The news: Reddit will introduce paywalls and more ads while also monetizing in-platform commerce.
The platform will roll out paid subreddits this year and plans to expand its contextual advertising. Reddit also wants to monetize user activity by allowing in-platform transactions for subreddits where users trade or sell items.
Walled communities: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman suggested on a 2024 earnings call that paywalls would only be added to new subreddits. “The existing altruistic, free version of Reddit will continue to exist … but now we will unlock the door for new use cases, new types of subreddits that [may] have exclusive content or private areas,” Huffman said.