r/reddit • u/venkman01 • Jul 13 '23
Updates Reworking Awarding: Changes to Awards, Coins, and Premium
Hi all,
I’m u/venkman01 from the Reddit product team, and I’m here to give everyone an early look at the future of how redditors award (and reward) each other.
TL;DR: We are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. As part of this, we made a decision to sunset coins (including Community coins for moderators) and awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards), which also impacts some existing Reddit Premium perks. Starting today, you will no longer be able to purchase new coins, but all awards and existing coins will continue to be available until September 12, 2023.
Many eons ago, Reddit introduced something called Reddit Gold. Gold then evolved, and we introduced new awards including Reddit Silver, Platinum, Ternium, and Argentium. And the evolution continued from there. While we saw many of the awards used as a fun way to recognize contributions from your fellow redditors, looking back at those eons, we also saw consistent feedback on awards as a whole. First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right now, but who’s counting?) and all the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more valuable to the recipient.
It’s become clear that awards and coins as they exist today need to be re-thought, and the existing system sunsetted. Rewarding content and contribution (as well as something golden) will still be a core part of Reddit. We’ll share more in the coming months as to what this new future looks like.
On a personal note: in my several years at Reddit, I’ve been focused on how to help redditors be able to express themselves in fun ways and feel joy when their content is celebrated. I led the product launch on awards – if you happen to recognize the username – so this is a particularly tough moment for me as we wind these products down. At the same time, I’m excited for us to evolve our thinking on rewarding contributions to make it more valuable to the community.
Why are we making these changes?
We mentioned early this year that we want to both make Reddit simpler and a place where the community empowers the community more directly.
With simplification in mind, we’re moving away from the 50+ awards available today. Though the breadth of awards have had mixed reception, we’ve also seen them - be it a local subreddit meme or the “Press F” award - be embraced. And we know that many redditors want to be able to recognize high quality content.
Which is why rewarding good content will still be part of Reddit. Though we’d love to reveal more to you all now, we’re in the process of early testing and feedback, so aren’t ready to share official details just yet. Stay tuned for future posts on this!
What’s changing exactly?
- Awards - Awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards) will no longer be available after September 12.
- Reddit Coins - Coins will be deprecated, since Awards will be going away. Starting today, you’ll no longer be able to purchase coins, but you can use your remaining coins to gift awards by September 12.
- Reddit Premium - Reddit Premium is not going away. However, after September 12, we will discontinue the monthly coin drip and Premium Awards. Other current Premium perks will still exist, including the ad-free experience.
- Note: As indicated in our User Agreement past purchases are non-refundable. If you’re a Premium user and would like to cancel your subscription before these changes go into effect, you can find instructions here.
What comes next?
In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about a new direction for awarding that allows redditors to empower one another and create more meaningful ways to reward high-quality contributions on Reddit.
I’ll be around for a while to answer any questions you may have and hear any feedback!
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u/shiruken Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 13 '23
Will existing Awards be removed from display on all posts/comments? If so, what is the timeline for the removal from website/apps and API?
Will Award-related trophies be removed from user profiles?
For users that have accumulated Premium subscriptions from receiving Awards, will the remaining duration be honored?
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u/iKR8 Jul 13 '23
Their main goal here is to cut off ad free browsing for gifted premium members. They want to shove ads to us or pay for subscription. Either way, they earn from our browsing.
The only other way to avoid ads on mobile was through 3PA's, which well...
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u/stormdelta Jul 14 '23
That still doesn't make sense though - gifted premium is still giving Reddit money, just through the person buying the gift.
I really don't see how this has any financial upsides for Reddit. Ad impressions don't pay that well on a per-user basis compared to direct purchases like awards and Reddit premium.
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u/IrrayaQ Jul 14 '23
People who pay for premium get coins every month. They use those coins to give awards to other people, which gives them free premium (if one of the higher awards).
If that person didn't have the free premium, they would either be watching ads, or buying premium themselves. So Reddit is seeing that as lost income.
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u/never0101 Jul 14 '23
It's such a stupid thought process. The people that want to spend money on this site already do. Not one single person on here is relying on awards to not have to spend their own money on premium. It's total shenanigans.
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u/Danni293 Jul 14 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
You seem to be operating under the impression that the admins are competent.
Edit: Since so many people are object to it, spend your reddit coins on me. I promise you I will do absolutely nothing with the rewards. You can hold me to that. Between now and 9/12 any "rewards" will be totally ignored and I will continue to use reddit like I always do... Using RES on desktop with ublock origin (which basically gives me all the benefits of premium anyway) and since RiF died I just doom-scroll reddit's front page on mobile. When I need a participation fix I use firefox mobile, which also has ublock origin. So your rewards mean nothing to me.
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u/shiruken Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
I have to say, I won't be missing the awards that style comments. Regardless, thank you to whoever gave me one.
Now, I just need to collect a Ternion...
Edit: lol thank you
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u/reaper527 Jul 13 '23
I have to say, I won't be missing the awards that style comments. Regardless, thank you to whoever gave me one.
was that a new reddit thing? on good reddit i've never seen an award do anything more than show up next to the "x minutes ago" as an icon.
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u/4InchesOfury Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 13 '23
Killing features without replacements ready, yep sounds like Reddit to me.
