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.
I used RIF for 11 years. First I'm hearing about awards. Only ever knew about gold.. thought Reddit silver was a cutesy little joke for redditors.
Reddit silver started as a joke but was added as a free award once they expanded the system.
I mean I did too but I saw actual Reddit other place a few times lol
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?
The replacement is to pay people with actual money per upvotes awards etc according to some code that was spotted recently
Great huh? That's really going to improve the quality of their content and their profitability... 🙄
EDIT https://www.androidauthority.com/reddit-contributor-program-3343397/
Because paying people to post worked so well for Quora…
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.
And oh look, it’s only available for people in the US! Because only Americans know things, amirite? 🙄
All they had to do was do nothing.
Is there a bin for usdefaultism yet?
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.
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.
So.. I guess it's gonna be awesome.
/r/cryptocurrency became noticeably gamed by actors attempting to maximize their financial gains.
I can't tell if that's life imitating art or vice versa but it made me giggle!
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.
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.
Not sure why this is a top priority right now, but I look forward to hearing about whatever horrible idea they implement to replace awards and coins.
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.
Yeah, just got an email from them stating that (I still have premium from being guilded). Great company management as always.
“Users are leaving? I have an idea! Let’s nuke their coins, that’ll bring them back!”
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
This seems like the dumbest decision imaginable. Users are flocking to alternatives, many of those who haven't don't trust you, and you're trying to become profitable … so you delete the stuff people paid for without any sort of replacement. What a genius ideaǃ Making the platform less unique and giving the middle finger to the people who give you money in one go!
There's no way a human adult is running this company. It has to be a council of toddlers run by a keyboard-smashing orangutan. At this point, they might as well start encouraging bots and karma farming. Maybe even pay people to do it!
Wait, what did you just say? They might actually do that?
The circus never ends.
Was anyone actually spending money on that crap?
Reddit used to fund all their servers with it and had a gold goal.
Yes haha. Constantly. I wouldn't be surprised if they're happy to be rid of the type of user who would move to the fediverse anyway. Maybe that was their plan all along.
Whelp, I never used those things anyway.
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.
To what end, I wonder?
I feel like it has to be financially motivated and the only thing I can think of is they want users paying for premium directly rather than having it gifted from a different accounting bucket. But that doesn't seem like strong enough motivation on the surface.
I have a feeling it’s definitely a blue checkmark in the making moment
It hurt itself in its confusion
Reddit's self-destruction is quite impressive, I'm not going to lie
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.
So first they alienate the people who are working for them for free and then they go ahead and alienate the people who are giving them money for free.
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....
Hmmm. Conspiracy theory intensifies...
(50+ awards right now, but who’s counting?)
Apparently you are, Reddit.
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