this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
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they fumbled so hard. they could have had millions of new subscribers if they locked the api key under reddit premium and allowed 3rd party app to enter user api keys
50 a year isn't terrible depending on your use case, but they burned so much good will
Yup, Spez claims that $2/user/month is all they're asking. I'd have happily paid that direct to reddit if they'd been upfront from the get-go. Instead, I've deleted my account and left the site after a decade of contributions. Very sad to see it go, but I'm not going to be like those idiots whose still hanging around on twitter constantly complaining about the way it's managed
There are so many ways they could have made it viable. Like comically easy. But that was never what they were interested in. The thing that they aren't willing to just come out and say, is that their own app is built to generate advertising revenue. They have absolutely zero interest in fostering a 3rd party community, and the only concessions they are going to make are for things that actually have a chance at saving the spending money (i.e. make sure the free labor they get from moderators stays and make sure other people deal with questions like accessibility).
Can't shake the feeling it'll be a pump & dump. It would be truly poetic for Reddit to be pumped up with bot content, IPO, then dumped.
Absolutely. I probably would have paid. I'm not big on subscriptions as I prefer one time upfront costs or lifetime subscriptions when possible, but I did use Reddit a lot.
Instead I deleted my posts and moved on. Now, where do I find huskytantrums?!
Sometimes I think there isn’t much I miss from Reddit. And then someone mentions a community I miss. Gotta find me a new huskytantrums.
For me it’s catswhoyell
I don't know if I'd call it a fumble so much as a death march. They know what they're doing is wildly unpopular, they know they'll hemorrhage users, and they never change course. Full steam ahead with the Titanic.
THIS. such a missed opp. idiots to the end.
that would've been such a good idea.
This is what I was thinking. Heck, they could've increased the price of premium, locked the API behind it and keep a certain percentage of the third party apps' cut, similar to how the App Store runs.
They could've been greedy pigs and STILL won.
that's such a good idea, maybe I would've paid for that.
IMHO one of the biggest mistakes made early on in the development of the Internet is that everything should be free and ad supported. That is how we ended up social media that is destroying our socitey in the name of driving up engagement and thus ad revenue. I think things would have been much better if every one was just expected to pay a few bucks a month for the services they use.
I'll have to disagree. Products being paid wouldn't have stopped
the internet becoming centralized around fewer and fewer services
forced those services to have had upheld their quality and promises
Cable TV started under the pretense of having no ads other than each network's own, and to have access to pay-per-view events (which is sports and we can stop pretending sports didn't sell cable).
And yet Cable, despite exploding more and more on widespread adoption, still became the same if not WORSE than public TV.
The paid-ternet would be the same or worse than what we have. And I know Facebook's dream goal is to make a paid-ternet. If I die and become a cyberghost, I'll haunt the hell out of any server rack where that goal is making progress and make sure it never succeeeds.
I agree with you here. Share holders are never going to be satisfied. The numbers always need to be going up which means new ways to generate profits must be found. Ads, subs, micro transactions, etc - nothing is off the table.
this. a thousand times, this.
Nobody "decided" that. Paid subscription services have been around just as long as ad support. The ad support model grew organically out of the converging desires of users to have unfettered access to content, and the desires of advertisers to have unfettered access to new monetization opportunities.
Well said. Honestly while I'm sure many, especially those that have made it here, would have paid an ongoing subscription for a perpetually unshittified Reddit / other social media, the VAST majority of users are going to flock to a free version. We didn't get where we are by accident.