Reddit recently released reddit gold, a monthly/yearly subscription service offering users new features at a cost. There has been some backlash on the site and many users (myself included) feel this goes against the spirit of the site.
However it could have even uglier consequences.
If you don’t know already, reddit is currently owned by Conde Nast, a $5 billion dollar magazine empire which itself is a subsidiary of Advanced Publications, the 46th largest privately owned company in the world.
The admins at the site are great but Conde Nast’s execs however are a different story. They’re basically stringing reddit along with an undersized budget while their magazine counter-parts burn cash, struggling to stay afloat in a drowning industry.
Over the past year Conde Nast has slashed their budget by 25% and closed five of their major magazine publications. So naturally when it comes to realizing the potential of reddit these people are fucking idiots.
But that’s a good thing.
Reddit is Conde Nast’s most read website. It’s 288th most used site in the world and 144th in the US. In fact Reddit is miles ahead of other more notable Conde Nasts sites like Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Wired. Real people with real money use reddit. Some of us with bucketloads of disposable income and some of us without.
But Conde Nast hasn’t put two and two together. To them reddit is their neglected orange-headed step child that they keep alive on a shoe-string budget.
What they haven’t figured out yet is that Reddit is the perfect marketing and distribution tool for their publication empire. Conde Nast makes content and reddit directs users to content.
Reddit is part of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate, the minute the site starts making significant amounts money the party’s over. The site, which somehow has magically flown under the radar, will be noticed by Conde Nast execs and things will change.
It will get ugly real fast.
Conde Nast will start infiltrating the reddit staff and making choices based on how to get more profit and not how to make the users happy. In fact current reddit users will probably be last on their list of people to impress, because the real target will be new users. Reddit will get a make over (it will become form over function), there’ll be MySpace-esque user profiles, any risque content will be filtered, control of subreddits will be slowly taken away… reddit will pretty much become a shittier version of digg.
So how do we stop this?
Don’t give reddit a dime, don’t subscribe to anything, keep reddit as the barebones haphazard mess it is. Because the moment there’s a drop of blood in the water and this site starts making real cash the sharks will start circling. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that’s a good thing.
2 Comments
I completely agree. Whenever the Bobby Kotick version of Conde Nast gets the idea they can actually make money off of Reddit it’s game over time.
And I wouldn’t worry about the ‘infiltrating’ part. It’s not going to be anything nearly as subtle. A VP will be tasked with the site he will tell the guys that make Reddit to shut the fuck up and get with the program or to get lost.
Then all the shit you mentioned will come to pass and it will indeed be game over.
Now that the Reddit Gold service is implemented I’ve already clicked a link that was only accessible to Gold members. It’s all downhill from here.
Nice, another loudmothed idiot who just doesn’t get it….
Ever heard of public TV?
Yea, this is basically the same situation.
We as users have been given a choice as to what direction we want the site to head…
Clueless people such as yourself keep bringing up the fact that Reddit is owned by CN, as if that’s supposed to mean something….
Reddit is still a relatively self contained entity….a LARGE and EXPENSIVE.
They could not do the whole Gold thing, but then they would HAVE to basically ruin the site with ads and such.
I don’t see what the BFD is you whiny douchebag….seriously. Almost every club has a champagne room….every car-wash has the deluxe package…
If you’re such a cheap little pussy then just get the economy package…jesus christ shut up, I’m sick of this crap.
You don’t wanna pay? Hey that’s fine…seriously….you get THE SAME THING you’ve been getting FOR FREE.
…and don’t try to give some shitty slippery slope argument because it’s just not valid in this situation. For one, there’s no reason to expect it…and for two that’s only valid in situations with alternatives….
…here we are talking about only two possible outcomes:
-maybe theoretically possibly, but probably not ruining the site with Gold
-DEFINITELY ruining it without gold
IF you don’t want Gold, hey…don’t buy it. In your case you it’d probably be a good idea as you clearly need the money to buy a clue.