One thing I’ve seen a lot of is comments wishing that Lemmy/Kbin had support for some sort of gilding. So it’s obviously a feature that people enjoyed using which means Reddit just has to enshittify it. This is the way.
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Kbin already has this covered. We can pay monthly to keep servers running via
@Ernest has transferred the existing Buy Me A Coffee money over to the server fund and from this point on we really can buy him a beer via Buy Me A Coffee which is cool!
any particular reason why there are 2 monthly payment options?
I’m not Ernest but my guess is it gives us greater flexibility?
Like, some of us are already active on one or the other of those platforms, plus between them there are lots of different options for amount. I’d never heard of Liberapay but I like how it’s a non-profit.
Well there are 49 subscribed people on patreon totaling $170/month. Lots of people probably already have accounts set up which makes it a very low threshold to join.
Meanwhile on librepay, arguably more philosophically suitable, there are 11 subscribers totaling $13/month.
Man, considering how many people I have seen saying how great it is to be able to pay, and asserting they are making donations, those are very low numbers.
Could be because it is less circulated. I had seen the coffee option previously but didn’t realise the other 2 options had been setup until I came across this comment.
Do not imagine for an instant that if Lemmy/Kbin becomes like Reddit and embraces enshitification that the community will not walk again.
Precisely. They were a fun thing to give out, and directly helped to pay for server time. I even liked how Reddit would tell you how much server time your awards gave to Reddit (which I think they’ve removed?).
Absolutely! Server donations are good for a single instance but I think a service that allows users to purchase gold/awards and awards the particular instance (with funds) that they get used on would help fund the Fediverse as a whole. I imagine implementing something like that would not be simple but anything is better than injecting ads.
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I think it should be totally anonymous though because otherwise you go down the road of users with special avatars and good knows what
implementing something like that would not be simple
Especially with the idea that an instance a user calls home/registered on would have to be ok with allowing a donation link to go to the instance that the user you’re “gilding” is on
let’s inventing banking again! the bitcoin people are having so much fun doing that.
That was the original pitch for gold on Reddit.
100%, but the Federated nature would make this difficult, I’d imagine.
I’d love a way to simultaneously:
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show someone I appreciate their comment
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Help support an instance
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Help support KBin development
But, outside of crypto, I don’t see an easy way to make that happen and doing it through crypto would bring out the crypto bros and mega-anti crypto joe’s in about equal numbers, which would suck (plus, who’s to say that an instance admin even wants to deal with crypto to collect a few bucks).
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Makes sense to me.
Reddit’s new userbase (Bots) don’t buy gold.
You don’t want to IPO and have to document that one of your 3 revenue streams is decreasing month-to-month.
The strategy is to keep pumping the fake traffic and keep selling the bogus impressions to ad buyers.
So first they alienate the people who are working for them for free and then they go ahead and alienate the people who are giving them money for free.
Well, the site’s mascot is an alien, so …
(50+ awards right now, but who’s counting?)
Apparently you are, Reddit.
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I don’t know if anyone here has anything as constructive as what they should have done, having reached this point in history. If I was suddenly dropped into spez’s body, I do not have a clue what I would do other than completely back track the past 2 months and eat a literal hat with a fork and knife. Don’t know if even that would work.
Was there any indication something like this was coming?
Also, I only learned last 1-2 months during the API fiasco that Reddit had some weird NFT thing going on… Are they just trying to find anything that will stick?
It’s rumored that Reddit is about to launch a new “creator program” that will pay Redditors for high-karma activity on the site. This change is probably meant to accommodate this new feature.
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All for the “engagement rate” to be presented during IPO.
Instead what they’ll get is a metric shitton of bots trying to game the system, further tanking the site
how is paying people going to “keep them profit oriented til profits arrive”?
how could they even have the cashflow to support that? money isn’t free anymore
how could they even have the cashflow to support that?
