When you think of the creator economy, you think of platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Reddit is one of the most-visited websites in the world, with 70 million daily users. But there aren’t really any mainstream Reddit “influencers.”
Yet, the lines between Reddit and the creator economy have blurred over the years. Redditors can now monetize their presence on the platform as of September 2023. And now, Reddit is recognizing its top creators in an unusual way as it prepares to begin listing shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), 75,000 of the platform’s most “prolific” users will gain access to shares before Reddit’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) in March.
This is an unprecedented move because, as the WSJ points out, advanced access is “a privilege normally reserved only for big investors.” Reddit shares will likely rise dramatically in price after the Reddit stock market debut, leading early access holders to earn big gains after the IPO.
It’s currently unclear how the most “prolific” Redditors are quantified. But we can assume that it’s users who are very active and well-known on the platform.
It’s likely that “Karma” will have something to do with how the Reddit stock is distributed. Karma is a user score that tracks how much Redditors have contributed to the online community. A Redditor gets Karma for upvotes on posts. Or, if they have given or received an award on the platform.
It’s also possible that the moderators of certain subreddits are “prolific” enough to get early access to shares. But nonetheless, it shows that Reddit CEO Steve Huffman wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted “our shareholders to be our users, and our users to be our shareholders.”