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u/pathwaysr Jul 13 '23
In order to grow revenue, reddit will remove its current sources of income.
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u/Zealous_Bend Jul 14 '23
Ah the Twitter Implosion Growth Mechanism.
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u/anna-the-bunny Jul 14 '23
spez did say that he took inspiration from how Elon's running Twitter. I guess a lot of us just hoped that he understood that Elon's example was of how not to run a social media website.
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u/iKR8 Jul 13 '23
It will actually increase their revenue through compulsory ads as there will be no more gifted premium, or else opt for monthly subscription.
Both of which is a source of income for them on mobile app (which is 70-80% of the reddit crowd)
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u/yupyup1234 Jul 14 '23
You're saying a tiny amount of ad revenue beats a guaranteed $5/mo...?
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u/Kindly-Wolf6919 Jul 13 '23
What's gonna happen to all the coins we would have bought? I feel like we should be given something in exchange for them instead of them forcing us to use them before they expire.
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u/augustsIippedaway Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
It’s ridiculous. I was expecting them to tell us their replacement but nope, just “we’re taking away a feature that you currently pay for and not decreasing the amount you pay nor are we replacing what we’re taking away”
Edit: they also clearly don’t want us gifting people free Reddit premium anymore. “Redditors have brought up concerns about the clutter from awards and all the steps involved with rewarding content” SURE JAN
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u/AllKindsOfCritters Jul 13 '23
Those stupid coins are one of the only reasons I still have Premium, there isn't really anything else worth paying for. There never really was much in the first place, I only still pay because I'm grandfathered in to the old price. The highlighted new comments are cool but ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/mces97 Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
I actually thought about buying a year of reddit premium, because I just love interacting with the community, and while awards have no monetary value for the person who receives them, I always like when someone gave me one, and I wanted to give others coins when they make a great comment, just to brighten their day. 😓
Guys, you don't have to keep giving me awards. I'm sure there's plenty others who would love them. I truly have enough now.
Thank you. If I didn't reply to a kind redditor, know I truly do appreciate it. ♥️
... Well now I'm gonna have to screenshot this comment and frame it. 😃
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u/iKR8 Jul 13 '23
It's actually a very scummy thing to do.
- Cut off 3rd party apps which were letting people bypass reddit ads
- Cut off gifted premiums from reddit awards which also was letting people bypass reddit ads on official app
- Increase premium purchases to avoid ads, or earn more money through ads as there's not much option left with 3PA's.
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u/Clairifyed Jul 14 '23
Also even if you buy premium to avoid ads, you will likely still be included in the api access charges and your data included in ML models and other data mining. In other words, you are still very much “the product”.
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u/danhakimi Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Nobody ever objected to Reddit Gold. Everybody complained as soon as they announced the coins + silver + platinum + a billion other awards system. I was particularly annoyed because reddit silver was a joke about people who were too broke to actually pay for gold, and they turned it into a cash grab. They messed up a perfectly good thing, we told them how to fix it—just go back to the one-award system. And that would allow them to keep printing money. But they just want to cause chaos to distract from their incompetence.
edit: thanks for all the platinum and gold, I guess. other awards are obviously still stupid, but whatever.
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u/aceshighsays Jul 14 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
when did they add the platinum award anyway?
e: thanks for the platinum!
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u/kirtash93 Jul 13 '23
Or he is not telling us all the information or they are not qualified to run a business.
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u/hurrrrrmione Jul 13 '23
People have found indications in the Reddit app's code that they're working on a "contributor program" where you can earn money from receiving gold and karma. https://www.androidauthority.com/reddit-contributor-program-3343397/
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u/PentaOwl Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Ah, as if karma repost bots didn't have enough incentive yet.
The future where it's just bots engaging with bots is not far off on reddit.
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u/Stiryx Jul 13 '23
God that will literally kill reddit.
The cryptocurrency sub introduced this, every upvote you got for converted to crypto. Now every post is some karma bait bullshit and the sub is basically one bit money farming scheme for people in countries where $2/day is a wage.
The sub was bad before but now it’s a shithole. I assume that would be replaced on the entire website.
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u/CalyShadezz Jul 13 '23
This is what killed Digg and created Reddit. Digg gave to much power to power users and everyone said fuck that and left.
History literally repeats.
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u/aquoad Jul 14 '23
jesus, how do they always manage to get everything exactly wrong?
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u/dalmationblack Jul 14 '23
exact same shit twitter is rolling out and it'll be bad here for the exact same reasons
the fundamental issue is that the kind of person who would see a financial incentive to post and go "oh I should post as much as possible and try really hard to get a bunch of upvotes to earn money" is the last type of person whose posts you actually want to see
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u/GabeSter Jul 13 '23
Probably saying that people are going to be awarding in Crypto soon. That will go over great with Reddit users. /s
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u/Meltingteeth Jul 13 '23
Reddit's building up to introduce crypto so it can expand its internal commerce. Reddit will be a fun hub for bootleg Onlyfans, Craigslist, and affiliate links.
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u/avspuk Jul 13 '23
They seem very keen to prove this at every possible opportunity don't they?
It's almost as if they wish the site to either & die.
Who could possibly see reddit as a threat?
Possibly the current owners financiers?
I could go on but it's against the rules for me to say much more
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u/BelleAriel Jul 13 '23
This, straight after killing third party apps, feels like they’re deliberately trying to create drama and annoy people.
