Reddit is putting its plans to introduce paid subreddits on ice—at least temporarily.
In a recent question-and-answer session, the company’s CEO Steve Huffman said that these paid communities are “still an opportunity we believe in,” but said that for the time being Reddit will focus on strengthening its core product, and making itself “the go-to place for search.” Huffman told readers that members of the Reddit team working on “user economy” will instead be redirected to working on improving the core app, as well as things like onboarding and personalization.
“That gets at our most important need today, which is logged-in core user growth,” added Huffman.
Though the CEO doesn’t mention it explicitly, this may be a nod to Reddit Answers. This is a chatbot-like feature the platform is currently testing which answers your questions using data collected from millions of threads on Reddit.
Earlier this year, Huffman said plans for paid content were still a “work in progress” but said they would be introduced at some point in 2025. To be clear, the company’s plans for paid content never meant that users would have to start paying to access their commonly-used subreddits. Instead, paywalls would only apply to new subreddits, not existing ones already popular with users.
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Huffman explained that these new paid subreddits “will unlock the door for new use cases, new types of subreddits that can be built that may have exclusive content or private areas—things of that nature.”
Since Reddit went public for the first time in its two decade-long-history in March 2024, we’ve seen more and more news from Reddit’s top brass about how the popular platform can eke out more revenue from its users. These include ideas introducing in-app payments, meaning users wouldn’t need to head to a third-party mobile payment app like PayPal or Venmo to complete transactions. It’s also signed a $60 million data licensing deal with Google alongside other licensing deals with Wall Street firms, and made the controversial move of charging developers for API access in 2023 (prompting widespread outrage within its community).
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About Will McCurdy
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