this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Reddit will start paying you real money for your karma (techcrunch.com)
submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Reddit will start paying you real money for your karma::Reddit announced a contributor program on Monday, which awards users actual, real money for their fake internet points. Now, eligible users will be able

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[–] FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 98 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So far, the Reddit contributor program is limited to users in the United States (to start, at least) who are over the age of 18 and can verify their identity via Persona and Stripe.

Guys, here's the real reason. So they can positively identify you. Evidently this is how much that knowledge is worth. They can probably then start selling your posted data to other companies that have also "verified" you via Persona and Stripe. Once those datasets start getting linked together, well I will let your imagination run with that.

[–] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 35 points 1 year ago

Millions will sign up anyway, and we will see a rat race worst than Youtube. Content will be repost of a repost of a repost of a repost of a repost, comment will be the wittiest of the wittiest without substance, whole platform's opinion will tilt toward what's popular just for that sweet sweet gold(now can be cashed out!), and spez will still have that punchable face.

[–] Sygheil@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

My initial thought. Whenever you do shit on reddit like sailing the high seas and doing some serious stuff. Once you opt in and be verified it can be linked back to you. No more masked on a account on who is behind this and that. Easy catch

[–] Trev625@lemm.ee 81 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"But there are concerns that programs like this can incentivize spammy posting, or 'engagement bait.' "

The cryptocurrency subreddit started this a while back with their Moons and it completely changed how the whole subreddit worked. The monetary incentive seems to ruin any sort of natural engagement.

[–] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 44 points 1 year ago

Reminds me of the Behavioral Economics classic case of the daycare that started charging for late pickup. Instead of disincentivizing bad behavior, it assigned a price to a service which people became happy to pay, when prior they avoided doing it due to social stigma.

[–] Tibert@compuverse.uk 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There aren't just concerns, it's a f prediction.

redditors need to earn at least 10 gold within a 30-day period — if they don’t reach the threshold, the balance rolls over. For users with between 100 and 4,999 karma, they will receive $0.90 per 1 gold. Once you earn more than 5,000 karma, you can earn $1 per gold.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

Do you think people will buy gold for spam and click bait, though? It's basically a person paying $2 to give the poster $1. Who's going to give money to clickbait?

What it will do is spawn some heavy, heavy super users that will just immediately post every article as soon as it drops from a swath of different websites in hopes of getting paid.

[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 66 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you thought karma farming on reddit was bad before...

[–] auf@lemmy.ml 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It will make Reddit even more toxic a community.

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hard disagree, bots cant be toxic

[–] spudwart@spudwart.com 3 points 1 year ago

You clearly didn’t browse prequelmemes back just before the Reddit exodus.

[–] FarceMultiplier@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't feel bad for deleting my account with 120,000+ karma.

[–] Kefass@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

If you don't get 10 gold each months this karma is 0 dollars

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I didn't remove mine but I don't use it. It sits idle there.

[–] Wooshock@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They should have just given the money to good moderators that clean up their shitty platform

[–] ram@bookwormstory.social 19 points 1 year ago

No they won't. You need to be getting 10 gold every 30 days. The only people who may get anything of value from this are people who own large subreddits that can set posts by approval only any time news is about to drop.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So... how long before groups of accounts start colluding to upvote each other and generate revenue? like, less than minute? What will prevent bot accounts from upvoting to generate karma?

This can't possibly last more than month before it gets seriously exploited, at which point the company will have to refuse to pay out.

[–] IHawkMike@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The title is a bit misleading but it doesn't sound like karma can actually be converted to real money.

Reddit gold is going to cost $2 to buy and awarding a user can give them $1 of that if they have over 5,000 karma. Between 100 and 4,999 it's $0.90 per gold.

~~And you have to receive at least 10 gold in a month to be eligible~~. Edit: it apparently rolls over.

Fuck /u/spez

[–] Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

They do now have an extra incentive to manipulate voting to give posts visibility.

[–] hydrospanner@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Article title is misleading vs the text.

Everything I read suggests that Reddit will pay you out for Reddit Gold your account earned, not karma.

[–] Gazumi@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Sadly we're not together anymore. We tried to work it out, but I needed to move on and put that behind me.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To withdraw money, redditors need to earn at least 10 gold within a 30-day period — if they don’t reach the threshold, the balance rolls over.

