Reddit kills awards and coins

I can only imagine we’re going to see it replaced with something altogether more exploitative.

The admin that posted that has been working on blockchain/crypto/NFT stuff for the last year… I can only imagine they have some awful plan relating to that.

So, any bets on what's the next feature that's getting killed?

My money's on old.reddit.com.

For those that don't want to give Reddit traffic, this is the post by the reddit admin:

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!

It's so on-brand for Reddit to announce killing these features without any explanation of what is to take its place. Just a vague mention of more communication "in the coming months".

How exciting.

Reminds me of when they killed Reddit Gifts/Secret Santa.

Reddit and Twitter are racing to see who can kill themselves faster.

We mentioned early this year that we want to both make Reddit simpler and a place where the community empowers the community more directly.

The community isn't empowered at all. u/spez is a dictator who doesn't care about the community.

This is half-confirmation for what Android Authority discovered in the app as the incoming “Reddit pays you for your content”.

For that to work, they have to remove coins and awards.

Could some please paste the post here? 🙏

Oh yay, spez is getting ready to piss off reddit again.

It hurt itself in its confusion

Yeah got this pm from Reddit:

* I only have premium because I was awarded Platinum. No way in hell I'd buy it.

I always disliked the crazy number of awards when they came our, it felt like they all suddenly became meaningless when there were so many. I will miss gold though, getting that shit always made you feel like a celebrity

Archive link.

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.

Might as well say "we're changing it because capybaras need to learn to fly better", as it makes as much logic as they said. (None.) Or just, you know, admit why you're actually doing it?

In the most lenient of the hypotheses, they might have been taking old feedback into account... but only after said feedback lose relevance. Users hated awards when they were implemented, as they were clearly a way to convert money into post promotion. Except that now users grew used to those awards, so their removal will be clearly met with resistance.

Another possibility is that they're trying to simplify the system not for the users, but for advertisers. Think about it: if Reddit plans to allow you to sell karma for money, perhaps it's also planning to allow you to buy karma with money. Advertisers would love this; instead of buying coins to grant themselves awards, now they would be able to buy an arbitrary amount of upvotes to boost their spam.

A third possibility is some unknown party bribing a few Reddit key positions here and there, to wreck their product on purpose. So when the IPO happens, Reddit prices are in the rock bottom, and the unknown party can buy the platform really cheap.

Frankly none of those things seem remotely sane for me. That's how puzzling their decision is in my view.

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.

So your actions did absolutely nothing, and now you're realising it? Might as well call yourself Epimetheus.

is reddit trying to kill their platform on purpose?

This is only good news for the lemmiverse

Soon: "Buy NFTs of your favourite comments and posts! The creators get crypto worth $0.50 for every purchase!"

Ugh, they're gonna replace awards with NFTs and crypto aren't they?

Who cares?

Well. There are no coins here. Are they really needed?

I gave all my coins away this morning to people who didn't need them. Thousands of coins from hundreds of awards over the years were distributed to the least deserving replies. Wewt! Bye, reddit.

Purged by creator