https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/13/23794403/reddit-gold-awards-coins-sunset
Reddit plans to replace it with something new.
I think it's very on-brand for Reddit to announce that they are removing a feature without having a replacement ready for primetime.
Why on Earth would you announce this now when you're not ready for whatever is coming next? It's like they are purposely trying to kill Reddit.
I'm only half joking that I'm expecting Mark Zuckerberg to announce a new app called "Links" next week that looks suspiciously like Reddit, because this pattern is starting to feel familiar.
I think if anything they’re just seeing how little the bad press actually affected their bottom line and are deciding they might as well get through more bad press now so that it all muddles together.
And he'll claim it'll be part of the Fediverse at some point probably, until the regulators get off his back and he can start stealing eyeballs again (which is an unusual hobby but the super-rich are strange creatures).
Imagine posting on a message board in 2023 where you can not even edit the title and the owner is an autocrat.
I'm curious what their plan to improve the profitability is. I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever it ends up being, it'll probably be unpopular.
Why cut off a revenue stream now of all times. Why not just double down on micro transactions
This has been such an odd saga to play out.
I think he's trying to see if, maybe, instead of making one big change all at once and massively kicking the hornets nest, it's better if he breaks it up into smaller kicks spread over time.
So instead of replacing the old system wholesale, he takes it down, waits a bit, then installs the new one. See if that helps at all.
It probably won't.
Good for them. I think driving yourself head first into the pavement is something all companies should try to attract new buyers.
Gold was always dumb. Why spend money on upvotes.
The fact that people actually ever bought it (and said thank you for it) was super weird to me.
Gold used to be a great way to support Reddit covering its server costs back when the admins were focused on sustainable operation rather than maximising profit
Yup, and you got some nifty features, like seeing which comments are new since the last time you visited.
I think this is a shitty click bait title. Why not include the feature which is replaced in the title?
But I guess thread creators hate this one simple trick.
I mean to be fair the article doesn't include it since it's not known what they're replacing it with. There's just a small bit at the end with speculation from another site on what it could be.
So they have a bunch of users that have been freely paying them money for virtual coins that you can literally only use to display a few pixels of a gif next to a comment.
Their absolute genius move towards profitability is then to forcibly stop making these people give them free money and also erase those virtual coins that they spent money on with absolutely no compensation whatsoever. Not even a shitty award or literally anything at all.
It's funny, I'm not sure if I should actually be impressed that they are not engaging in any marketing dark pattern whatsoever; they are just straight up alienating the people who were until now been practically giving them money for doing nothing.
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Guess they're running out of their monopoly money
Also why does the title of this post look like clickbait 😅
It's one thing to remove a feature, but another thing to announce it with communication along the lines of "we will replace it with something later". The third party API changes smelt the same "we are blocking access now but we will work out a subscription model later".
Makes me wonder if they actually have any kind of well thought out strategy or it's just a series of poorly thought out and poorly planned approaches to "make money". It screams of a mismanagement of direction to me.
Literally never bought an award on Reddit in 12 years.
Let me bust out the smallest violin.
My thoughts: I don't care! I am very happy with Lemmy and Kbin, so not going back there, thay can do whatever!
