Fire up your best memes because Reddit has unveiled a plan to compensate its top posters.
Starting Tuesday in the US, the social media site said it will split revenue with users who are awarded “gold” from their fellow users. Gold has long been a part of the Reddit ecosystem, with users paying a fee to reward posts they enjoy with golden upvotes.
Now, gold awards will range from $1.99 to $49 (£40), the company said, with users eligible to receive up to half that amount.
The decision has been met with mixed feelings from Redditors and sparked debate about the kind of content it incentivizes.
"I think Reddit had to find a way to reward its most valuable users," social media expert Matt Navarra said, as reported by BBC News. "To incentivise top creators, you need to provide opportunities for them to generate an income, either by paying them directly, or by giving them tools to generate an income from their fans."
However, Navarra compared Reddit’s decision to X-formerly-Twitter’s move to reward Premium members with ad revenue tied to the number of impressions their Tweets earn.
"This incentivizes X users to post content that sparks the most replies, and the characteristics of content that typically generates the most replies is content that is divisive, polarising, provocative, and controversial... exactly the sort of content that brands do not want to have their ads placed amongst,” he said.
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