Reddit Publicizes Removal of ‘Reddit Gold’ In-App Awards System

Confusing times over at Reddit, because the platform continues to clash with its user community – which, in Reddit’s case, can also be largely its moderation team, its content management engine, etc.

The usage of volunteer mods for every subreddit essentially meshes the user/host dynamic, which in Reddit’s case, has often meant that the platform has needed to bow to users greater than it would really like.

It’s now looking to handle this imbalance.

As some subreddit mods proceed their strike motion in response to Reddit upping the worth of its API access (putting popular third-party apps out of the market), Reddit’s now also announced that it’s ending its popular Reddit Gold offering, which provides a way for users to acknowledge one another with a type of in-app currency.

Reddit Gold, a part of its Reddit Premium subscription program (subscribers get 700 Reddit coins per 30 days), provides a method for users to award their favorite creators within the app. You may’t exchange these awards for money, or use them for anything aside from acknowledgment. Besides, they’ve develop into a crucial element throughout the Reddit ecosystem.  

And now they’re going away.

As explained by Reddit:

“Many eons ago, Reddit introduced something called Reddit Gold. Gold then evolved, and we introduced recent awards including Reddit Silver, Platinum, Ternium, and Argentium. And the evolution continued from there. While we saw lots of the awards used as a fun technique to recognize contributions out of your fellow redditors, looking back at those eons, we also saw consistent feedback on awards as an entire. First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right away, but who’s counting?) and all of the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more invaluable to the recipient.”

Because of this, Reddit’s now ending this system entirely:

“It’s develop into clear that awards and coins as they exist today have to be re-thought, and the prevailing system sunsetted. Rewarding content and contribution (in addition to something golden) will still be a core a part of Reddit. We’ll share more in the approaching months as to what this recent future looks like.”

So Reddit is trying to introduce another type of acknowledgment, likely in the shape of an in-app coin with increased utility. However the removal of Reddit Gold is unlikely to be popular amongst Reddit’s core users – and with out a specific alternative as yet, the announcement’s prone to cause more redditor unrest.

Though Reddit, as noted, is already working to implement a clearer division between users and platform management, as a method to wrest power back to its side.

In a recent interview with NBC, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said that the platform’s mods had develop into too powerful, and vowed to alter the principles to dilute this.

As per Huffman:

“When you’re a politician or a business owner, you might be accountable to your constituents. So a politician must be elected, and a business owner could be fired by its shareholders. And I feel, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The individuals who get there first get to remain there and pass it right down to their descendants, and that isn’t democratic.”

Huffman’s comments got here in response to the API protest, with Huffman noting that many users were actually in support of Reddit’s moves, even when moderators weren’t. That meant that these moderators could lock Reddit users out of the system, which, in keeping with Huffman, isn’t sustainable.

Which makes much more sense when you furthermore mght consider that Reddit’s trying to launch an IPO sometime soon, and if moderators still hold the reigns, that would impact its revenue potential. This was also highlighted throughout the protest motion, with moderators making their communities private, or switching them to ‘NSFW’, each actions that make them ineligible for ads.

Evidently Reddit management is now determined to re-establish its hierarchical structure, and water down mod controls. Whether this alternative Reddit payment offering will link into that is yet to be seen, but Reddit seems particularly motivated to reduce the influence of mods, in whatever ways it could possibly.

Which is also disastrous for the platform, long-term. In line with research conducted by Northwestern University, Reddit’s volunteer mod army performs at least $3.4 million value of labor annually.

That’s quite a bit for Reddit to interchange, if push got here to shove.

And with Reddit continuing to make unpopular moves, like erasing user chat histories, it looks like further clashes are inevitable.

How will that impact Reddit’s business plans, and might Reddit use this as a pathway to effective restructure?

Paraphrasing Yoda: ‘Begun the Mod Wars have’.