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What I don't understand is why they simply don't do what spotify does. Free acounts have to use the official spotify apps but paid accounts can use third party

What I don't understand is why they simply don't do what spotify does. Free acounts have to use the official spotify apps but paid accounts can use third party apps and apis as part of their subscription benefits. I would gladly pay for reddit gold monthly if I got to keep using my ad-free 3rd party client of my choice.

Nathanba 3y ago
hm yeah that seems like an obvious possible win for reddit, they would convert all the 3rd party app users into paid users. Maybe they simply didn't have that idea
- xcjs 3y ago
  That was brought up in a lot of discussions as something the users would be willing to do, but leadership so far has not been interested in engaging with those suggestions.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
They want everyone to use the official app so they can advertise to paid users in the future. It's the cable TV model: get people to start paying for subscriptions by offering to remove ads, then slowly trickle the ads back in. A paid tier lets you easily identify which of your users have disposable income, and then you can sell the ability to advertise to them at a huge premium. Spotify's advertisements are quite different because they're basically worthless. Nobody wants to pay money to advertise to broke people. Their free tier exists merely as a funnel; the advertisements function as intentional annoyances to nudge people into paying for a subscription.
- danaris 3y ago
  In other words: Because they think they can get 500% the revenue by abusing their users even more, they're unwilling to accept the 450% revenue they could get by making a reasonable compromise. And now they're running the risk of getting 5% the revenue. * No actual numbers were harmed in the making of this post.
- spike021 3y ago
  The Athletic (sports news publication) pretty much did this exact thing. Originally marketed that you'll pay for a subscription so you don't get ads, and now for the last year or so they've added multiple ads in every article even though they're already behind a paywall.

Nathanba 3y ago

hm yeah that seems like an obvious possible win for reddit, they would convert all the 3rd party app users into paid users. Maybe they simply didn't have that idea

xcjs 3y ago
That was brought up in a lot of discussions as something the users would be willing to do, but leadership so far has not been interested in engaging with those suggestions.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago

They want everyone to use the official app so they can advertise to paid users in the future. It's the cable TV model: get people to start paying for subscriptions by offering to remove ads, then slowly trickle the ads back in. A paid tier lets you easily identify which of your users have disposable income, and then you can sell the ability to advertise to them at a huge premium. Spotify's advertisements are quite different because they're basically worthless. Nobody wants to pay money to advertise to broke people. Their free tier exists merely as a funnel; the advertisements function as intentional annoyances to nudge people into paying for a subscription.

danaris 3y ago
In other words: Because they think they can get 500% the revenue by abusing their users even more, they're unwilling to accept the 450% revenue they could get by making a reasonable compromise. And now they're running the risk of getting 5% the revenue. * No actual numbers were harmed in the making of this post.
spike021 3y ago
The Athletic (sports news publication) pretty much did this exact thing. Originally marketed that you'll pay for a subscription so you don't get ads, and now for the last year or so they've added multiple ads in every article even though they're already behind a paywall.