The recent giveaway of Reddit NFT avatars was met with a lot of interest from the community. Some crypto exchanges even offered them on their marketplaces allowing users to swap NFTs for other digital assets. With new waves of NFTs coming in, Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman tried to clarify his vision of the platform’s future but caused many skeptics to start discussing why it can be detrimental to the biggest internet forum.
Monetization for subreddits is potentially dangerous
During a podcast on his platform, Spez (Steve Huffman) was talking about the subreddit subscription model in which subreddits could provide valuable exclusive content to their members in exchange for money. The idea is to create a financial ecosystem with money flowing between users and communities allowing for effortless donations, payments, and purchases of goods.
Spez stated that he wants power users and visitors of the forum to be able to make a living from Reddit and feel potential in working within communities. He specifically mentioned the pride he experienced after seeing that real people made money by selling collectible avatars introduced as NFTs earlier this summer.
However, Redditors were not impressed by this news. Many think that this take is far from objective reality and that introducing monetization would turn the platform into a cesspool of bots competing for views killing the community and its ability to provide and share knowledge. The front page is already heavily curated and many subreddits are pushed into obscurity by the prevalence of mainstream communities that often overshadow niche sections of the forum where enthusiasts can share their tips with those who want to learn.
Many compared this move to Play-to-Earn games with Redditors racing toward making more filler content to just make money.
Moons need utility and purpose
Currently, Reddit Community Points (cryptocurrencies on Reddit) do not have any real utility outside of representing the intensity of interacting with content on specific parts of the forum. Bricks and Moons are two tokens from r/Fortnite and r/Cryptocurrency respectively. These are nothing but speculative assets and need a significant expansion of functionality before they can take off as something useful to end users.