Re:Reddit is still in turmoil
by mrcsparker on Friday July 22, 2016 @10:41AM
(#12143795)
It might work with Reddit. The cost of creating a new subreddit is zero, so people can move from poorly handled communities.
Reddit is struggling for money, but they have an amazing platform to test out ideas on. Out of their millions of users one person should be able to come up with a way to monetize the platform. Google did this with their ads: the most popular ads get rewarded.
If I was a moderator and I was given a list of options to generate revenue for Reddit (and myself or my community) I would have to consider it. Maybe I have a community that reviews widgets and I can link to stores that have the best deals for highly reviewed widgets. It is transparent to the community, gives everyone a good deal, and pays for Reddit.
I've seen a lot of sites try this, and I'm trying it myself on my own site.
However, it can very easily go wrong. If you restrict it to mods (like said here), you incentivise them to only allow topics that advertisers might like (at the expense of the community). Or only topics which can get clicks from average Joes that pass by every now and then.
If you provide revenue sharing in general, you often then incentivise spam by giving people a reason to post as quickly as possible to get their ads up there. It's why Digitalpoint scrapped the idea; quality was in the gutter because of it.