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Is Reddit going all in on Web3?

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Is Reddit going all in on Web3?

#1
I was just browsing and noticed an add for a Staff Engineer Position at Reddit focusing on crypto and this was in the job description:

""" The Internet is the most important public square in history. It shapes economies and elections, relationships and futures. Yet it is controlled by a handful of powerful platforms, who shape the Internet to their own advantage.

People have lost trust in the Internet. They don’t have control over it, and they don’t own the things online that are most important to them. It is time for a change. A big one. We need a new model for how the Internet should work – one that puts people back in charge – and the Crypto team at Reddit is leading the way.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape the future of the Internet. The Crypto team is a special team at Reddit designed to take on a moonshot project: building an entirely new model for the Internet and social media on top of blockchain and decentralized technologies. With Reddit’s 500 million users and tens of thousands of communities, our goal is to reach widespread, mainstream adoption of a more decentralized Internet where people, not platforms, have real ownership and control.

The way there is not easy. We are looking for a Staff Backend Engineer who wants to work on hard, unsolved problems – such as making blockchain scale to millions of people, designing new incentive models for decentralized networks, and building the right tools to empower people and communities to take control of their lives online. """

Re: Is Reddit going all in on Web3?

#2
> more decentralized Internet where people, not platforms, have real ownership and control

Does this mean Reddit will give control of its forums, or the equivalent thereof in meta-space to its users? Reddit is a "platform" right? It seems to be saying that it doesn't want to be in control.

Re: Is Reddit going all in on Web3?

#4
I founded the /r/cryptocurrency subreddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/n2vrer/my_sad_att...

I detail here what happened to my subreddit after spending months and years if work in promoting it and increasing user audience and engagement by using my other subreddits to divert discussion.

I was just pawned off, demoted and was forced to forget about it.

Well now its a default subreddit and one of the most profitable for reddit.

I remember joining reddit when Digg.com was the best website in the world but started to act this way, there was a community takeover and everyone just moved to reddit after spamming digg. Reminds me off how myspace got ditched for facebook.

I know facebook realised this could happen so they moved the herd over to instagram while rebranding. But these companies thing the platform is what keeps the community together but there are the initial rules and like minded thinking that creates a foundation for the community and not the platform.

Re: Is Reddit going all in on Web3?

#5
Damn, you think karma farming is bad now? Imagine if upvotes actually translated to money, regardless of how bad the exchange rate is.

The post makes it seem all high and mighty moonshot, but it's most likely they introduce their own crypto that you can trade and maybe earn. Maybe a tipping feature similar to twitter.

I don't know if that's going "all in" but it could certainly change the dynamics. It's already highly gamed with top posters dominating pretty much all the major subs. But with the monetary motivation, it'll likely be even harder for regular people just to post interesting content and be noticed. But it could also be a whimper, like ability to tip someone or your reddit gold is an NFT. Either way, I don't see an upside to the reddit community apart from very few top posters

Re: Is Reddit going all in on Web3?

#6

> more decentralized Internet where people, not platforms, have real ownership and control Does this mean Reddit will give control of its forums, or the equivalent thereof in meta-space to its users? Reddit is a "platform" right? It seems to be saying that it doesn't want to be in control.

It's a sensationalist job description, not a corporate five-year plan. I wouldn't read that much into it.

Re: Is Reddit going all in on Web3?

#7

I founded the /r/cryptocurrency subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/n2vrer/my_sad_att... I detail here what happened to my subreddit after spending months and years if work in promoting it and increasing user audience and engagement by using my other subreddits to divert discussion. I was just pawned off, demoted and was forced to forget about it. Well now its a default subreddit and one of the most…

To be clear, did you found the sub, or co-found it?

You mention that the moderator list was reorganized, was that by another moderator? If so, this is well within their powers.

(Aside: Yes, obviously very lame thing for them to do given that they were monetizing the sub)

But the way you wrote this comment, I thought it was the admins who replaced you, and that they just took over the sub.

That would be much more concerning.

Re: Is Reddit going all in on Web3?

#8

I founded the /r/cryptocurrency subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/n2vrer/my_sad_att... I detail here what happened to my subreddit after spending months and years if work in promoting it and increasing user audience and engagement by using my other subreddits to divert discussion. I was just pawned off, demoted and was forced to forget about it. Well now its a default subreddit and one of the most…

As an onlooker who does read /r/cryptocurrency on occasion, I've concluded that Reddit is default crypto-hostile because - even though it has subreddits and mods, and that makes things "categorized" - the discussion being gamified pushes it towards groupthink every time: A gives upvotes, B does not. Thus, always say A, never say B, and never introduce anything new either, that is disruptive to the game. The mods will tend to play into the game rather than fight it because it's the path of least resistance; subs like /r/AskHistorians are exceptions that prove the rule.

So actually discussing crypto topics means discussing them in a way that avoids moderation and gets upvotes...which leads directly towards mindless tribalism and backroom power plays to buy placements. Information about new developments other than price action just gets lost unless payola or botting is used to support it. It's hard to learn anything new from crypto Reddit, even on smaller subs. You will get much more out of a mix of Twitter(awareness) and Discord(discussion).

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