Weak.

[–] Lauchs@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Super unpopular opinion but, I do think there will have to be some middle ground. All of us in Lemmy can see the issues with something beautiful and free thing like this. It exists only thanks to highly skilled people putting in ridiculous hours and the donations of a few folks but shuts down, has trouble scaling up etc.

If we want Lemmy to get big enough that the niche communities thrive, we'll probably need to figure out a way to pay the devs, probably moderators and if we want truly engaging content, the posters.

I don't know what that looks like but the flip side of the "there are only low effort memes and few good in depth discussions" is that we gwt what we pay for. If we don't want ads, some form of direct albeit minimal payment seems like an eventual solution.

[–] jmp242@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Honestly I think the best solution would be what ISPs used to do. They would bundle basic email and usenet and web page with your monthly internet access account. You could pay extra if you needed more, either to the ISP or to a specialist provider. The ISP also helped you connect so non techies could still use email etc. More expensive providers like AOL would provide chat and forums too.

But we've stripped internet access to data access, basically web site loading. I don't think you fix it though because you have to be pretty techie to understand why you'd want a non ad based email provider, forget about why you'd want lemmy / fediverse or usenet, chat etc.

[–] sturmblast@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but don't worry they'll still ban you for complete bullshit reasons

[–] jackoneill@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

for real....my last account, i got banned from r/antiwork for saying eat the rich in relevant context. i appealed the ban, appeal denied. i PM'ed the mod and called him a hypocrite, account banned from reddit for mod harassment. appealed that, was told that was indeed harassment. they killed the API a few months later so I never got around to making another one

[–] ShunkW@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I had a similar experience. I don't even remember the sub, but I was banned so I asked why I was banned. Site banned for mod harassment for asking a question. Sucks for them cuz they banned a bunch of bot accounts that I ran as well. This was pre API changes so they still provided value.

A few mods reached out to ask if they could have the bot code but I was like, fuck Reddit lol.

[–] sucricdrawkcab@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Nah, I'm good on that.

[–] spudwart@spudwart.com 9 points 1 year ago

I don’t care who Reddit sends I’m not logging in.

[–] fruitleatherpostcard@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ha ha! The Asian bot / spam accounts will be going MENTAL.

Those guys you see with 20 phones will need a bigger rack for 100.

[–] MooseBoys@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

bot / spam accounts will be going MENTAL

You can’t earn money this way using bots. Even with full control of an arbitrarily large set of bots, the best you can do is get out 50 cents for every dollar you put in.

[–] fruitleatherpostcard@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

That’s still potentially a 50% increase in profits for sold accounts

[–] Copythis@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can I just cash out my karma? I need money lol

[–] cyanide@mander.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

Reminds me of How can I convert GTA money into real money

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

You could already sell your high karma accounts for real money on the black market.

[–] Chickenstalker@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh no. What will happen if I run a bot farm of 10,000 accounts that upvote my sock puppet account?

[–] pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You might just cover a portion of your infra costs

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Use someone else's infrastructure. (It wouldn't surprise me one bit if botnets ran a side hustle generating Reddit accounts to sell later.)

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Reddit announced a contributor program on Monday, which awards users actual, real money for their fake internet points.

Now, eligible users will be able to convert their Reddit gold and karma into fiat currency (no, not crypto), which is disbursed once per month.

So far, the Reddit contributor program is limited to users in the United States (to start, at least) who are over the age of 18 and can verify their identity via Persona and Stripe.

This feature was leaked about two months ago in Android Authority, when a reverse engineer found data about the program in an APK teardown.

To withdraw money, redditors need to earn at least 10 gold within a 30-day period — if they don’t reach the threshold, the balance rolls over.

Popular third-party apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, ReddPlanet and Sync have shut down after these changes.

The original article contains 412 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] who8mydamnoreos@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Could be making serious hay paraphrasing quotes from “The Meditations” and making witty remarks and saying absolutely nothing of value

[–] Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Please don't leave

[–] fruitleatherpostcard@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago

Ha ha! The Asian bot / spam accounts will be going MENTAL.

Those guys you see with 20 phones will need a bigger rack for 100.

[–] fruitleatherpostcard@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago

Ha ha! The Asian bot / spam accounts will be going MENTAL.

Those guys you see with 20 phones will need a bigger rack for 100.