It’s possible. But another possibility is that they gave up the idea that users would give Reddit money, and instead they want advertisers to buy upvotes with RL money.
Fake currencies like Reddit coins are useful when you’re milking users, as it’s harder for them to determine the real cost of their actions. For example: how much money would you need to spend to award your own post to become the most awarded post of a subreddit? (A: it depends on which coin package you bought, which award you’re granting, in which sub you’re posting, etc.) It’s probably more expensive than the user thinks, i.e. the “sucker tax”.
This backfires for advertisers because they will run the maths and notice your outrageous prices, and they won’t pay the “sucker tax”. And any additional loop between money and service raises their suspicion, thus the risk that they associate with your platform. When dealing with them, you’re better off streamlining everything, and getting rid of things that they might see as risk-increasing uncertainty.
And one of those risk-increasing uncertainties is the value of awards vs. votes in the visibility of a post (i.e. a potential ad). How many users sort by “top” vs. “awarded”? Are you better off buying awards or upvotes? Reddit just removed those two uncertainties, plus one loop (buy Reddit coins to buy stuff → buy stuff directly).
If my reasoning above is correct, bots running rampant in Reddit will be the least concern. Expect stuff like the top post in r/linux being Microsoft “informing” you on the “risks” of running Linux, and the moderator responsible for correctly marking as spam to be “relieved” from his “duties”. r/cooking will be full of nothing but advertisement for food chains, r/youtube with an “exclusive promotion for Snoos who buy YT Premium”, stuff like this.
What you’re calling “sucker tax” is also just having different values. Someone buying reddit coins is trading money for something else they value more than the money.
Like this cheeseburger isn’t gonna make me any money so it’s a bad investment, but I want the cheeseburger for non-monetary reasons so I’m trading my money for it.
What I’m calling “sucker tax” is only the difference between the actual price versus the “eyeballed” price of something inside one’s head, because the person didn’t bother to run the maths. This is an actual thing when fake currencies are involved.
For example. A platinum award should cost 4~7 dollars. If we told this to two different users, who just gave someone a platinum award:
Alice: “wow, that’s too expensive. I’m not giving awards any more.”
Bob: “I know, I’m fine with this.”
Alice is paying the sucker tax; Bob isn’t. Bob’s case is a lot more like your cheeseburger example.
This is relevant here because the sucker tax usually requires some in-game “fake” currency, like Reddit coins, to mask the real cost of the action. It’s a piece of user-hostile design that you see often in games full of microtransactions.
Ah I see the difference now. The intermediary currency is where the strangeness comes in. And conversion to the intermediary currency is always nonlinear. You get bulk pricing on bigger conversions.
Ugh, they’re gonna replace awards with NFTs and crypto aren’t they?
It’s possible. But another possibility is that they gave up the idea that users would give Reddit money, and instead they want advertisers to buy upvotes with RL money.
Fake currencies like Reddit coins are useful when you’re milking users, as it’s harder for them to determine the real cost of their actions. For example: how much money would you need to spend to award your own post to become the most awarded post of a subreddit? (A: it depends on which coin package you bought, which award you’re granting, in which sub you’re posting, etc.) It’s probably more expensive than the user thinks, i.e. the “sucker tax”.
This backfires for advertisers because they will run the maths and notice your outrageous prices, and they won’t pay the “sucker tax”. And any additional loop between money and service raises their suspicion, thus the risk that they associate with your platform. When dealing with them, you’re better off streamlining everything, and getting rid of things that they might see as risk-increasing uncertainty.
And one of those risk-increasing uncertainties is the value of awards vs. votes in the visibility of a post (i.e. a potential ad). How many users sort by “top” vs. “awarded”? Are you better off buying awards or upvotes? Reddit just removed those two uncertainties, plus one loop (buy Reddit coins to buy stuff → buy stuff directly).
If my reasoning above is correct, bots running rampant in Reddit will be the least concern. Expect stuff like the top post in r/linux being Microsoft “informing” you on the “risks” of running Linux, and the moderator responsible for correctly marking as spam to be “relieved” from his “duties”. r/cooking will be full of nothing but advertisement for food chains, r/youtube with an “exclusive promotion for Snoos who buy YT Premium”, stuff like this.
What you’re calling “sucker tax” is also just having different values. Someone buying reddit coins is trading money for something else they value more than the money.
Like this cheeseburger isn’t gonna make me any money so it’s a bad investment, but I want the cheeseburger for non-monetary reasons so I’m trading my money for it.
What I’m calling “sucker tax” is only the difference between the actual price versus the “eyeballed” price of something inside one’s head, because the person didn’t bother to run the maths. This is an actual thing when fake currencies are involved.
For example. A platinum award should cost 4~7 dollars. If we told this to two different users, who just gave someone a platinum award:
Alice is paying the sucker tax; Bob isn’t. Bob’s case is a lot more like your cheeseburger example.
This is relevant here because the sucker tax usually requires some in-game “fake” currency, like Reddit coins, to mask the real cost of the action. It’s a piece of user-hostile design that you see often in games full of microtransactions.
Ah I see the difference now. The intermediary currency is where the strangeness comes in. And conversion to the intermediary currency is always nonlinear. You get bulk pricing on bigger conversions.