When a person searches for something and clicks a Reddit link, Reddit instantly knows exactly what that person wants. Advice about which widget to buy, or how to solve a problem or whatever. That seems like an incredibly valuable data point for advertisers, way more so than vague guesses about demographics.<p>Is the ad business so bad these days that they can't effectively monetize this? It seems like they're flailing around in desperation instead of leveraging their core advantages.
Reddit already shot itself in the head shortly before its IPO.<p>The sycophants at the top have cashed out, and the corpse is just still falling towards the ground.
So the headline is worrying, and I think a bit clickbaity. If the idea was to take e.g. r/iama or NSFW subreddits or something and require a paid subscription then that would suck, and is clearly the spectre the headline is trying to raise.<p>But the actual suggestion seems to be more along the lines of a competitor to patreon-linked discords, where patrons get access to a specific community, which is fine? As long as Reddit doesn't ban other subreddits discussing the same topics as the paid subreddits, they can be safely ignored if it's not your thing.