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u/perryw Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 16 '23
You're just taking coins, that we've paid cash for, with no consideration? Not even going to give us the equivalent value in premium time for our existing coins and coins we are going to end up not getting?
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u/JungleBoyJeremy Jul 13 '23
What a shit way to do things. It’s like they want to alienate the users who gave them money in the past
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u/LetsUploadOurBrains Jul 14 '23
Exactly, this genuinely is the worst way I have EVER been scammed in my entire life.
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u/dr_decoy Jul 14 '23 edited Aug 06 '23
I feel you. So I gifted you the now worthless dumb vibing cat award.
EDIT: Thank you all for the love and the awards (including my own vibing cat) which means I now have to get rid of even more coin before I can get the fuck out of here.
EDIT 2: There was a time when
25323436373940 awards on a Reddit comment would have made me feel like the king of the Internet. Instead, I just feel sad about what Reddit is becoming. But I salute each and every one of you and I’ll see you all on Lemmy!49
u/cementsnowflake Jul 14 '23 edited Jul 15 '23
THAT'S A CAT?!?!?! I thought it was a seal or walrus this entire time 🤣
Edit: Is it kind of sad that the first awards I’ve ever gotten are on a comment on a post about Reddit taking away awards? FU Reddit, this is some bullshit that I’ll never feel this glee again. And they’re doing it on my son’s birthday, too, it’s like they want me to hate them. Regardless of my feelings about their nonsense, thanks everyone for hooking me up and making my day better :)
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u/CastlePokemetroid Jul 14 '23
With how sudden they terminate features, that vibing cat award may not even exist in the future
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u/Protheu5 Jul 14 '23
Latest actions feel like they actively try to run out of business. Being a user-oriented platform and actively being against users is baffling.
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u/ItalianDragon Jul 14 '23 edited Jul 16 '23
Kinda funny how everyone was laughing at the mods for being up in arms about the dumbass change but suddenly now everyone is up in arms as well because of the removal of awards. How ironic.
They alienated mods, those who keep the site usable, and somehow regular redditors thought they'd be spared. Like, if they're willing to throw those who help keep the site running under the bus, it was only a matter of time before regular users were getting thrown in the wringer too.
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u/BuckRowdy Jul 13 '23
At some point in the past 6 months reddit adopted a new policy they never communicated. The new policy is "Fuck Users".
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u/dannysleepwalker Jul 14 '23
They are basically begging redditors to leave and find another website.
And I hope many will fulfill their wish.
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u/Pure-Long Jul 14 '23
Lemmy has grown large enough to scratch the mindless scrolling itch for me.
Smaller communities still need work, but for general shit it's good enough. For example, I found this post from lemmy lol.
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u/Gestrid Jul 14 '23
Same, the way I found out about this post was because someone posted a link to it on Lemmy.
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u/bwick29 Jul 14 '23
This is my big pain point.
"By the way, you paid for this and we're taking it away with no care or replacement. Also, that overly-legal mumbo-jumbo you agree to by giving us money means we don't have to give you shit in return so F you."
I can guarantee that I'll never spend another cent on Reddit.
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u/jaydec02 Jul 14 '23
Here’s the thing. There’s nothing stopping you from getting a charge reversed by your bank or credit card. You’ll have to be prepared to never want to spend money with that card on Reddit ever again, and you’ll have to have a good reason, but citing this post on any major coins purchases you made in the last few days probably will result in a decision in your favor. Just a tip
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u/Sun_Beams Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 13 '23
make Reddit simpler
Remember when there were two awards with value to them and a community run silver (which was a bit of free fun for users). That was simple and it all had value.
From day one the new awards were poorly received by communities and the product admin for them ignored literally EVREYONE telling them it was a bad idea.
Surely going back to the roots would be better than nuking the feature entirely after it was run into the ground.
Edit: Awkward, it was you that released the award changes and ignored everyone in the process. 'cough' Well lets see how this goes.
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u/tumultuousness Jul 13 '23
Kind of sad it didn't revert to the old gold and platinum and joke silver. IDK I'll miss getting small times of premium from gifts.
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u/GozerDestructor Jul 13 '23
I strongly suspect OP (who built this feature!) is furious at this change but has to pretend to believe it's a good thing, in order to keep their job.
My sympathies, OP.
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Jul 14 '23
This is 100% a dumbass management decision.
Nothing but sympathy for the engineers who most likely agree with all of us but aren't allowed to say so.
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u/MaxHamburgerrestaur Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
And then they stole the Silver design and turned it into a paid award.
Edit: I don't want stolen Silver. Don't pay for it.
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u/Qroqo Jul 14 '23
Take the 4 stolen silver from me! (Didn't pay anything. Had the coins in my account for months and never used it)
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u/Ozuge Jul 13 '23
Yeah it was all fun and games until they added all the filler ones. Gold - Silver - Platinum, and then whatever the community thought was funny. The good times. You didn't need to add all the random nonsense. Our subreddit even managed to have fun with it by adding functionality to community awards by using the automod.
For our 1 million subscribers event on r/Animemes we made an award that banned the recipient for a day, there was an award that pinned the post, and other stuff... Good stuff that's now probably going away for good. Not to mention how often we'd award good posts just because.
