Reddit's pausing its paid subreddit plans and focusing on 'making Reddit the go-to place for search,' presumably because we're all adding 'reddit' to everything we Google anyway

After teasing the idea of paid subreddits for "exclusive content or private areas" last year, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in a thread discussing the company's latest earnings call that work on the feature has been sidelined (via The Verge). Instead, Reddit is prioritizing its existing strengths—like being one of the few ways to still get useful search results in the era of steadily degrading Google quality.

"To stay focused on what matters most, we’re shifting resources away from a few areas, such as work on the user economy. This includes what some have referred to as paid subreddits," Huffman said. "It’s still an opportunity we believe in, but right now, we're all-in on strengthening our core product, making Reddit the go-to place for search, and accelerating international growth."

Elsewhere, Huffman said that employees "previously working on user economy will join our efforts to improve the core app, including onboarding and personalization." I'm sure we're all saluting the company's pursuit of accelerating growth and improved user onboarding with the appropriate level of mandated corporate enthusiasm. Blessed be the shareholders.

Corpospeak aside, calling Reddit "the go-to place for search" probably isn't an exaggeration. During the earnings call, Huffman said that "60 million seekers land on Reddit in search of better answers for their questions" every day. Considering we've all gotten in the habit of appending "reddit" to our search strings to try and dredge the recommendations of actual human beings from the slop-sodden AI swamp of Google search results, I'm inclined to believe it.

Throughout the earnings call, Huffman referred to the importance of maintaining Reddit as a place for actual human beings to interact and exchange information. While I appreciate the sentiment, it's best to remind ourselves that it doesn't come from a place of altruism, as Huffman told another redditor in the earnings call thread.

"We've learned a lot in the last year," Huffman said. "Namely, that Reddit content is extremely valuable and essential to many AI products."

At least we get to know we're a sought-after product, I suppose. After news broke in April about unsanctioned AI experiments being run on redditors, however, you have to wonder just how much of the sanctity of human interaction Reddit is able to maintain.

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