Reddit is planning to introduce a paywall this year, CEO Steve Huffman said during a videotaped Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Thursday.
Huffman previously showed interest in potentially introducing a new type of subreddit with “exclusive content or private areas” that Reddit users would pay to access.
When asked this week about plans for some Redditors to create “content that only paid members can see,” Huffman said:
It’s a work in progress right now, so that one’s coming… We’re working on it as we speak.
When asked about “new, key features that you plan to roll out for Reddit in 2025,” Huffman responded, in part: “Paid subreddits, yes.”
Reddit’s paywall would ostensibly only apply to certain new subreddit types, not any subreddits currently available.
Reddit executives also discussed how they might introduce more ads into the social media platform. The push for ads follows changes to Reddit’s API policy that, in part, led to the closing of most third-party apps used for accessing Reddit. Reddit makes most of its revenue from ads and can only show ads on its native apps and website.
Reddit started testing ads in comments last year, with COO Jen Wong saying during an AMA that such ads are in “about 3 percent of inventory.” The executive hinted at that percentage growing. Wong also shared hopes that contextual advertising, or ads being shown based on the content surrounding them, will be a “bigger part of” Reddit’s business by 2026.
I’m surprised they aren’t talking about subscriber subreddits. With the amount of porn/OnlyFans posts, I would have thought they could position Reddit as a friendly and familiar OF alternative.
That probably is the idea, to have a competitor to Patreon and OnlyFans. They should have probably mentioned that as an example before some people start thinking /r/worldnews becomes paywalled.
Seems like a pretty huge opportunity for Reddit. If the article mentioned it, I missed it.
It does not mention it and I cannot see any official statement, but that seems like a logical reason. Reddit management however is not famous for being logical so we will see.
I wouldn’t be surprised if NSFW subreddit are what he is talking about.
They know pornhub still exists right?
tbf pornhub sucks at finding specific content.
It is the Onlyfans girls farming simps.
Keep in mind Reddit wants to wall off NSFW to be more advertiser friendly, and therefore more profitable.
I wonder what the legality is of that when people are posting content from these porn sites and reddit is charging users to access it. How is this any different than paid piracy streaming sites?
Probably because OF gets a lot of their business through promoting on Reddit.
So why not cut out OF and keep the users?
Risk vs reward. I could see reddit swinging either way depending on which they think smells like more money.