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?
Corpo scum are allergic to saying exactly what they mean, so they insist on hiding their intent behind flowery words that sound “good” to them. I guess they think that if they use weasel words, it’ll soften the blow when they decide to strip out features and further destroy their platforms.
Also he is using it wrong because “sunsetting” means a slow winding down. You know, because the sun doesn’t instantly turn off.
But they basically literally just suddenly turned off gold today, without any pre warning.
They have basically sent a message to everyone telling them they’ve already done it.
This made me realize I spend too much of my life reading and writing trash corporate speak because I breezed past most of this as yup, seems normal lol.
Sunsetting? Winding down? What are they? Dolores Ambridge? It sounds like they are sugarcoating a syrup.
Here’s the top comment and a few replies. There’s a lot like this:
You’re just taking coins, that we’ve paid cash for, with no consideration? Not even going to give us the equivalent value in premium time for our existing coins and coins we are going to end up not getting?
What a shit way to do things. It’s like they want to alienate the users who gave them money in the past
Exactly, this genuinely is the worst way I have EVER been scammed in my entire life.
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!
“Super-upvotes” will cost real money. There will still be normal upvotes of course, but content creators (and Reddit, of course) will be able to get real money. It’ll be like YouTube or Twitch and people will make Reddit a full-time gig.
It’ll start a commercialization wave that just results in clickbait and celebrities controlling the culture.
It’ll make them money though, and that’s all they care about.
