In an AMA (Ask Me Anything) video stream last week for Reddit's 2024 fourth-quarter earnings, CEO Steve Huffman confirmed that the message-board giant is still working toward paid subreddits on the platform.
In response to a question from a user named Mdnz asking about the progress and development of paid subreddits, "E.g. people creating content that only paid members can see," Huffman replied, "I mentioned this a couple of quarters ago. It's a work in progress right now. That one's coming. We're working on it as we speak."
Last August, five months after the company went public, Huffman said the company was looking into monetizing subreddits, the message board groups typically created by users in its community. Â
Huffman didn't offer more details during last week's video call about how those paywalls would work. The company currently makes money primarily by selling ads and offering premium subscriptions for $50 a year or $6 a month. One subreddit, /r/lounge, is only accessible to those with a Reddit Premium account.Â
Reddit reported it had about 101.7 million daily active unique visitors in the fourth quarter, and it is hugely influential as one of the largest and most active community of users on the internet. The company has AI content licensing deals with Google and OpenAI, and says it's talking to major tech players about licensing its data. Google also routinely surfaces Reddit content prominently in search results.Â
During the AMA, Huffman said the company is still working on rolling out Reddit Answers, an AI-powered search engine for asking questions that was introduced late last year. He also said that there may be plans for Reddit to offer merchandise or ways for users to conduct sales transactions on the platform, similar to Facebook's Marketplace, but those plans are further out. "We're laying the foundation for that," he said.Â