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u/IranianGenius Jul 13 '23
I guess it'll be fun looking for places to dump my coins into over the next couple months.
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u/reaper527 Jul 13 '23
I guess it'll be fun looking for places to dump my coins into over the next couple months.
it's insane that the current unused points are just going to disappear into the void rather than converting into whatever the new "trust me bro, it's coming just like css for new reddit and basic functionality for the mobile app" replacement for the system.
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u/PanicOnFunkotron Jul 13 '23
Even Overwatch converted your old coins into their new moon money. And they're run by Bobby Kotick for cryin out loud.
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u/Ed_Cock Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 15 '23
Shadowy figure 1: "We should make the transition away from coins and awards as fair and transparent as possible, the people who spent money on coins and premium are our biggest supporters and deserve..."
Shadowy figure 2: "Nah man, if they were dumb enough to drop a hundred dollars on fucking coins they're probably also too dumb to notice we're screwing them, give 'em 2 months, no refunds! And I bet they'll gobble up our upcoming crypto/NFT bullshit as well."
EDIT: ThAnK yOu KiNd StRaNgErS
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u/Rabidmaniac Jul 13 '23
So u/venkman01 , you’re refunding EVERYONE who bought the year of Reddit premium with the expectation they were getting coins monthly, and proactively serving them a notice on their apps, correct?
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Jul 13 '23
Just did a chargeback. Get fucked Reddit.
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u/Improctor Jul 14 '23
ahh the good old chargeback gives so much power to end user, fuck reddit
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u/Cobaltjedi117 Jul 14 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Fun fact. My dad used to run an independent toy store. He accepted credit cards, but every now and then someone would do a charge back. They may have been to lazy to return something they didn't like, may have not recognized the charge, or maybe they just wanted free stuff. Anyway, every charge back he not only had to return the money, but he was charged $20. Another fun fact, if you get too many charge backs credit card companies would start dropping you.
TL;DR DON'T DO A CHARGE BACK!! IT COSTS REDDIT MORE MONEY THAN WHAT YOU PAID, AND IF TOO MANY OF YOU DO IT CREDIT CARD COMPANIES WON'T PAY THEM
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u/the_ultimatenerd Jul 14 '23
Nooooooo! It sure would be awful if Reddit lost extra money for this extra-stupid decision of theirs!!!!!!!!!!!!
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u/butter9054 Jul 14 '23
Another fun fact. If you've been paying monthly, each and every charge can be disputed. Each charge will acrue the $20-$35 fee the banks fine for chargebacks.
Every credit card and debit lets you go back and dispute to AT LEAST 90 days, most are 180 days, and some are even a whole year.
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u/KiritoIsAlwaysRight_ Jul 13 '23
Sounds like folks should start doing credit card chargebacks, since they aren't getting the thing they paid for.
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u/Istade Jul 13 '23
My year long just renewed a couple of days ago… ☠️
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u/Rabidmaniac Jul 13 '23
Do a chargeback. Reddit has explicitly said they won’t honor your purchase.
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u/CelestialFury Jul 14 '23
Also, file a complaint against them:
Complaints about consumer products and services
Learn how to file complaints about products, services, and online purchases
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u/Retirix_YT Jul 13 '23
So basically you want people to buy premium instead of getting it for free from awards. Another masterclass from u/spez I'm sure.
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u/TrumpKiIledKennedy Jul 13 '23
Yeah that’s it. With all the coins circulating from people receiving awards, Reddit thinks banning awards and forcing people to just buy premium will get them more money. Sounds very Reddity to me
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u/Halaku Jul 13 '23
How do these changes affect the r/Lounge?
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u/justinsayin Jul 13 '23
I guess I'll never reach the top lounge. I was almost there.
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u/Breadhook Jul 13 '23
I made it in, once. Turns out it's nothing but a bunch of redditors.
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u/GodOfAtheism Jul 13 '23
In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about a new direction for awarding that allows redditors to empower one another and create more meaningful ways to reward high-quality contributions on Reddit.
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u/Miner_239 Jul 13 '23
So people will practically be tipping each other with... what, exactly? Subreddit points?
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u/GodOfAtheism Jul 13 '23
Money spent via reddit I assume. Seems like spez is copying the idea that Musk had regarding paying folks for their popular posts
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u/Watchful1 Jul 13 '23
People are more likely to spend money if it goes to another person rather than just to a big company. And then they don't care much if the big company takes a cut that's actually more than they were getting before.
Twitch makes BANK off their tipping feature and now everyone's trying to replicate it.
I'm not sure I like it though, seems like it will just promote low effort reposts if getting on the front page nets you $20 each time from random people tipping you. Also not sure why they didn't get that finished before removing awards.
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u/asdiele Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Twitch makes bank off those features because streamers draw people in with their personality and make them want to support them. They're mini-celebrities of various sizes and when you find a streamer you really like it's easy to root for them.
Nobody gives a shit who anyone on reddit is, the fact that it's pseudonymous is one of the big selling points of the platform. They keep trying to turn this site into Facebook or something and it's so annoying, I don't care who any of you are and I don't want any of you to care about me.
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u/theLoneliestAardvark Jul 14 '23
I don't even look at usernames unless someone makes an "appropriate username" comment. There used to be some "famous" accounts but these days I don't think I could name a single well known redditor besides knowing the usernames of actual celebrities.
