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Reddit could be working on a Contributor program, letting top contributors earn real-world money from the gold and karma they receive.

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

TL;DR

• Code within the official Reddit app suggests that the company is working on a Contributor program.

• Redditors in the US could earn real money for the gold and karma that their posts and comments receive.

• This will likely be subject to minimum withdrawal thresholds.

Reddit has been in the news recently for its API changes that killed popular Reddit apps and the subreddit protests that followed the announcement. The company believes the official Reddit app is all you need for a great community experience. We say the Reddit app is good for giving us a sneak peek at what the company is working on. In the near future, Reddit could introduce a Contributor program that will reward community contributors with real-world money.

An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.

Reddit v2023.27.0 for Android includes code that suggests that the online community platform is looking for ways to incentivize the community to be more proactive. Similar to how other platforms reward creators, Reddit could be exploring ways that would let community members convert the gold and karma they have received from other community members into real-world money that they can cash out. Check out the references below.

Code

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. The code suggests that the program will initially have two tiers: Contributor and Top Contributor. Top Contributors will have better rates.

Further, from what we can discern, the payout could use Reddit gold as a currency, while the karma accumulated could be used to improve the rate of exchange for Reddit gold into real-world money (possibly USD). Note that the community itself passes around Reddit gold and karma to each other. Reddit gold is purchased with real-world money, while karma is a net figure of upvotes and downvotes on comments and posts.

Before you get too excited, the program appears to have some constraints around eligibility:

Code

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 With a threshold of 10 gold and 100 karma for verification, the bare minimum is set at a high enough point to not be easy to game. Contributors will have to further earn an unspecified number of gold and karma each month to be eligible for payouts within the program.

Here is what could be the necessary information needed for verification:

Code

Provide the following information to get verified for the program and start earning:

• Email
• Personal Information
• Tax and bank account information The verification appears to be powered by Persona and Stripe.

Code

Once you hit the payment threshold, you'll automatically be paid out via your Stripe account.

• Approximate calculation before fees. Exchange rate and payment thresholds are subject to change. The payout threshold is not mentioned within the code, and neither is the monthly gold and karma requirement for being part of the contributor program.

Curiously, unlike the creator programs of other social platforms, Reddit’s purported Contributor Program will be routing community-purchased gold and karma back into the community. We could not locate any mentions of Contributors receiving any part of ad or subscription revenue from the platform, which is usually how the creator programs of other platforms work. In effect, the community would be incentivizing the community.

Do you think Reddit's contributor program is a good idea?

Note that the program, so far, does not explicitly mention any community moderators within its ambit, and no incentives have been carved out for them. However, since Reddit has not made any official announcements, things could change by the time the program goes live.

We’ve reached out to Reddit for comments and more information. We’ll update the article when we hear back from them.

This makes me want to downvote my own submission.

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.