I’m guessing new deals with advertisers. These changes will incentivize more neutral, advertiser-friendly comments on their platform. I imagine that’s going to make them more lucrative to advertisers going forward, so that their ads are shown next to harmless memes instead of bad-faith political arguments in cat pic subreddits.
To what end, I wonder?
I feel like it has to be financially motivated and the only thing I can think of is they want users paying for premium directly rather than having it gifted from a different accounting bucket. But that doesn’t seem like strong enough motivation on the surface.
I have a feeling it’s definitely a blue checkmark in the making moment
The Snoopocalypse continues.
Oh for want of a kind stranger.
Reddit’s self-destruction is quite impressive, I’m not going to lie
It hurt itself in its confusion
This seems like the dumbest decision imaginable. Users are flocking to alternatives, many of those who haven’t don’t trust you, and you’re trying to become profitable … so you delete the stuff people paid for without any sort of replacement. What a genius ideaǃ Making the platform less unique and giving the middle finger to the people who give you money in one go!
There’s no way a human adult is running this company. It has to be a council of toddlers run by a keyboard-smashing orangutan. At this point, they might as well start encouraging bots and karma farming. Maybe even pay people to do it!
Wait, what did you just say? They might actually do that?
The circus never ends.
I think part of it is about retention … retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.
I’m currently in the process of ending my four accounts I have on reddit. Two of them are over 100,000 in karma and when I read this post, the very first thing that popped into my mind was … HOW MUCH WILL MY ACCOUNTS BE WORTH?
So it’s now making me think … if I can just keep up my account for another while, maybe I can cash in on all that karma I accumulated.
I am sure that many other redditors are thinking the same. The way this reddit admin posted the info is really weird too … it sounded like some salesman just enticing people into an idea but not fully being able to say much about it and instead making vague suggestions that something big is coming in the future.
I know a sales job when I see one … and this is a sales job. Many people will fall for it … if not just to hang on to see if they can at least cash in our something … anything when the announcement happens.
Say or think what you want about me … but I’m ending this relationship and deleting my accounts … I don’t trust big corporations to say or do anything that might give me a chance at anything. Any action they elicit from me or any user will be gamed to only benefit them. If not enough people figure that out … reddit will make bank in the short term and that is all they are counting on.
I think part of it is about retention … retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.>
If they were actually serious about retention of high karma users they could at least consider not suspending/ banning such users without a very good reason. My previous account on there was nuked for reasons I dont understand to this day, I would have happily stayed on otherwise. I have a temporary account there now which I had no intention of putting any money into - well now the one reason i might have been tempted to do so is going away anyway.
The award/ coin system was great, and I spent a bit of money on it, it was also a very good way to pay for or be paid for small international transactions - I assisted a few people with minor things and they paid my costs such as they were with reddit coin, saving them and me international bank transaction fees. I also liked rewarding intelligent and incisive comments that needed recognition as such.
Reddit really is going down the shitter
Not sure why this is a top priority right now, but I look forward to hearing about whatever horrible idea they implement to replace awards and coins.
Whelp, I never used those things anyway.
Was anyone actually spending money on that crap?
Yes haha. Constantly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re happy to be rid of the type of user who would move to the fediverse anyway. Maybe that was their plan all along.
Yeah the same that buy skins in games
But honestly, good. It’s those people that keep the stuff free for the others
Yep, and was proud to - let me support Reddit and good contributors.
I wonder if the exodus of people like myself brought this on - the drop in awards given may have been significant indicator or less engagement, so needed to muddy the waters?
Yeah, I bought gold a few times. I had no problem with “this content was so good it inspired me to give back a little to the free service we’re all using.”
I wouldn’t mind some equivalent for the fediverse honestly. Let me donate to the home server of a user who’s comment I thought was especially good.
I know you can donate directly, but I do think there was something about also making another user’s day that felt good about the Gold system. The service gets some fuel in the tank and the comment author gets a little boost to their mood. It was nice.
I agree it got way too out of hand when they moved beyond Gold though.
Reddit used to fund all their servers with it and had a gold goal.
