replacement actually planned yet?
They should have held off until they knew what the replacement would be. As it is, they’re yanking something that made Reddit unique for…what, exactly?
They're willing to pay idiots to ramble on but they aren't willing to pay international lawyers to straighten out all the paperwork so they can do this outside the US.
A company headquartered in the US but it's a website that has a presence in many countries, including the EU.
Maybe not surprising, but they are probably shortchanging themselves by not allowing folks from abroad to contribute into the program. USians aren't the only content creators.
It's certainly worth paying to hear American views over the rest of the worlds I would say. Reddit is on to a winner with that one for sure. American Reddit users like u/spez are so wise while we are so stupid.
Quora is an impeccable font of online knowledge and we should be grateful for bwahaha no I can't even...
Basically the amount of karma farming that already happens on Reddit is going to quadruple. And yeah it's going to be a) on the more 'serious' questions like Quora and b) on the more AITA or Confessions posts 'oh you guys have helped me so much, of you can upvote me and give me some awards it'll really help get my life on track'
Part of me couldn't believe they'd actually introduce this but in light of everything this year, whatever. Because what else could benefit Reddit ....oh yeah - grifters!
If they want to add fuel to the fire that's burning down the house fine. I'm over at Kbin. I'm staying.
My only regret is there's some really great health support communities there and I hope they can be allowed to live in peace because I don't think they'll feasibly migrate.
I’m only on reddit for a few select, very specific communities. If I ever find a replacement it’s over. Help with Immigration laws, teaching practices, language learning ect. I’m thinking maybe I’d like to start the teachers group over here.
Only reason I still visited Reddit was to look at /r/CrossStitch. With the lemmit.online bot (which I have mixed feelings about) I get my feed on Lemmy without going on there. Not ideal as I can’t comment but even if I go there to do it, I have my adblocker up.
Last I checked, there were at least 3 subreddits where cryptocurrency is being handed out regularly to active participants.
They’re called “Community Points”, and get a custom name for each sub (“moons” in /r/cryptocurrency, “donuts” in /r/ethtrader, and “bricks” in /r/fortniteBR.)
I don’t know how the other subs fared, but /r/cryptocurrency became noticeably gamed by actors attempting to maximize their financial gains.
Reddit really is done. This will drive spam and discourage people posting original content as they will see it stolen and reposted by the karma farming parts of reddit. They already flood communities with crap; reddit seems to just be taking another giant crap on the moderators who will have to deal with the tide of people trying to manipulate the new system for financial gain.
The best content on Reddit is not by "top contributors" whoever they may be. It's the random helpful posts that you stumble across or find on Internet seaches, or the thought provoking posts and comments that push back against the hive mind. Generally I find most (not all but most) of the up voted and awarded content to be trash or low value. Moving to financially incentivise that show Reddit really don't understand their own site.
I actually improved my reddit experience back in the day by blocking the top creators and checking that top list every few months to make sure it was current. Instantly better!
Applying gold and awards will hold posts on the frontpage even if they're downvoted to oblivion. They're likely getting rid of them as a way of manipulating the narrative.
I think part of it is about retention .... retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.
I'm currently in the process of ending my four accounts I have on reddit. Two of them are over 100,000 in karma and when I read this post, the very first thing that popped into my mind was .... HOW MUCH WILL MY ACCOUNTS BE WORTH?
So it's now making me think ... if I can just keep up my account for another while, maybe I can cash in on all that karma I accumulated.
I am sure that many other redditors are thinking the same. The way this reddit admin posted the info is really weird too ... it sounded like some salesman just enticing people into an idea but not fully being able to say much about it and instead making vague suggestions that something big is coming in the future.
I know a sales job when I see one .... and this is a sales job. Many people will fall for it ... if not just to hang on to see if they can at least cash in our something ... anything when the announcement happens.
Say or think what you want about me ... but I'm ending this relationship and deleting my accounts ... I don't trust big corporations to say or do anything that might give me a chance at anything. Any action they elicit from me or any user will be gamed to only benefit them. If not enough people figure that out ... reddit will make bank in the short term and that is all they are counting on.
I think part of it is about retention … retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.>
If they were actually serious about retention of high karma users they could at least consider not suspending/ banning such users without a very good reason. My previous account on there was nuked for reasons I dont understand to this day, I would have happily stayed on otherwise. I have a temporary account there now which I had no intention of putting any money into - well now the one reason i might have been tempted to do so is going away anyway.
The award/ coin system was great, and I spent a bit of money on it, it was also a very good way to pay for or be paid for small international transactions - I assisted a few people with minor things and they paid my costs such as they were with reddit coin, saving them and me international bank transaction fees. I also liked rewarding intelligent and incisive comments that needed recognition as such.
