Reddit will soon start rewriting certain links to make money
Reddit wanted the feature to be rolled out sooner, but it was pushed back after calls for a broader announcement
Reddit is launching a new way to make money.
Starting on June 3, the site is going to use a popular strategy called affiliate linking to get a small cut of purchases that happen after a person clicks through to an online store from Reddit.
For example, if you click a link to a glitter phone case on Reddit and then buy that phone case, Reddit will make some money.
It's partnering with the advertising company VigLink to automatically rewrite links to around 1,500 different merchants.
As Reddit has been trying to ramp up its ads business, this new affiliate linking strategy will give it another stream of money.
The company originally planned to launch this feature sooner, but changed the roll-out date after commenters protested that the announcement should be posted more broadly first.
People using the site can opt-out by right-clicking a link and copy and pasting it into their browser instead of clicking it directly.