Reddit now allows users to upload videos; videos can be up to 15 minutes long, with file sizes of less than 1 GB
anticipate more ads Matt Lopez / VideoInk - Medium : Reddit Can Now Host Video — Next Stop Pre-Roll Ads? David Lumb / Engadget : Reddit has grown and maintained its internet prominence … Upvoted : Video Is Coming to Reddit! … Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Reddit rolls out its own video platform Sahil Patel / Digiday : Inside Reddit's grassroots version of the pivot to video Tweets: @reddit : Native video is coming to Reddit! Read all about our extended, cross-platform beta roll-out here: http://redditblog.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Reddit's move to host video natively completes an arc that started with its video division for original content in 2015 and accelerated two months earlier, when it began rolling out video ads alongside a redesigned self-service ad-buying platform. Until now, video on Reddit mostly lived off-platform, meaning the view counts and the ad dollars attached to them went elsewhere.
The beta roll-out gives Reddit the missing piece: a first-party player. Within a year the company reported the player had surpassed 1B views per month and served over half of all video views on the site, which is why trade press at launch was already asking when pre-roll ads would follow.
First-order effects
- Users can now upload clips directly — up to 15 minutes and under 1 GB — instead of linking out to external hosts, keeping watch time and engagement metrics inside Reddit's own player.
Second-order effects
- With hosting controlled in-house, Reddit's earlier video-ad push and agency partnerships for self-serve buying gain native inventory to fill; the follow-on autoplaying video-ad campaigns arrived within a year.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, community platforms consolidate video viewing onto their own infrastructure rather than exporting audiences to dedicated video sites — a shift visible in Reddit's reported growth to 1.4B monthly native video views by the end of 2018.
The trend: Social platforms are pulling video hosting in-house so that audience attention and the advertising built on it stay on their own turf rather than leaking to external players.