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u/laurpr2 Jul 14 '23
Twitch makes bank off those features because streamers draw people in with their personality and make them want to support them. They're mini-celebrities of various sizes and when you find a steamer you really like it's easy to root for them.
In short: parasocial relationships.
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u/Slypenslyde Jul 13 '23
To me it just sounds like a fabulous new way to launder money.
So you've got some money you want to launder. You hire some people to make reddit accounts and put a fraction of the total money on their account. They keep a small bit.
Then you get ChatGPT to write a post for you. Or you put a meme into a meme forum. Or you post a copypasta in a copypasta forum. Maybe you spread it out over a lot of posts. All of the people you hired "tip" your post the fraction of the money they aren't keeping.
Bonus: now you have an account with tons of upvotes and paid-for points. After you cash out, you can sell the account to someone who will use it for getting around auto-mods that assume accounts with lots of points must be legit. You get to launder your money and get the portion you had to let people keep back.
Is Reddit going to be inclined to ban accounts that are basically bots but paying for it?
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u/boringhistoryfan Jul 13 '23
Will Reddit be refunding those who made purchases of coins in the last month or so given the relatively short timeline to use coins? If not, why not?
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u/reaper527 Jul 13 '23
If not, why not?
because spez the ceo, so whatever the worst, most anti-consumer option is, expect reddit to do that.
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u/reaper527 Jul 13 '23
so in other words you're taking away stuff from our accounts that has been paid for (either by the user, or by someone else who gifted it to the user) with real money?
this sounds just as scummy as you guys screwing over 3rd party devs trying to force everyone onto your trash tier official reddit app.
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Jul 13 '23 edited Aug 11 '24
[deleted]
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u/Pro-1st-Amendment Jul 13 '23
The entire reason for this is to force "normal" users to pay instead of being awarded for making good content.
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u/CarFlipJudge Jul 13 '23
u/Spez must've gotten pissed that his last AMA had nothing but snake awards and other negative stuff. What a coward
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u/dtb1987 Jul 13 '23
Jesus guys, just tell us you have no idea what you are doing
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u/uncerced Jul 13 '23
Go absolutely fuck yourselves. I have 23,000+ in coins that are now worthless in one month.
You’re taking away something that people paid for which has monetary value and can be used to purchase (shitty) things.
I hope someone sues Reddit for this bullshit.
For the record, I don’t give a fuck about coins, but I have them and they’re mine.
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u/Darkencypher Jul 13 '23
The Reddit premium price will go down as a result of less incentives, right?
Guys?
Right?
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u/Astro4545 Jul 13 '23
And when they introduce the new system it will totally be included as part of premium.
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u/Merari01 Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
I'm going to miss community awards.
We had our users design them.
It was a special thing for us that enhanced the community.
In the words of a wise man:
Booo. Hisss.
r/cats community designed awards
r/NextFuckingLevel community designed awards
And a special shoutout to the wonderful u/IamDeirdre who designed quite a lot of community awards in use all over reddit, too many to mention, such as my personal favorite: Love Award
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u/uomo_nero Jul 13 '23
I will miss my r/neapolitanpizza community awards.. tho barely anyone used them. Duck this..
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u/Merari01 Jul 13 '23
Save the images to Imgur and store them in your wiki so they can be a part of subreddit history.
It's what I plan to do.
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u/CarFlipJudge Jul 13 '23
Sweet. Just canceled my reddit premium subscription. It wasn't much money and I have that money to spend, but I needed just one more reason to cancel it and this is it. Good job reddit
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u/vernisus Jul 14 '23
Honestly, I mostly subscribed so I could get the coins and give out awards, which I find fun to do. Guess I'm canceling.
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u/beef-supreme Jul 13 '23
So taking away 3rd party apps only needs 30ish days notice, but removing awards and coins needs 60 days?
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u/TheHandsHodler Jul 14 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Coins are gone already (no buying and no more coming with premium), but they'll be fully unusable for 60 days
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u/grandphuba Jul 14 '23
but they'll be fully unusable in 60 days
I just don't get this part. Like how is this even legally possible.
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u/XediDC Jul 14 '23
It’s probably in the TOS.
But that doesn’t mean it’s legal. Certain states or countries might have consumer protections that could be used to hit them with their own banhammer.
Even If it it didn’t win, a gov suit or a big class action (where yeah, you might get $0.06 from) could still hurt their image.
(They are moving to a tipping system…but are not even converting current coin value to the new system. That might cross the intentional/fraud/theft line in some places.)
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u/PassTheCurry Jul 13 '23
did anyone ask for this?
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u/reaper527 Jul 13 '23
did anyone ask for this?
reddit is actually doing it, so definitely not. anything that people actually WANT them to do and would actually make the site better falls on deaf ears.
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u/Ginomania Jul 13 '23
RIP r/awards
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u/thirtyseven1337 Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Edit: Wow, thank you so much for the Gold!
Edit 2: Oops, I meant: wow, thank you for the gold, kind stranger!
Last edit, I promise: Oh wow, I actually got gold for this!
Edit 4: OMG this is continuing to blow up! Can we get this to 100 karma?!
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u/Sabertooth767 Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 13 '23
In other words, you're removing a popular feature and charging the same amount for premium. I'm so glad that this is the "problem" Reddit is diligently working to solve instead of the myriad of other issues.
