The Reddit app is potentially introducing a Contributor program, allowing users to earn real money for their contributions, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem within the community.
The concept behind the program is straightforward. Redditors who receive substantial gold and karma from other community members can potentially convert these virtual rewards into real-world money that can be cashed out.
sigh, that's desperation. This means that the discussion on Reddit will not be natural or organic, it will cease to be human. Redditors will be like dogs, where they shitpost and post comments that everyone agrees with so they can make money, basically doing what the master tells them in order to get their treat. Reddit as we know it will cease to exist.
Worse, I don't think it's desperation. I think the senior leadership genuinely sees this as a good idea. That implies they view reddit no longer as a series of communities that organically develop and more as a social network that should pursue reach and "quality" content.
To me, that's way worse than desperation. That's like the exact opposite of what reddit was stated to be when I first joined.
Yeah this will make discussion 100x worse now that there's a strong financial reason to be ungenuine and follow the hive mind. Not to mention this decision has terrible timing with the rise of ChatGPT bots, as if bots weren't already an issue. Did they think these bots were actually going to use the API? I'm sure communities will love Reddit offering users money to ruin their communities.
Sounds like the exploitation of children that happens on Roblox. They may earn money if they make enough after cuts to withdraw. Just more user exploitation with the carrot-on-stick of getting paid.
Or.....maybe some will use bots to make comments/post/earn money.
Possible no humans needed for conversation at some point. Just bots chatting with bots making the "human dogs" money!!
Makes me wonder what the actual bot convo would look like!!!!
r/cryptocurrency became exactly like that under a similar system.
This is also observable with all social media, where you can see that the communities shifted greatly once people started making money or getting a following, content just became mostly derivative of "what works".