I just said this yesterday or two days ago when they announced they were going to start paying people for content, but it truly is amazing how Reddit can find another significant thing that will hurt them as a business and move forward with it.

It seems like they'd run out of things that could significantly hurt their business, they just keep finding something else.

Soon they're going to be down to basic features, And they'll be like hey look so hyperlinks don't work anymore. And then that'll be the end of the press release.

Their "business decisions" are insane right now.

It's very difficult to see this procession of self-mutilation technologically in another light other than deliberate corporate suicide. Like is someone going to benefit if Reddit goes bankrupt? Is that what's happening?

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!

Pour one out for the OG.

I bet they just don't like seeing all the awards go to fuck u/Spez posts.

First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards

"Hide Awards" in settings?

It's almost like they're allergic to working on their app.

It's good that Reddit did this today because the memes on the fediverse have been extremely good lately. Reddit Remainers checking it out will find a fun, active community

You can always tell when a community is going downhill when they say they're "empowering users" with their latest changes. They're never actually empowering anyone but the shareholders to make more money.

NO WAY HAHAHAHA

What's reddit?

I paid for Reddit gold back in the day, I really enjoyed the ability to selectively gift gold to comments.

When they replaced gold with coins I ended up unsubscribing. The coins felt like they devalued what gold actually was.

I think it's fair that they want to revisit the feature, but shutting off a revenue stream a month after they made such a big deal about charging for API access, it feels to me like they are lacking common direction and priorities within the company...

If I was a VC, I would want a glut of ad-sensitive, lowest common denominator users. Think your Aunt on Facebook, or your sister on VSCO, or your young nephew on TikTok. I don’t think those people are necessarily attracted to the overall community attitude(s) currently on Reddit.

I would never call the ex-Hacker News/Digg Redditors smart. But.

Those users do have certain proclivities that make them EXTREMELY unattractive to investment dollars. Strong interest in anti-mainstream topics, including the 3Ps (Privacy, Piracy, and Pornography) doth not good ROI make. This exodus of users and elimination of features, outside looking in, seems like a misstep. I’d be skeptical.

I see the "follow twitter" business model is proceeding.

"We're having cash flow issues? What should we do?" "I know! Lets cancel the one thing that we're doing that people are just giving us money for!" "Brilliant!"

Lol. This venkman guy claims credit for creating the awards when it was reddit users who started the semi-ironic (and free) Reddit Gold shit.

I feel like I'm standing on the shores of sanity while I watch Reddit sail off into the sunset.

Except the whole ship is on fire and everyone is fighting each other.

wish me luck :) I'll keep you updated.

You dare link me to that vile place?!

I really wonder what @ChristianSelig thinks of this

Twitter and Reddit seem bent on crashing popular social media sites. If they vanished completely tomorrow along with Facebook, what would be left?

Man. What the actual hell is Reddit doing? They’ve been making the most suicidal business decisions this year. Blocking third party apps, they piss off a huge active portion of their user base but sure, you could say they weren’t paying anyway. But now they’re screwing over their PAYING users? I don’t even know what they expect at this point.

Wonder if this is connected to that leaked contributor/paid karma thing that got leaked a few days ago