Reddit Reintroduces Award Program: What It Could Mean For Future Monetization Prospects

Reddit Inc RDDT, a retail investor favorite, has performed well since its IPO in March. The company has never turned a profit, and as Reddit continually looks to monetize its platform, a change in its award program could be a sign the company is looking at other ways to improve the platform.

What Happened: The company will relaunch its award program, according to a post on Wednesday by the Reddit Product Team. The system allows users to buy awards to financially support original content posters; a portion of the proceeds goes to Reddit.

Originally, the company sunsetted the program in 2023 in an attempt to reduce clutter. In the updated iteration, users bought “golden upvoted” directly using cash instead of using “coins” as an intermediary.

“While the golden upvote was certainly simpler in theory, in practice, it missed the mark,” the announcement said. “It wasn't as fun or expressive as legacy awards, and it was unclear how it benefited the recipient.”

The awards will be disabled in subreddits related to trauma and addiction support subreddits.

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Why it Matters: Redditors were previously not happy about the program’s end.

“In other words, you’re removing a popular feature and charging the same amount for premium. I’m so glad that this is the ‘problem’ Reddit is diligently working to solve instead of the myriad of other issues,” commented one user under the 2023 announcement post.

A quick read-through of the more recent update showed Redditors were still upset with Reddit’s management of the situation. It remains yet to be seen whether the program will result in an increase in revenue for the company.

RDDT Price Action: Reddit traded at $57.12, down 4.48% on Wednesday at the time of publication

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