This Week in Reddit

Welcome to our 5th edition of ReddVisible.

See what you missed last week.

Alright, let’s jump right in to this week’s Reddit headlines….

This Week in Reddit

Here are some of the top stories about Reddit this week:

• The Value of Human (UGC): Some additional reporting on the shakedown of Microsoft (Bing) that I reported on last week.

• Reddit Wins, Wikipedia Loses? An interesting take on the decline of Wikipedia (dictionary sites) and the rise of UGC platforms.

• The Real Cost of the AI Gold Rush: Reddit features heavily in this story from Intelligencer.

• New Reddit Data and Insights: Some great nuggets from Lia Haberman on new Reddit stats and how brands are using Reddit for product feedback.

How will Reddit incentivize creators?

I do not have any profound answers here, but it is interesting to see how hard a bargain Reddit is driving with Google + Bing - demanding to get paid - while they themselves face a similar challenge with their community.

Right now, Reddit does have a very basic earnings program. But virtually no one makes significant money this way and it doesn’t seem properly aligned.

There is - of course -a chance Reddit just does nothing, in which case there are still MANY great ways to generate traffic and earnings from Reddit, just not officially sanctioned. It’s the Wild West.

There’s value in keeping it simple and free flowing.

But if they crack down on “self promotion” (itself a vague, unhelpful framework), then there may just be more elaborate strategies for skirting enforcement.

As a thought exercise, here are some ways Reddit could more proactively incentivizes creators & build monetization layers:

• Subscriptions: Similar to X, it would be fairly easy for Reddit to add a premium “subscription” option. This could be one of the most powerful tools as it requires the least engineering. Reddit could then infringe a bit on Substack, Beehiiv, X, and even Skool’s territory.

• eCommerce Marketplace: Similar to TikTok, Reddit could launch a marketplace for creators to sell things. Probably not a direct fit for their audience, but could work. They could also lean more towards a Facebook marketplace approach for local markets (local is a large community avatar on Reddit).

• Ad Network: Reddit could properly incentivize and (finally) pay moderators by providing a rev share component that could map impressions to specific communities.

• Tokenization: If Reddit wanted to go full blockchain while incentivizing the community, I can envision a crypto-based solution for rewarding community oriented + helpful behavior on Reddit.

• App Marketplace: Similar to the Shopify ecosystem, Reddit could decide to open source their “CMS” and allow community moderators to add paid enhancements to their communities.

• Kickstarter: I often say that Reddit is a more effective solution than Product Hunt for getting new brands the critical visibility they need early on. I could see Reddit rolling out a Kickstarter model to leverage their incredible community network effects.

Reddit Software & Tools

The Reddit ecosystem for tools, software, and related apps is particularly underdeveloped for the #3 platform in the world.

I’m tracking the new tools that pop on my radar here:

• KWatch.io: An all source UGC social listening and monitoring platform, includes Reddit.

• GummySearch: The first dedicated Reddit intel suite I’ve seen, great for monitoring communities, tracking keywords, and doing more advanced keyword research.

• Karmalyzer: I’m an early user of this “Reddit health” app. Still early, but I love the concept of monitoring this.

• RedditInsights.ai: Found this one, a good way to group and approximate topic interest from Reddit. A super scraper.

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I’m “all in” on Reddit right now as the fastest way to acquire users and build community.

As such, my course is a fluid, evolving project. I’m adding new modules weekly!

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That’s it for this week!