7 ms·

I think if any site could pull this off, Reddit could. Somehow, somewhere, someway, Reddit became a social news site that has a strong sense of community to it.

by city41 16y ago

I think if any site could pull this off, Reddit could. Somehow, somewhere, someway, Reddit became a social news site that has a strong sense of community to it. Redditors feel good being "Redditors", and feel an affinity towards the site. My prediction is this actually works.

vaksel 16y ago
most sites can pull that off, almost every forum has the subscription model where all you get is some icon and different color username. actually I think for reddit it'd be a little harder for comparison...because with those forums, the people know they are supporting small time folks...with reddit, they'd be asking people to donate money to a for profit billion dollar corporation.
muppetman 16y ago
Yup, I donated. They are so open and honest, they don't pull any tricks. The consistently listen to feedback. I see lots of people bashing reddit and from a glance at the Frontpage I can see why. But the real good stuff is in the subreddits. I'd also donate to HN too, if asked.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  Having met a couple of the reddit guys, I gladly donated. They're the ones running the site and deciding how it evolves - not some faceless corporate drones at Conde.
Zak 16y ago
I bought a t-shirt from kn0thing at startup school a few years ago, but I can't really see paying for reddit now. I wish them luck in finding a business model that works for them.
- kn0thing 16y ago
  Thanks again for buying that shirt, Zak :)
- jedberg 16y ago
  > but I can't really see paying for reddit now. If I may ask, what did we do to lose you?
  - Zak 16y ago
    If I had to point to just one thing, it would be that you succeeded. When I joined reddit, I think there may have been more sockpuppets than real users. A great deal of what was posted there satisfied my intellectual curiosity, and when comments were finally added, they tended to be well-reasoned and insightful. The community was small, and mostly populated with people who had interests similar to mine (many came from comp.lang.lisp). Today's reddit is pretty mainstream, and, aside from a few subreddits, the content doesn't interest me much. The subreddits that do interest me have similar content to HN, and I already find myself spending too much time reading and discussing stories here when I should be working on my product. I don't think reddit can be "fixed" so that I would return to be a heavy user again, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
    - Locke1689 16y ago
      I agree pretty much completely with this. I've also seen the same cycle happen over and over again: I was one of the beta testers for Digg. At a certain point I think you just get tired. I can't count the number of times that I've posted a straightforward technical response, then downvoted, and said that my opinion is worthless unless I provide sources and that the commenter is a highly paid consultant so he knows what he is talking about. For example, just about a month ago it looked like someone was confused about a basic systems issue. I posted with a quick comment about the nature of optimization in the memory hierarchy which featured a well-known result in standard CS literature. You know, there are times when I don't mind digging through IPDPS or the ACM for proper citations, but a lot of the time I resent the fact that the argumenter didn't even take the time to do some basic research about the topic. As I said, I get tired.
    - icey 16y ago
      This isn't a complete solution, but /r/TrueReddit is pretty good.
blhack 16y ago
I would love it if totalfarke...(err, I mean, "reddit gold members") also got labeled (perhaps after a review by a mod or something) as "definitely not spammers". Just today I was being told to wait 10 minutes between postings...even though I'm definitely not a spammer, and have very positive karma (2000 after about 3 months). Personally, I would pay $5/mo for premium reddit.
- nostromo 16y ago
  This sounds like a great way to make money, but a terrible way to prevent spam.
  - ilovecomputers 16y ago
    Well how did Metafilter end up with paid membership?
    - jrockway 16y ago
      Metafilter finds unique articles, but the comments are terrible. Non-threaded comment sections only work for 4chan.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - ilovecomputers 16y ago
        Well the community there has adapted to that particular comment layout. They also favor long and rich comments since they are a community of writers, which reflects the comment layouts, if I'm not mistaken.
- natep 16y ago
  Not speaking personally, but I'm sure spammers would LOVE to pay $5/mo to spam.
zyb09 16y ago
No doubt, I gladly donated. I'd rather see a site asking for donations if their user-friendly business model isn't quite making enough then it turning into some kind of profit-driven popup-banner mess. Sometimes the community just needs to support the free services it enjoys, be it Wikipedia, Apache or Reddit.
- robryan 16y ago
  Their own by a massive company though, I don't think the people above them would be looking for donations as a business plan if they want to hire more staff. I agree with your point of supporting the services the community enjoys but I think in this case they will have to take some more drastic measures.
mbreese 16y ago
This has the same feeling as another Conde Nast owned site: ArsTechnica. They've had a subscription option for a while, and it seems to work well for them.
ch00 16y ago
Regardless of what the Reddit admins or Conde Nast are doing right or wrong to monetize their site, I think it's simply a matter of assessing the value of the information Reddit has exposed me to -- not just via the links but also the user comments. That aggregate value I've derived from their service over the past four years is still far more than what I just donated. (arguably it was more valuable a few years ago when there were fewer animated gifs linked on the homepage) But that begs the question: if I'm paying reddit, why am I not giving back to the content authors that reddit linked to?
- jedberg 16y ago
  > But that begs the question: if I'm paying reddit, why am I not giving back to the content authors that reddit linked to? Hopefully when you visit their sites, you are involving yourself in whatever their method of monitization is. Subscriptions, viewing ads, whatever it is.
scorpion032 16y ago
I love the community. Would love to pay for it. But a charity by me, to a huge corporate; really? THERE HAS GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY.

