6 ms·

Let me pay $10, and all I ask for in return is site stability and maybe a sweet icon next to my name when I comment. Honestly I bet you could get 100k subscrib

Let me pay $10, and all I ask for in return is site stability and maybe a sweet icon next to my name when I comment. Honestly I bet you could get 100k subscribers within a week. People are hopelessly addicted to these aggregation services, and if subscribing gives us the self assurance that their be around for us to continue enjoying them the fee is worth it. I don't expect you to remove the sponsored ads either (actually i'd be a bit disappointed if you did... its nice seeing ads for small businesses I haven't heard about) A few downsides, once you start charging me I'm going to gain some expectations. Downtime is going to be harder to excuse then it was before is just one example.

xal 16y ago
This is essentially how Shacknews worked since '99. People who subscribed got a lightning bold next to the name and got uncapped downloads on fileshack. This worked out very well for them.
jedberg 16y ago
> once you start charging me I'm going to gain some expectations. Downtime is going to be harder to excuse then it was before is just one example. One of the main reasons we hesitated so long. We didn't want to let down the community, especially those that paid. As always, we will do our best to keep the site up, and hopefully this new income will make it so we can afford the redundant servers we need to do a better job at it.
- silverlake 16y ago
  Can't you find interns to help you with stability? Even I would help for free just to get some experience with a very large site.
  - jedberg 16y ago
    Each time we've had a new programmer come on board, it takes about 6 months for them to become familiar enough with the code to make a solid contribution. In the mean time, it actually slows us down a bit. That was the main reason we didn't seek programming interns this summer -- it's a great thought, but would probably take too long to ramp them up.
    - mcdowall 16y ago
      I will happily contribute some of my time each month to help you acquire targeted advertisers. I think you would find that in each country / subreddit the very community you foster will be more than willing to help you. E-Mail is on my profile if you want to get in contact.
    - ritonlajoie 16y ago
      Hi jedberg, First of all, thanks for your hard work on reddit. I'm myself quite addicted to some interesting subreddits for about 6 months. I would like to answer on your issue with the 6 months problem that interns 'would have' if you pick one. If I'm right, you released a virtual machine with reddit installed, last month, on a blog post. I see no reason for _any_ intern for not being able to contribute to reddit from day 1. Seriously, /r/programming and /r/coding are great, and I'm 110% sure you can find an intern which would know perfectly how reddit works (code related) and who would be very kind to help out. This virtual machine already setup was a great idea, why not using it to your own goal ? edit: s/internet/intern
    - lazyjeff 16y ago
      Could you filter for interns with more experience? i.e. ones that have done a couple of internships before at Microsoft, Google, etc. Or since reddit is mostly open source, hire interns that are already familiar with the code base? Or hire interns that can work for 6-9 months rather than 12 weeks? Just some thoughts...

xal 16y ago

This is essentially how Shacknews worked since '99. People who subscribed got a lightning bold next to the name and got uncapped downloads on fileshack. This worked out very well for them.

jedberg 16y ago

> once you start charging me I'm going to gain some expectations. Downtime is going to be harder to excuse then it was before is just one example. One of the main reasons we hesitated so long. We didn't want to let down the community, especially those that paid. As always, we will do our best to keep the site up, and hopefully this new income will make it so we can afford the redundant servers we need to do a better job at it.

silverlake 16y ago
Can't you find interns to help you with stability? Even I would help for free just to get some experience with a very large site.
- jedberg 16y ago
  Each time we've had a new programmer come on board, it takes about 6 months for them to become familiar enough with the code to make a solid contribution. In the mean time, it actually slows us down a bit. That was the main reason we didn't seek programming interns this summer -- it's a great thought, but would probably take too long to ramp them up.
  - mcdowall 16y ago
    I will happily contribute some of my time each month to help you acquire targeted advertisers. I think you would find that in each country / subreddit the very community you foster will be more than willing to help you. E-Mail is on my profile if you want to get in contact.
  - ritonlajoie 16y ago
    Hi jedberg, First of all, thanks for your hard work on reddit. I'm myself quite addicted to some interesting subreddits for about 6 months. I would like to answer on your issue with the 6 months problem that interns 'would have' if you pick one. If I'm right, you released a virtual machine with reddit installed, last month, on a blog post. I see no reason for _any_ intern for not being able to contribute to reddit from day 1. Seriously, /r/programming and /r/coding are great, and I'm 110% sure you can find an intern which would know perfectly how reddit works (code related) and who would be very kind to help out. This virtual machine already setup was a great idea, why not using it to your own goal ? edit: s/internet/intern
  - lazyjeff 16y ago
    Could you filter for interns with more experience? i.e. ones that have done a couple of internships before at Microsoft, Google, etc. Or since reddit is mostly open source, hire interns that are already familiar with the code base? Or hire interns that can work for 6-9 months rather than 12 weeks? Just some thoughts...