Reddit CEO Asks Users To Buy Revamped Membership

I was already a reddit gold subscriber, but the fact that at the moment they're literally running into the red to provide cool stuff like the Obama AMA makes me want to subscribe again. Anyone looking for a reddit gold account?

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/12v8y3/now_is_the_time...

I don't use Reddit enough to justify paying for it, but I would certainly pay to support HN.

There is a lot of precedent for handling this, as newspapers have been doing for decades. Newspapers have the content producers and the business people in the same building employed by the same company.

You separate your business and editorial and put a wall between them in the company. Nobody from business has access to the admin panel and nobody from editorial has access to the business contacts.

I really couldn't imagine an advertiser asking reddit to remove a post for them. To advertise on reddit means that you have some understanding of how it works, and how it works doesn't involve admins censoring content.

There are more than enough advertisers in the world who both understand reddit and would pay good money to get their ads infront of that audience. The only problem is that the ad product is not sold or promoted well.

    you come under editorial pressure from advertisers to 
    remove or modify it…This eventually results in a 
    watering down of the true, authentic content on the site

Their current advertising is just... pointless, I rarely see adverts on reddit, almost every page load has the advertisement block filled with an internal reddit notice (eg: "check out the FAQ!", "Thanks for not using adblock", "check out reddit gifts") or an advert that someone has paid for via self serve for their subreddit.

Maybe I'm missing something but surely even just throwing up a simple adsense block in the advertising space would generate enough revenue to be worth whatever supposed good will these cutesy cat picture adverts exist to score. Adsense certainly wouldn't "destroy" the trust people have placed in the site... As someone that puts time into reddit I'd be more annoyed if they let the site become so unprofitable they have to shut it down vs. have a few adverts that I can opt out of with a tiny monthly fee.

Would anyone here (that uses reddit) leave if they had proper advertising (that could be opted out of with reddit gold and was not audio / video advertisements, just "standard" web adverts)? I've never met someone willing to leave a website over adverts, if the adverts are reasonable.

Also during the time I wrote this comment I was constantly refreshing reddit.com, so far I have not seen a single non-reddit related advert and I'm at 30 page loads.

(maybe raldi or jedberg or whoever that left reddit and lurks here can explain why this isn't being done, because it's confusing, is there an internal belief that reddit users are so touchy that they'll leave if reddit tries proper advertising?)

edit: oh and for the perfect example, imgur has advertising, what about 75% of popular reddit content uses, and I don't see people boycotting imgur? (of the 100 links in r/all right now 75 are to imgur, 25 of those are to imgur.com which has advertising, so that means 25% of the front page links go straight to imgur with adverts)

edit edit: in an attempt to explain my opinion succinctly, I think the real problem reddit has is the toxic idea that any attempt to make money will alienate the community, when in reality the majority of reddit users don't care and the vocal minority would not leave the site as long as the advertisements were reasonable. People want a stable website that they can be a part of, advertisements don't destroy that. Look at how many people love imgur, 9gag and funnyjunk. Having so little faith in reddit users ability to deal with adverts is to me more "insulting" than the adverts themselves.

On one end is their free and ad-supported access. The few ads that I see are very easy on the eyes, easy to ignore, and I don't feel compelled by the ads to buy a gold account. In return you get user generated content.

On the other end is the gold account, where you don't see ads, and you get the same user generated content.

In addition to any of that, they might decide to generate content themselves. Be the paid New York Times of the Internet (whatever that means, to them); the Site of Record. They've almost got the credibility, and certainly have the name recognition; their drama gets covered by the mainstream media.

Of course they'd have to hire another body or two.

I really think they should just skip over the whole maj/minority struggle and work on a more suitable approach. What makes Reddit so special? Each subreddit and its dedicated and often unique community. When reddit was relatively new I avoided it, because on the surface all I saw were fellow tech-hungry teenagers looking for the next big place to gather. Only a few years ago did I stumble on some of the smaller, more interesting subreddits and realize that I could spend my entire time among just a few without ever caring about the rest of 'Reddit' because within those little communities, there was something really cool and fun. Expat living in Japan? There's an r/ for that. Love cartography? There's an r/ for that. Linguist/mathematician/physicist? Plenty of r/s for you, of varying quality and concentration but interesting nonetheless.

Sometimes when I'm motivated to learn more about a subject, one of the first things I'll do is check if there is a decent subreddit that's relevant. Lo and behold, r/spicy and r/bonsai now come to my frontpage to shower me with pruning advice, sauce exchanges, and more. Of course, anyone can create a new subreddit if the existing ones aren't interesting enough, moderated poorly, or the subject just doesn't have a home yet. My list of micro-wikis and webpages to set up now has marks for items that would work just as well being a subreddit. But we're talking about revenue here, so let me get to the point.

Don't just think about Reddit as one big thing, but rather as a world full of lively other things– some some tiny, others huge. They can make money without looking heavy-handed or causing too much controversy, as long as they see the users (all of them) as collaborators in that effort. Subreddits already enjoy a certain amount of freedom (of moderation, styling), why not gamify it somehow? For example, most people wouldn't mind if r/pics had real ads, and r/pics is probably one of the most trafficked subreddits around. Those who still don't want the ads can get Reddit Gold. However say r/crypto thought the ads were silly, and wanted them removed. Then they could, for example, buy their way out directly (garnering a few extra features for the local mods) or encourage their own subscribers to get gold, with some percentage reducing the number/location of ads until reaching zero.