by city41 16y ago

vaksel 16y ago

most sites can pull that off, almost every forum has the subscription model where all you get is some icon and different color username. actually I think for reddit it'd be a little harder for comparison...because with those forums, the people know they are supporting small time folks...with reddit, they'd be asking people to donate money to a for profit billion dollar corporation.

muppetman 16y ago

Yup, I donated. They are so open and honest, they don't pull any tricks. The consistently listen to feedback. I see lots of people bashing reddit and from a glance at the Frontpage I can see why. But the real good stuff is in the subreddits. I'd also donate to HN too, if asked.

potatolicious 16y ago
Having met a couple of the reddit guys, I gladly donated. They're the ones running the site and deciding how it evolves - not some faceless corporate drones at Conde.

Zak 16y ago

I bought a t-shirt from kn0thing at startup school a few years ago, but I can't really see paying for reddit now. I wish them luck in finding a business model that works for them.

kn0thing 16y ago
Thanks again for buying that shirt, Zak :)
jedberg 16y ago
> but I can't really see paying for reddit now. If I may ask, what did we do to lose you?
- Zak 16y ago
  If I had to point to just one thing, it would be that you succeeded. When I joined reddit, I think there may have been more sockpuppets than real users. A great deal of what was posted there satisfied my intellectual curiosity, and when comments were finally added, they tended to be well-reasoned and insightful. The community was small, and mostly populated with people who had interests similar to mine (many came from comp.lang.lisp). Today's reddit is pretty mainstream, and, aside from a few subreddits, the content doesn't interest me much. The subreddits that do interest me have similar content to HN, and I already find myself spending too much time reading and discussing stories here when I should be working on my product. I don't think reddit can be "fixed" so that I would return to be a heavy user again, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    I agree pretty much completely with this. I've also seen the same cycle happen over and over again: I was one of the beta testers for Digg. At a certain point I think you just get tired. I can't count the number of times that I've posted a straightforward technical response, then downvoted, and said that my opinion is worthless unless I provide sources and that the commenter is a highly paid consultant so he knows what he is talking about. For example, just about a month ago it looked like someone was confused about a basic systems issue. I posted with a quick comment about the nature of optimization in the memory hierarchy which featured a well-known result in standard CS literature. You know, there are times when I don't mind digging through IPDPS or the ACM for proper citations, but a lot of the time I resent the fact that the argumenter didn't even take the time to do some basic research about the topic. As I said, I get tired.
  - icey 16y ago
    This isn't a complete solution, but /r/TrueReddit is pretty good.

blhack 16y ago

I would love it if totalfarke...(err, I mean, "reddit gold members") also got labeled (perhaps after a review by a mod or something) as "definitely not spammers". Just today I was being told to wait 10 minutes between postings...even though I'm definitely not a spammer, and have very positive karma (2000 after about 3 months). Personally, I would pay $5/mo for premium reddit.

nostromo 16y ago
This sounds like a great way to make money, but a terrible way to prevent spam.
- ilovecomputers 16y ago
  Well how did Metafilter end up with paid membership?
  - jrockway 16y ago
    Metafilter finds unique articles, but the comments are terrible. Non-threaded comment sections only work for 4chan.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - ilovecomputers 16y ago
      Well the community there has adapted to that particular comment layout. They also favor long and rich comments since they are a community of writers, which reflects the comment layouts, if I'm not mistaken.
natep 16y ago
Not speaking personally, but I'm sure spammers would LOVE to pay $5/mo to spam.

zyb09 16y ago

No doubt, I gladly donated. I'd rather see a site asking for donations if their user-friendly business model isn't quite making enough then it turning into some kind of profit-driven popup-banner mess. Sometimes the community just needs to support the free services it enjoys, be it Wikipedia, Apache or Reddit.

robryan 16y ago
Their own by a massive company though, I don't think the people above them would be looking for donations as a business plan if they want to hire more staff. I agree with your point of supporting the services the community enjoys but I think in this case they will have to take some more drastic measures.

mbreese 16y ago

This has the same feeling as another Conde Nast owned site: ArsTechnica. They've had a subscription option for a while, and it seems to work well for them.

ch00 16y ago

Regardless of what the Reddit admins or Conde Nast are doing right or wrong to monetize their site, I think it's simply a matter of assessing the value of the information Reddit has exposed me to -- not just via the links but also the user comments. That aggregate value I've derived from their service over the past four years is still far more than what I just donated. (arguably it was more valuable a few years ago when there were fewer animated gifs linked on the homepage) But that begs the question: if I'm paying reddit, why am I not giving back to the content authors that reddit linked to?

jedberg 16y ago
> But that begs the question: if I'm paying reddit, why am I not giving back to the content authors that reddit linked to? Hopefully when you visit their sites, you are involving yourself in whatever their method of monitization is. Subscriptions, viewing ads, whatever it is.

scorpion032 16y ago

I love the community. Would love to pay for it. But a charity by me, to a huge corporate; really? THERE HAS GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY.