Reddit has a huge value I think which has not been mentioned - that companies, corporations, organisations use it to market and advertise themselves, for free.
Sometimes they do that under the covers, so to speak, and some users don't like it (e.g. hailcorporate) but often they will promote their products transparently, and often normal users don't mind. The most obvious example is Netflix on /r/movies. Multiple employees were observed continuously posting things to the site, via submissions, comments etc and users liked it.
By introducing a charge for these corporate users they can reap in a substantial income. Whether it would make sense for them to label these corp users as such is another option, but they certainly know about them. I find it interesting that most normal users find that they don't mind interacting with paid marketing employees and that they consider it organic and natural, very interesting. I also find it worrying.
Sometimes they do that under the covers, so to speak, and some users don't like it (e.g. hailcorporate) but often they will promote their products transparently, and often normal users don't mind. The most obvious example is Netflix on /r/movies. Multiple employees were observed continuously posting things to the site, via submissions, comments etc and users liked it.
By introducing a charge for these corporate users they can reap in a substantial income. Whether it would make sense for them to label these corp users as such is another option, but they certainly know about them. I find it interesting that most normal users find that they don't mind interacting with paid marketing employees and that they consider it organic and natural, very interesting. I also find it worrying.