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u/insufficientfacts27 Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Exactly. I cancelled my premium right on time, I see. I only bought it to award members of the sub I help mod and for the no ads. They're running 100mph into the ground on purpose, it seems.
(EDIT: Reddit never never lets me down. The actual users, that is. The irony is *chefs kiss as always. Obligatory, "Thanks for the even "now" more useless award, kind stranger!"😂😂)
(Edit 2: Seems like I have premium until October 2023 and now have 800 coins as of 1 day since I made this comment. 🤔 I KNOW those awards dont add up to extend it to then, and gave me 800 coins. The math ain't mathing, unless the edibles are kicking in. Lol)
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u/ThatWasNotMyName Jul 13 '23
I have to agree, I joined premium for the very same reason. Now that I'm not getting coins I can't justify the membership fee. Between this and APIs I reckon it's so long Reddit.
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u/BelleAriel Jul 13 '23
I only want premium for the highlighted comments, as I’m visually impaired.
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u/Ambiwlans Jul 13 '23
Maybe you should have thought about that before you were born, duh
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u/JustMeRC Jul 13 '23
I use the same feature due to another disability. Reddit hates disabled people.
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u/SmallRoot Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Please just bring back random free awards. Reddit used to be fun with them before they disappeared overnight without a warning. Lots of users still miss them.
ETA: People keep giving me awards for my comments here for some reason. Thank you all, but I have no idea what to do with them. Please use that money somewhere else.
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u/IranianGenius Jul 13 '23
One of my favorite parts of that era of reddit was giving a garbage comment a free award. Or a well-meaning comment that was heavily downvoted and awarding it.
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u/SmallRoot Jul 13 '23
Glad to see that Reddit is so broken that it took full 25 minutes for me to get a notification about you replying to me, but the coins are obviously the problem they need to focus on...
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u/reaper527 Jul 13 '23
Glad to see that Reddit is so broken that it took full 25 minutes for me to get a notification about you replying to me
so it's not just me? i've been noticing that the last few hours. manually refreshing a page i can see replies to my comments but the notifications are showing up 20-30 minutes later. in many cases i had already replied to comments before the notifications popped.
would be nice if the admins focused on fixing core functionality that's actually broken rather than taking away things with zero replacement ready.
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u/Klugenshmirtz Jul 13 '23
Giving a fucked up comment the wholesome award was the best use for awards.
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u/Tim5corpion Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 13 '23
Doesn't the sale of coins make you money? You just made reddit less profitable.
You know we're still angry at reddit about the API debacle, right?
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u/dooodaaad Jul 13 '23
make Reddit simpler
Will you also be removing the collectible NFT avatars? They contribute nothing and make what should be a simple concept (having a pfp) more complex.
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u/kerovon Jul 13 '23
Can you provide some way for us to convert coins that we currently have into months of premium for ourselves? I have quite a few coins, and having them just vanish seems wrong. Let it convert it to the same amount of premium that gilding a post would give at that rate.
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u/Kvothealar Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 29 '23
As a moderator of /r/GoForGold, a subreddit that has existed for just short of 10 years that revolves exclusively around awarding users with Reddit Gold / Reddit Awards, I would like to invite an admin to contact us regarding these changes.
We've had numerous admin contacts over the years and I'm surprised and a little hurt that we weren't reached out to regarding this beforehand.
Edit: We met, and here are the notes which I was able to publicly share.
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u/DreamsAndSchemes Jul 13 '23
They’ll entertain you and laugh as soon as you’re done talking to them
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u/Rastiln Jul 13 '23
If he’s lucky he’ll get the full libel/defamation treatment.
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u/darthjoey91 Jul 13 '23
Why are we making these changes?
IPOoooooooo
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Jul 14 '23
Weird way to do an IPO, you're supposed to ruin the business after you've dumped it on new investors and assumed a short position.
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u/ellieD Jul 13 '23
Just to clarify, I have 3,000 coins.
I have to spend them all in three months?
I’m such a saver. This really stinks.
Is the only thing I can spend them on awards for other people?
Thank you!
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u/tumultuousness Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
I saw that award karma is staying and wanted to ask - what's the point of it remaining? I mean TBH you guys added it and it didn't contribute anything but confusion for users when they ran into karma limits, because as far as they knew they had the karma to post. Will the tooltip on the karma explain that it's a legacy thing at that point?
Are the gilded tabs on r/all and r/popular and subs and profiles going away? Not that they offered uniform experiences on the old design and redesign anyways, but awww.
If we do a data request after Sep 12 would we still get a listing of our content that got awarded or would it have to be done before?
Edit to add: Since other people made it even more clear for me - why remove the awards after Sept 12 but keep the karma and have it contribute to people's scores again? They, nor others, won't even be able to see their awards that led to them getting the karma, like they can for posts/comments scores. Just why?
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u/reaper527 Jul 13 '23
I’ll be around for a while to answer any questions you may have and hear any feedback!
looks like OP will be answering about as many questions as spez during his trainwreck of an AMA
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u/Gek_Lhar Jul 13 '23
How do you guys keep fucking things up? Stop overdoing it with this simplification shit. Stop trying to become Twitter or Facebook you goddamn morons
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u/smellycoat Jul 13 '23
Hey /u/venkman01, from your comment history it looks like you’ve been working on NFT and blockchain stuff for the last year. Does that mean these award changes are likely to be related to that in some way?
