Reddit CEO Says Paywalls are Coming Soon

[thspfc]

Do you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?

Yes?

Most of the research that led to modern computing was done at universities (MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford primarily) funded by government grants, or by government agencies such as DARPA. Most of the software that undergirds modern computing (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python) is open source and was developed by volunteers. (Yes, even the AI stuff that has the industry's attention—that all runs on Python.) The companies just come in after the hard work is done and package it for sale.

To fluff the capitalists up on this just reveals an ignorance of history.

Were those who had a major hand in developing those programs not given a stake in ownership of the companies? How did the companies come to exist? Who founded them? How did they acquire the rights to the technology to sell it? Was there any payment involved in that process?

[Scott5114]

Were those who had a major hand in developing those programs not given a stake in ownership of the companies? How did the companies come to exist? Who founded them? How did they acquire the rights to the technology to sell it? Was there any payment involved in that process?

Please learn what "open source" means before you continue this discussion.

[SEWIGuy]

Do you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?

Yes?

Most of the research that led to modern computing was done at universities (MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford primarily) funded by government grants, or by government agencies such as DARPA. Most of the software that undergirds modern computing (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python) is open source and was developed by volunteers. (Yes, even the AI stuff that has the industry's attention—that all runs on Python.) The companies just come in after the hard work is done and package it for sale.

To fluff the capitalists up on this just reveals an ignorance of history.

Ironic.

[JayhawkCO]

For those that say Reddit users will pay, how many of us pay for Wikipedia?

It's like Groupon being known as restaurant heroin. Once people ate at a place for a discount, they would never pay more for the same thing. Then restaurants have to keep the Groupon offer going and never made a profit. The same rationale applies but in this case, the coupon is 100% off for Reddit.

[Max Rockatansky]

Wikipedia might be free but you certainly pay a toll in the form of the weird bureaucracy that site has.  That structure would probably collapse if editing requires a paid subscription.  Then again, it probably would also tank the site completely in favor of free dedicated subject Wikis.

[JayhawkCO]

A toll of red tape that I don't see doesn't equate to less money in my pocket though.

[thspfc]

Were those who had a major hand in developing those programs not given a stake in ownership of the companies? How did the companies come to exist? Who founded them? How did they acquire the rights to the technology to sell it? Was there any payment involved in that process?

Please learn what "open source" means before you continue this discussion.

So the did companies exist before the programs, and essentially told people they could work for them for free, and that's the entirety of how those programs were developed?

[kalvado]

For those that say Reddit users will pay, how many of us pay for Wikipedia?

It's like Groupon being known as restaurant heroin. Once people ate at a place for a discount, they would never pay more for the same thing. Then restaurants have to keep the Groupon offer going and never made a profit. The same rationale applies but in this case, the coupon is 100% off for Reddit.

I did donate to wiki a few times. Of course it was a donation, not a service fee.
I also bought premium subscription to some freemium sites as a gift. I rarely need advanced paid features, but giving it to someone else kills a few birds in one shot.
I am not sure if I would feel the same relaxed way paying for a monthly subscription

[Max Rockatansky]

A toll of red tape that I don't see doesn't equate to less money in my pocket though.

While true, you certainly get an unpleasant user experience out of it.  From what others have indicated here that has only gotten worse with time.  Wikipedia sure is big on asking for donations.  If I'm paying I want a terms of use in my favor.

[JayhawkCO]

For those that say Reddit users will pay, how many of us pay for Wikipedia?

It's like Groupon being known as restaurant heroin. Once people ate at a place for a discount, they would never pay more for the same thing. Then restaurants have to keep the Groupon offer going and never made a profit. The same rationale applies but in this case, the coupon is 100% off for Reddit.

I did donate to wiki a few times. Of course it was a donation, not a service fee.
I also bought premium subscription to some freemium sites as a gift. I rarely need advanced paid features, but giving it to someone else kills a few birds in one shot.
I am not sure if I would feel the same relaxed way paying for a monthly subscription

The same reason some of us of a certain age might have paid for World Book/Encyclopedia Brittanica/etc. (or their parents did), had that information been on offer at home for free, no one would have spent the money. Cat has already been out of the bag, alas.

