Reddit, the popular online community and discussion platform, made a groundbreaking announcement on Monday: they will now reward users with real money in exchange for their virtual karma points. This new contributor program allows eligible users in the United States, aged 18 and above, to convert their Reddit gold and karma into fiat currency on a monthly basis.
Key Takeaway
Reddit’s introduction of a contributor program that rewards users with real money for their karma points is a groundbreaking move. This initiative provides an opportunity for active community members to monetize their engagement and incentivizes the creation of high-quality content. While concerns exist about potential spam and engagement bait tactics, this program marks a significant change in the way online communities can recognize and reward their users.
Earning Money through Karma
For those unfamiliar with Reddit’s system, karma points are earned when a user’s posts or comments receive upvotes from other community members. The amount of money a user can earn through this program is based on their accumulated karma. To withdraw the earnings, a minimum of 10 gold must be earned within a 30-day period. If this threshold is not reached, the balance will roll over to the next month.
Users with karma between 100 and 4,999 will be rewarded with $0.90 for every gold earned, while those with more than 5,000 karma will receive $1 per gold. This provides an incentive for users to actively engage in the community and produce quality content.
User Eligibility and Program Details
To ensure the legitimacy of the program, users must satisfy several criteria. Firstly, they need to verify their identity through Persona and Stripe. Additionally, accounts must be at least 30 days old, and only safe for work posts are eligible for monetization.
It’s worth noting that similar monetization programs have been introduced by other platforms, such as Twitter’s recent creator monetization program. However, concerns have been raised about incentivizing spammy posting and engagement bait tactics.
Changes to Reddit’s Gold Awards
In conjunction with this new program, Reddit is also making changes to its gold awards system. Previously, users could purchase coins to buy gold or other awards to give to high-quality posts. However, Reddit has simplified this process and now allows users to directly buy gold by long-pressing the upvote icon on the app or hovering over it on the desktop version.
Pricing for gold starts at $1.99 for one gold and goes up to $49.00 for 25 gold. Based on these prices, it can be estimated that Reddit retains around 50% of the payment, while top users earn $1 per gold. These changes will initially be implemented on the app and will be available on the web version later this year.
