Excerpts from the link:
Fake internet points are finally worth something!
Now redditors can earn real money for their contributions to the Reddit community, based on the karma and gold they've been given.
How it works:
- Redditors give gold to posts, comments, or other contributions they think are really worth something.
- Eligible contributors that earn enough karma and gold can cash out their earnings for real money.
- Contributors apply to the program to see if they're eligible.
- Top contributors make top dollar. The more karma and gold contributors earn, the more money they can receive.
Not just anyone can be a contributor. To join and stay in the program, contributors need to meet a few requirements:\
- Be over 18 and live in the U.S.
- Only Safe for Work contributions qualify
- Earn xx gold and karma each month
- Provide verification information. You must have at least 10 gold and 100 karma to begin verification.
- NSFW accounts aren't eligible for the Contributors Program
Here's my take on this. Since this is from the latest version of Reddit's ~~broken browser for a single site~~ "official app", it's likely a recent development, triggered by recent changes in the platform. Reddit Inc. is likely worried about contributors leaving due to the app-pocalypse, and is trying to counter it by throwing them some spare cash.
And I'm going to be honest: holy fuck this sounds like a Bad Idea®. For three reasons.
The first one is demographics; since 47% of the users are Americans, and 21% of them are 10-19yo, it's safe to say that ~60% of the users are ineligible, and thus will only contribute for free.
Will they? People often don't mind contributing for free, as long as the others are in the same page. The picture changes once you get at least someone making money out of it - odds are that those 60% will disengage further.
The second reason is that Reddit Inc. is disregarding the fluff principle. If the money threshold is the number of upvotes and awards that someone gets per period of time, why would the person bother with high quality content? Or even quality content at all - it's easy to make up for lack of quality with quantity. For example, setting up a simple bot to scrape the top posts and repost them. (Is Reddit expecting the mods to delete those reposts? OH WAIT)
The third and final reason is who you expect to give awards to those people, before they feel pissed and discouraged and leave the program, breaking even further their trust in the platform. Who would even buy Reddit gold on first place? The Reddit community has been outright mocking Reddit gold for years, and the suckers actually buying it were the ones who were the most engaged and emotionally attached to the platform, to the point that they're willing to "help" it. (As if corporations need help, but whatever.) It would be a shame if Reddit happened to piss off exactly that demographic... like it did.
I wonder if after this Silicon Valley realizes that there's no infinite growth/money/potential and stops trying to position shit as such. Just make a product that holds up and doesn't fold like a house of cards when it finally is being monetized.
Edit: And as a totally separate point, think about the mods! Loads of more work and zero pay while spammers "get rich".
No. There's too much money attached to it to stop.
The reality is, the Valley is capitalism on speed, but it's still capitalism. All the underlying mechanisms are the same as in the "conventional" economy, just turned up to 11.
"Those are landed gentry. We the King of Reddit, Steve "Jailbait Mod" Huffman, are free to decide whom We shall benefit".
On the Silicon ~~Hole~~ Valley: they're probably aware of that, so the strategy is to cash out before you hit the cap.
Because people don't live that long, stay in the same place long enough to suffer their own short term consequences.
They can wait you out. They also make others usefull idiots that install their computers that do things for their true masters. They get others to violate your rights.
"Smart things" rant: Ads can be thoght of as propaganda, psycological war tactics. "Smart" things are pushed on (at least) amaricans really intensely. Building these really sexy displays as close to the front as possable (pushing unsposored otems to the unsexy isles) showing this omnipotent caring girlfriend in a small box some come with a monitor. Saying "Hi, im alexa. This is a small but high quality speaker I can talk to you from... (im verry buisness casual but will show my compassion)" Thats the carrots, what about the sticks? Its Burrying the inventory or the idea of the non "Smart" products. "People are too stupid or lazy to look for whats not right in front of them" - some psycologists... I think . The idea that your security cameras need to be "Smart" or it will be bulky and the footage is going to "the cloud" because where else would you put it? A cheep flash drive?