[Scott5114]

Were those who had a major hand in developing those programs not given a stake in ownership of the companies? How did the companies come to exist? Who founded them? How did they acquire the rights to the technology to sell it? Was there any payment involved in that process?

Please learn what "open source" means before you continue this discussion.

So the did companies exist before the programs, and essentially told people they could work for them for free, and that's the entirety of how those programs were developed?

What? No.

Open-source code is code that is licensed to allow modification and redistribution. This is done for many reasons, but one overriding one is that if you get stuck, or if there's a bug you don't notice, someone else can fix it for you. Because you are legally in the clear to redistribute the code, you can then distribute the fixed version. Programmers like this because it makes it easy to get things done, which is what they are interested in. You don't have to waste time on the overhead of things like "well, I wrote lines 18-26, but James patched a bug on line 7, so we need to get his permission to publish this, and..."

(Why do people contribute to open-source software when not being paid to do so? Because it's fun. Because creating things is satisfying. Because they need a program to exist and are capable of writing it themselves instead of paying for it. Because if you intend to work as a programmer, having something like "I wrote the part of Firefox that handles date inputs" on your resume looks good. Because they have a job doing something tangentially related and this is a side project they don't want to put the effort into monetizing.)

Early on this was done by just releasing the code to the public domain or using a simple license that says  "anyone can modify and distribute this". But of course if you find a code base that you are legally free and clear to redistribute, there is nothing stopping you from charging money from those you distribute it to. Companies would be formed to scoop up these existing open code bases, make a few changes, and then sell it as a new, incompatible, closed-source product.

Eventually the open source people wised up and tightened the licenses up so that any changes you make must also be licensed openly. Companies still attach to those code bases, but they have to make their money selling support—Red Hat sells more or less the same Linux you can download for free, but if anything goes wrong with it you can call in and have one of their techs help you fix it. That's appealing if you're a big corporation that can't afford to lose time when an important system goes kaput, but the free option is still available if you'd rather save the money and fix it yourself.

[thspfc]

I stand corrected, the people responsible for the initial development and distribution of these systems were not motivated by profit. However that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.

[vdeane]

Reddit is practically an institution at this point.  It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet.  Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways.  I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past.  The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more.  Where would I go?  Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy.  And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.

The world has built itself around a free Reddit.  Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results.  I do it all the time.  It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.

Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.

Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.

But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.

I think at this point it's coming down to the two of us having irreconcilably different fundamental beliefs.  As far as I'm concerned, the function businesses play in society is to provide goods and services to citizens.  Making money should be merely their reward for doing a good job at that, not their overriding purpose above all else.  You clearly take a different view on that.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet:

The quote in the OP says a "new type of subreddit" would be paywalled. This means that existing subreddits, if they could at all, would consciously have to want to switch to paywalled to do so, and I would imagine the vast majority would choose not to.

I'm not sure I trust that it would remain as such and/or not end up affecting the user experience in other ways (such as user discussion migrating in some cases, drying up content on the existing free spaces, much like Discord dried up r/Parahumans and caused r/HereticalEdge to die completely).

Scott5114 mentioned 2010 as a turning point. I agree with this. There were significant technological advances up to 2010. After that, not so much. The only differences I see between my first computer, a 2010 MacBook Pro, and my current one (2023) are that my current one has 500 GB of memory instead of 128 GB, and Python runs twice as fast likely due to the switch from Intel to Apple silicon. That's it.

2010 is also around the time when I went from liking the direction mainstream technology was moving in and eagerly looking forward to and wanting to upgrade to new versions of Windows and what not and hating the direction the industry was moving in and migrating away from the mainstream products (Windows, Chrome, etc.) whenever they inevitably did something to piss me off and say "the line must be drawn here, this far, no farther".

[Scott5114]

However that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.

It might, but it's so hard to come up with a recent example nobody has done so...

[JayhawkCO]

However that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.

It might, but it's so hard to come up with a recent example nobody has done so...

Flaming Hot Cheetos increased market share and therefore profitability.

[jeffandnicole]

Scott5114 mentioned 2010 as a turning point. I agree with this. There were significant technological advances up to 2010. After that, not so much. The only differences I see between my first computer, a 2010 MacBook Pro, and my current one (2023) are that my current one has 500 GB of memory instead of 128 GB, and Python runs twice as fast likely due to the switch from Intel to Apple silicon. That's it.