I wonder if this isn’t a rev recognition play. If their accounting rules say they can’t take the revenue until the award is issued…I bet there’s a lot of money sitting on the table they can apply to their books with this play. It’s basically the same play as expiring unused gift cards…
That's actually an excellent point, but it has the chance to backfire spectacularly if they can't IPO or come up with a more higher earning replacement before the end of the next fiscal year. So I totally expect them to fuck it up
One thing I’ve seen a lot of is comments wishing that Lemmy/Kbin had support for some sort of gilding. So it’s obviously a feature that people enjoyed using which means Reddit just has to enshittify it. This is the way.
Precisely. They were a fun thing to give out, and directly helped to pay for server time. I even liked how Reddit would tell you how much server time your awards gave to Reddit (which I think they've removed?).
100%, but the Federated nature would make this difficult, I'd imagine.
I'd love a way to simultaneously:
show someone I appreciate their comment
Help support an instance
Help support KBin development
But, outside of crypto, I don't see an easy way to make that happen and doing it through crypto would bring out the crypto bros and mega-anti crypto joe's in about equal numbers, which would suck (plus, who's to say that an instance admin even wants to deal with crypto to collect a few bucks).
@Ernest has transferred the existing Buy Me A Coffee money over to the server fund and from this point on we really can buy him a beer via Buy Me A Coffee which is cool!
I'm not Ernest but my guess is it gives us greater flexibility?
Like, some of us are already active on one or the other of those platforms, plus between them there are lots of different options for amount. I'd never heard of Liberapay but I like how it's a non-profit.
Well there are 49 subscribed people on patreon totaling $170/month. Lots of people probably already have accounts set up which makes it a very low threshold to join.
Meanwhile on librepay, arguably more philosophically suitable, there are 11 subscribers totaling $13/month.
Man, considering how many people I have seen saying how great it is to be able to pay, and asserting they are making donations, those are very low numbers.
Could be because it is less circulated. I had seen the coffee option previously but didn't realise the other 2 options had been setup until I came across this comment.
Absolutely! Server donations are good for a single instance but I think a service that allows users to purchase gold/awards and awards the particular instance (with funds) that they get used on would help fund the Fediverse as a whole. I imagine implementing something like that would not be simple but anything is better than injecting ads.
implementing something like that would not be simple
Especially with the idea that an instance a user calls home/registered on would have to be ok with allowing a donation link to go to the instance that the user you're "gilding" is on
Was there any indication something like this was coming?
Also, I only learned last 1-2 months during the API fiasco that Reddit had some weird NFT thing going on.. Are they just trying to find anything that will stick?
It's rumored that Reddit is about to launch a new "creator program" that will pay Redditors for high-karma activity on the site. This change is probably meant to accommodate this new feature.
how could they even have the cashflow to support that?
I'm guessing new deals with advertisers. These changes will incentivize more neutral, advertiser-friendly comments on their platform. I imagine that's going to make them more lucrative to advertisers going forward, so that their ads are shown next to harmless memes instead of bad-faith political arguments in cat pic subreddits.
I never bought coins or whatever, but I had inherited a bunch somehow. I jumped on reddit just now to find an old thread I'd saved and found this in my inbox:
Hello from Reddit,
We’re reaching out because you have Reddit Premium and/or Reddit Coins on your account.
TL;DR: We're making updates to awards and coins on Reddit that we'll complete by September 12, 2023. As part of this, we made a decision to move away from Reddit coins and awards. This includes the 700 monthly coins* and Premium Awards, which are currently part of the Reddit Premium experience.
You'll still be able to use your Reddit Coins until September 12, after which they'll be removed from your account.
Note: all other current Premium perks will still continue to exist, including the ad-free experience.
As we looked at our current awarding system, there was consistent feedback from redditors that stood out – particularly around the clutter from awards and all the steps involved with awarding content. We also learned that redditors want awarded content to be more valuable. With that, we are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. We will have more updates to share soon.
If you have further questions please check out our announcement post to read more about the update.
This perk is part of the paid Reddit Premium experience.
Thought it was kind of funny considering I never once cared about coins in the first place. Just checked and apparently I have "13325 coins to spend." I'm just going to let them go unless someone has a more maliciously compliant suggestion.
I can’t think of anything too maliciously compliant. Maybe give Reddit Gold to posts describing how to join Lemmy or something? Awards should boost visibility. It’s at least a little ironic to use Reddit 's own awards to help people escape.
A suggestion I've seen is to use them to give platinum coins to people, because that gives them some time of Reddit Premium (platinum gives more than gold), which is the only thing you can do with them that will outlast the awards being phased out and it's the closest thing to using them for something that has monetary value.
I know, right? And u/spez threw the match! I'm still in shock over how swiftly it just went from amazing to garbage. Fortunately, Kbin and the fediverse is already superior for me even if the community isn't as robust. The growth and enthusiasm is here.
It’s surprising to hear this; given reddit’s current mass-enshittification I don’t expect to see a change that both improves user experience and reduces the money they’re making. Clearly they’ve got something more sinister planned, but awards were a blight on the reddit experience and had I not already left I’d appreciate this change (for now!)
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