Reddit is removing its current coins and awards system on September 12th. Users will no longer be able to buy awards like Reddit Gold to give to other users’ posts. Reddit says the current awards system is too cluttered and confusing, so they plan to introduce a new simpler system in the coming months that will allow users to reward each other in a more meaningful way. Many users are unhappy about the removal of the awards system without a replacement ready. Some are also frustrated that Reddit is not providing compensation for the coins users have already purchased. While details of the new system are vague, it appears Reddit may allow users to cash out their gold and karma for real money.
Personally I wouldn’t get rid of my primary source of funding without having a ready replacement during a time of financial trouble, but they do them, I guess…
First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards
Yeah, because the only award that ever mattered to most users was gold. They messed that up, and now they’re going to mess up even more.
I used to buy gold sometimes, which was always a waste of money but I could at least justify the $3.99 for the meme or whatever when I really liked somebody’s comment or post, but I never spent a single cent on awards after they implemented the extended rewards system. Those awards were always laughably bad. They even locked some for premium users only. Just absolute clowns running that place.
It would be neat for Lemmy to have something like it. It’s a great way to self fund in an engaging way.
There probably needs to be a foundation or something that can distribute funds to instances though to prevent heavy consolidation by way of simple popularity based funding 🤔
My beef with them is it gives a comment an artificially high “vote” which tends to dominate the discussion (people feel it’s a higher quality comment point), even if the content on its own doesn’t merit it.
Just no. We already have a money raising method https://opencollective.com. This is how you donate to Beehaw and others.
So go donate and stop free loading if you have not already done so. The challenge is of course that free loading is so much fun.
I’ll have some sauerkraut with that schadenfreude please.
This is so stupid how they handled it, yet so on brand for how reddit handles things.