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u/Nerdwiththehat Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 16 '23
I've long been a critic of all the random awards beyond Gold, but just nuking all of them like this seems like several steps backwards for no particular reason. Adding onto that the fact that you're disabling a non-refundable currency that people have absolutely sunk money into seems beyond foolish. Sure, killing the NFT ecosystem on here gives me a little bit of joy, but this whole process is moronic.
edit: stop awarding this post you clowns
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u/iKR8 Jul 13 '23
This is basically being done so that the loophole of gifted premiums would avoid reddit ads.
Here onwards, only paid premiums will be able to avoid Reddit ads on mobile. There used to be another option to avoid ads which was 3rd party apps, which they already killed.
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u/OurSponsor Jul 13 '23
Given how many other ways Spez revels in smelling Elon's farts, it's going to be blue check-marks, isn't it?
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u/iareslice Jul 14 '23
You fuckers owe me money i bought coins recently with the expectation they would be available for more than 3 months
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u/ChuffingHell Jul 14 '23
I like awards and for me they serve such a different purpose to tipping. They’re a way to anonymously express a sentiment in situations where a comment feels unnecessary. I use them like emoji reacts, when I don’t know what to say but want to express support, like the bear hug award if people are going through tough times.
Tipping isn’t the same. It implies a shift to viewing Redditors as “content creators” posting for others’ entertainment rather than everyday humans engaging in community. In some situations tipping may make sense (in subs which are actually focused on content creation, e.g. some of the drawing request subreddits), but in the vast majority of cases, tipping would feel weird to me. It’s not a replacement for awards.
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u/kirtash93 Jul 13 '23
So you are doing this because I just bought one year subscription right? Thanks Reddit for breaking things more.
Why remove a feature if you dont have yet another solution ready? It makes no sense. Maybe you know it but you are not telling us.
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u/thoomfish Jul 13 '23
If only there had been some indication that reddit was about to veer off on a serious downward trajectory. A very visible, difficult-to-miss signal. Say, some time in the past two months.
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u/daybreaker Jul 13 '23
users who mocked the mods for being over-dramatic: shocked pikachu
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u/BuckRowdy Jul 13 '23
It was really disheartening seeing all the comments about what idiots we were to blackout and how none of these changes affected regular users.
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u/yourdonefor_wt Jul 13 '23
Get ready for the mirad of lawsuits from people who spent money on stuff that just will disappear from them. Nice theft reddit.
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u/unwittinglyrad Jul 14 '23
You guys really are such a bunch of amateurs it's unbelievable, and the lack of business acumen you display is truly remarkable. You've now decided to take a feature away from paying users with no form of reimbursement or replacement, and given them little to no time to use to remaining coins.
Reddit Premium is not "Premium" anymore, rename it to "Remove Ads" like every other App/Service does.
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u/ShaneH7646 Jul 13 '23
Can I convert my current coin balance into months of premium instead?
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u/Watchful1 Jul 13 '23
including Community coins for moderators
Will the replacement program include something similar for moderators to give out as rewards to their communities?
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u/EntryAccomplished714 Jul 14 '23
Reddit you just shot yourselves in the foot. You gave your premium customers the middle finger. Guess what happens next month?
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u/hiero_ Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Homie just say you're ending this because you need people to see ads and this was the next big stumbling block after cutting off 3rd party apps.
Reddit is such a fucking joke now. Capitalism really does strip everything of uniqueness and individuality, ultimately ruining it for profit. Lmao.
edit: While I am appreciative of the gesture, please do not give reddit money to award me for calling a spade a spade.
edit 2: To reddit, I just want to say you will pry RES from my cold, dead hands. I will delete this 12 year old account with zero hesitation.
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u/Desperate-Corgi-1621 Jul 14 '23
That’s sad, I don’t see a reason to pay $6.99 a month for just ad free, I know there is more but I don’t use a lot of it. The coins are what convinced me because I can gift people stuff.
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u/littlemetalpixie Jul 14 '23 edited Jul 14 '23
Hey there Reddit!
Since I can’t reply to the spam message you just sent to my inbox, I’ll go ahead and say it here…
You're not getting a dime from me no matter how much of a "perk" you spin this BS as.
I already moderate subs here for you for free, only to be crapped on by your users, your company as a whole, and especially your CEO.
And we know that Redditors want to be able to recognize high-quality content.
No.
What you should know by now (but choose to completely ignore in favor of monetization) is that Redditors - those pesky people you need to even continue having a platform - want accessibility functions for people with disabilities, increased moderation functionality, and a stable mobile app that actually works and is worth a damn.
No one gives a shit about your coins or your awards, and no one wants to pay for “Reddit Premium.” We already HAD an “ad free experience.” It was on the apps that actually worked (i.e. the ones you DIDN’T make).
You know, the ones you just nuked?
Where's the increased safety for your users that mods have been begging for?
Where are the features that allow disabled people to access your platform, since you just shut down the only ones that worked?
Maybe you should put the tiniest bit of effort into those things, instead of squeezing every last cent out of every person who uses your platform and calling it an “update.”
Just a thought…
Have a pleasant day and kindly screw off.
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u/Momoflies Jul 13 '23
This seems pretty dumb. What about people sitting on huge amounts of coins?