Screen resolution better? 

[Henry]

This is just like the rumor that went around telling us that Facebook was going to charge its users to continue with its service. AFAIK, that was a stupid idea to begin with, and I'm glad it didn't come to pass. Hope the same will be true of this one too.

[Scott5114]

Screen resolution better?

I've been running at 1920x1080 since about 2010...

[Max Rockatansky]

This is just like the rumor that went around telling us that Facebook was going to charge its users to continue with its service. AFAIK, that was a stupid idea to begin with, and I'm glad it didn't come to pass. Hope the same will be true of this one too.

That rumor had several circulations over about a five year period.

[SEWIGuy]

Reddit is practically an institution at this point.  It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet.  Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways.  I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past.  The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more.  Where would I go?  Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy.  And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.

The world has built itself around a free Reddit.  Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results.  I do it all the time.  It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.

Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.

Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.

But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.

I think at this point it's coming down to the two of us having irreconcilably different fundamental beliefs.  As far as I'm concerned, the function businesses play in society is to provide goods and services to citizens.  Making money should be merely their reward for doing a good job at that, not their overriding purpose above all else.  You clearly take a different view on that.

How the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?

The fact is that you just don't want to pay for Reddit and your trying to build a moral / philosophical argument against a potential paywall, but you just aren't being logical.

[kalvado]

Reddit is practically an institution at this point.  It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet.  Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways.  I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past.  The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more.  Where would I go?  Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy.  And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.

The world has built itself around a free Reddit.  Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results.  I do it all the time.  It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.

Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.

Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.

But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.

I think at this point it's coming down to the two of us having irreconcilably different fundamental beliefs.  As far as I'm concerned, the function businesses play in society is to provide goods and services to citizens.  Making money should be merely their reward for doing a good job at that, not their overriding purpose above all else.  You clearly take a different view on that.

How the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?

The fact is that you just don't want to pay for Reddit and your trying to build a moral / philosophical argument against a potential paywall, but you just aren't being logical.

One of the jokes floating around is that a good programmer is not the one who wakes up thinking "my code would make a ton of money", but the one who wakes up to "my code would change the world". And frankly speaking reddit code did change the world...

[SEWIGuy]

However that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.

It might, but it's so hard to come up with a recent example nobody has done so...

*Automobiles are more expensive, but they are also way better now than they ever have been. Safer, more reliable, more "gadgets," etc.

*Movie theatres cost more, but have better seating options, and the sound and picture is better than ever.

*Phones are way more expensive than ever, but they do a million times more than the cell phones of decades ago.

I could list a dozen more if you want me to.

[MikeTheActuary]

Screen resolution better?

I've been running at 1920x1080 since about 2010...

I don't want to think about having to go back to 1920×1080.

I like my screen real estate, and I like the way that Microsoft Flight Simulator looks with high-end graphics cards that have come onto the market.   And the data-crunching and modeling I can do via my work computers... I'm doing stuff today that I could barely dream about (or had no realistic chance of getting a budget and time to do the work with the contemporary technology) 15 years ago.

[jeffandnicole]

Screen resolution better?

I've been running at 1920x1080 since about 2010...

But what you're using doesn't mean ther hasn't been improvements. You're just choosing to use a feature you're comfortable with.

This is just like the rumor that went around telling us that Facebook was going to charge its users to continue with its service. AFAIK, that was a stupid idea to begin with, and I'm glad it didn't come to pass. Hope the same will be true of this one too.

You're confusing a rumor with an actual proposal. Facebook never came up with the idea and never proposed such, so there was never a "stupid idea" to begin with. And this rumor has been in circulation since 2009, yet people still continue to believe it when their friends forward or post the same false information.

[formulanone]

This is just like the rumor that went around telling us that Facebook was going to charge its users to continue with its service. AFAIK, that was a stupid idea to begin with, and I'm glad it didn't come to pass. Hope the same will be true of this one too.

That rumor had several circulations over about a five year period.

I've thought charging people for terrible posts and comments might be enough to guarantee never needing advertisements again...