Kicked around since 2020, Reddit has announced plans to expand its "Community Points" pilot program to a bunch of the site. What is this program? Well, essentially it's a way to turn your "karma" from posting into cryptocurrency, specifically Ethereum.
It's important to note that this doesn't create a straight path from "updoots" of posting karma to crypto money. There are LOADS of limitations on this while it's still in the testing phase, and even in the final phase it looks to be heavily locked down in some ways.
But is there anything to this plan? It could essentially lead to making money from writing / forum participation, after all. But it's also Reddit, so there are just heaps of baked-in reasons to be wary.
Let's dive into the nitty-gritty details and come up with some sort of assessment.
Where Reddit Community Points Are At Now
Only certain subreddits are currently approved for the points trial, as of this writing just three: r/Cryptocurrency, r/Ethtrader and r/Fortnite. There is a wait list for other subreddits to get in on the action. Apparently they will be added on a rolling basis over time, but there hasn't been any new news that I can find since December 2021.
Reddit really doesn't explain how these points are doled out on their own information page, but here's as best as I understand it: your earnings are not tied to your posting karma/history or really even directly controlled by you. Instead, every month Reddit Central doles out some amount of these points to each of the participating subreddits. The turbojannies in charge of that subreddit then decide how they will be distributed, whether that is through events, contests or just handing them out to goodboi posters as a treat.
At present, these points are also not really worth anything. That's because, during the trial period, Reddit is not allowing people to move the points from their special little Reddit crypto wallet to the Ethereum mainnet (meaning they can't actually be brought off site and used like regular crypto, right now they're exclusively for Thanks For The Gold Kind Stranger and little badges and such). Though apparently there is at least a theoretical convoluted way to break them out, though it's against Reddit's TOS and they might shut your whole account down over it.
Why This Probably Won't Be A Good Way To Make Money
So, first of all this is still technically in a "trial" phase and thus the plug could still be pulled on the whole thing. And if it makes it out of trial, you have to wait ??? time before a subreddit you want to participate in adopts it, if any do at all. But let's get past all that and assume you're ready to jump into the thick of it racking up the big bucks with your informative and witty posts. I can think of at least a few reasons offhand why this will be a very hard row to hoe:
* The funds will be filtered through turbojannies. Subs turn into even more of an echo chamber as the financial incentive encourages people to identify the janny's preferred views and parrot them. But even if you don't mind shucking and jiving like that, the jannies will probably come up with systems to funnel most of the points to their personal friends anyway.
* Reddit subs are known for having very strong sociopolitical slants, and also for the community viciously enforcing them. This means of making money would be like navigating the HR Department From Hell all the time as you have to keep up with the sub's ever-shifting trendy Righthink and stay within that lane, or end up getting banned and having all your work yoinked out from under you.
* It's currently only available through the Reddit app; not sure if that means you have to use the app to post. So maybe no computer keyboard / multi-tabbing.
* They may start asking you for all sorts of personal information now that finances are involved
* The currency is called "cp"
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