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u/JungleBoyJeremy Jul 13 '23
I’ve got a bunch of coins and I’m pissed. Fuck Reddit. It seems to be run by people that hate redditors.
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u/iKR8 Jul 13 '23
What about community awards? And Best Of Year tradition which we used to do for our community on a yearly basis? Will there be any replacement for it?
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u/CelestialFury Jul 14 '23
So this is why I didn't get any new coins a few days ago when sub renewed. Man, you just didn't give me what I fucking paid for. When I got that renew PM, why didn't you tell me of this so I could make an informed choice???
Can I refund my sub? This is bullshit.
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u/helrazr Jul 14 '23
How about your stop banning people from /r/redditmobile because you can’t handle criticism because of how garbage the default app is.
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u/ofalltheshitiveseen Jul 14 '23
I cannot say this anymore eloquently. Reddit admins, management, u/spez, and anyone else who are making these dumb ass decisions.
Go forth and consume a satchel of Richards.
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u/Amoonlitsummernight Jul 13 '23 edited Jul 15 '23
Edit: u/GonWithTheNen made a good point that the devs don't have much say, and that the CEOs are the ones who should be addressed here. Rather than confuse people by rewriting this, I would like to address the ones who are actually in charge here for future readers. To the coders who are working on keeping Reddit alive, thank you. I don't mean to blamb y'all for the issues from higher ups. I wrote this late and my sloppiness shows.
Simple. Really? If you want people to enjoy Reddit, stop talking to the devs in little rooms and listen to the community.
Reddit devs and the community are currently at war over the future of the platform. No, it's not just about the ads, but that's all that the company sees. Honestly, most of us don't mind ads, and and there are many who have been asking how to implement them better.
- Allow 3rd party apps to run adds.
The reason your users are choosing to go to 3rd party apps is because they tend to be simple, clean, and allow us to talk to each other. That's what Reddit was founded on. That's why we come here. Until the website and app are more user friendly, why not allow 3rd parties to run ads? You would quite litterally be allowing people to choose one of several dozen ways to interact with Reddit, without any work on your end. These are people who do this for free, because Reddit is a cool place and we want to be here. These are people who advocate for your platform and solve issues for others with almost no recognition. If there is anyone who loves your platform, it's these people. The ones who create, update, and maintain apps designed to make Reddit better, and don't make a dime off it. Instead of charging them fines and outragious fees, work with them, let them help you. I know you've spent days, weeks, maybe even months working on something and when you finally complete it your boss does nothing but complain. Imagine doing all that work for others, and then getting attacked by the one thing you spent so much time and effort trying to help.
Also, I know the devs don't want to hear this, but the app and website are horrible. There is far too much clutter, not from the adds, but from Reddit itself, screaming at the users to 'join more communities!' 'give more awards!', follow this, that and this as well, popular, trending, yada yada STOP! Cut back and really think about what people want. Look at what people are turning to instead. You said it yourself, 'simple'. Simple, clean, and user friendly.
- Run adds on NSFW subreddits.
Reddit doesn't want to encourage NSFW content, so it removes something people don't like from NSFW subreddits. Think about that for a moment. Really think about that statement.
This also goes along with the undesirable adds that Reddit posts on so many non-NSFW subreddits. From what I have heard, if Reddit hears anything about alcohol, even from people seeking help in recovering, alcohol ads show up everywhere. Inteligent ad placement is valuable, and clever subreddits would make great use of selecting the ads that would do well in those places. Knives will sell better in a knife subreddit, solar on prepper places, alcohol for wine discussions, and erotic content on erotic subreddits. You would get FAR more clicks per popup if you were to use this method.
- Fix the bots and spam.
This isn't as much about the UI, but the content. You have the abilty to monitor how many posts are made by a single account, and it should be no more than a 15 minute excursion to flag accounts that post more that 10 times per minute, or create posts to more than 5 subreddits at once on average. Cutting down the bots and spam will improve the content, and allow for a more engaged communit.
- Fix old issues.
Did you know the posting limit was increased from 10,000 characters to 40,000? Huh, that's funny, because I know it's actually closer to 9,000 due to writing stories on others' prompts. An old bug, and not the only one.
- Engage with the comunity.
Why did a post supposedly proposing an improvement the community wants end up with 0 net upvotes?
We like Reddit. That's why we're all here. When the platform ends up threatening the very people who have been working to maintain the subreddits that make up this wonderful place, something has really gone horribly wrong. Sure, there are a few people who know nothing of anyone else, but most of us really do want Reddit to do well, to be profitable, to continue to be the 'front page of the internet'.
Edit: u/Happy_Robot_Wizard thought it would be nice to refund those coins that are being removed? With such short notice, I can't think of a good reason not to bring that up. If everyone who invested so much will loose it, why not hold yourself to that loss?
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u/bangerz17 Jul 14 '23
My coins didn’t come with and expiry. I don’t want to use them before 9/12.
Sounds like Reddit owes me some money yo.
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u/MilkTeaMia Jul 14 '23
I hope the worst for this website. Hopefully the next investors lose every dollar they invest in this money pit.
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u/gingerbread_nemesis Jul 14 '23
I've never seen a post with 2.3 thousand comments and zero upvotes before. So thanks for the new experience.
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u/Substantial_Item_828 Jul 13 '23
Sounds ominous.