Zero percent chance this isn’t a cover to launch something more predatory for monetization reasons.
Well, Joey for reddit just stopped working, … Coincidentally, I think not
I don’t want to give Reddit any traffic so I’m reposting the content here:
Hi all,
I’m u/venkman01 from the Reddit product team, and I’m here to give everyone an early look at the future of how redditors award (and reward) each other.
TL;DR: We are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. As part of this, we made a decision to sunset coins (including Community coins for moderators) and awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards), which also impacts some existing Reddit Premium perks. Starting today, you will no longer be able to purchase new coins, but all awards and existing coins will continue to be available until September 12, 2023.
Many eons ago, Reddit introduced something called Reddit Gold. Gold then evolved, and we introduced new awards including Reddit Silver, Platinum, Ternium, and Argentium. And the evolution continued from there. While we saw many of the awards used as a fun way to recognize contributions from your fellow redditors, looking back at those eons, we also saw consistent feedback on awards as a whole. First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right now, but who’s counting?) and all the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more valuable to the recipient.
It’s become clear that awards and coins as they exist today need to be re-thought, and the existing system sunsetted. Rewarding content and contribution (as well as something golden) will still be a core part of Reddit. We’ll share more in the coming months as to what this new future looks like.
On a personal note: in my several years at Reddit, I’ve been focused on how to help redditors be able to express themselves in fun ways and feel joy when their content is celebrated. I led the product launch on awards – if you happen to recognize the username – so this is a particularly tough moment for me as we wind these products down. At the same time, I’m excited for us to evolve our thinking on rewarding contributions to make it more valuable to the community.
Why are we making these changes?
We mentioned early this year that we want to both make Reddit simpler and a place where the community empowers the community more directly.
With simplification in mind, we’re moving away from the 50+ awards available today. Though the breadth of awards have had mixed reception, we’ve also seen them - be it a local subreddit meme or the “Press F” award - be embraced. And we know that many redditors want to be able to recognize high quality content.
Which is why rewarding good content will still be part of Reddit. Though we’d love to reveal more to you all now, we’re in the process of early testing and feedback, so aren’t ready to share official details just yet. Stay tuned for future posts on this!
What’s changing exactly?
Awards - Awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards) will no longer be available after September 12.
Reddit Coins - Coins will be deprecated, since Awards will be going away. Starting today, you’ll no longer be able to purchase coins, but you can use your remaining coins to gift awards by September 12.
Reddit Premium - Reddit Premium is not going away. However, after September 12, we will discontinue the monthly coin drip and Premium Awards. Other current Premium perks will still exist, including the ad-free experience.
Note: As indicated in our User Agreement past purchases are non-refundable. If you’re a Premium user and would like to cancel your subscription before these changes go into effect, you can find instructions here.
What comes next?
In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about a new direction for awarding that allows redditors to empower one another and create more meaningful ways to reward high-quality contributions on Reddit.
I’ll be around for a while to answer any questions you may have and hear any feedback!
thanks for posting here. I have no idea who the venkman01 is but the way they worded that post is borderline cringe
Official reddit posts are always cringey. They unironically call people “Snoos”.
Gesundheit?
Anyways, who has time and energy to read such a dumb, way too long post?
But why?
If you got an award, you could get free premium for a month. Of course, that’s a no go if Reddit wants you to pay them money.
Either they are dumb or I am.
Though we’d love to reveal more to you all now, we’re in the process of early testing and feedback, so aren’t ready to share official details just yet.
So they are killing cashflow at this crucial point and any possible replacement is “in the process of early testing and feedback”? WTF? Am I missing something?
Why is everyone so negative? Good on them for killing some stupid feature that nobody really liked. Yes, they’ll bring another even worse feature but luckily no one here is impacted by that.
I think the worst part is they are retroactively removing awards. If I spent money on a useless virtual award, I’d want it to stay there in perpetuity.
Take a screenshot.
I’ve got 14600 coins to spend. What should I do with them? Don’t want to benefit Reddit…
Let them go to waste. Using them is engagement and could possibly lead to other people buying them.
I bet they replace awards with some NFT crypto bullshit
They’ll introduce Moons, as used in r/CryptoCurrency, site wide. Ticks all the right boxes of a monetization scheme, and the value even appreciates when people are forced to buy Moons.
Mostly I don’t understand why they are announcing this without sharing what they’re doing instead
Maybe they want to give 60 days grace period instead of 30 days grace period this time.
It’s so stupid though. “We will remove the stuff you bought. We won’t tell you what we plan to do instead though.” smh
A little crazy theory:
Maybe they hope that by disabling awards in September there suddenly will be a lot less premium users. Gold and platinum gave a week and a month after all. So there will be a sudden spike in ad revenue just before the planed IPO.
