Looks like Reddit is following 4chan in asking power users to help pay for the service.

"Reddit Gold" costs $4/month or $30/year for these value-added features:

An oft-requested feature: comment saving and filtering saves by subreddit

Ability to give gold to other peoples’ comments you really like (“gilding”)

Some upgrades and fun stuff in the members-only lounge

We might add a remote-controlled office robot you can drive

Reddit CEO Yishan Wong notes that users have the power to save Reddit:

“See, the problem is that if your site is funded primarily with advertising, then you are beholden to your advertisers. If your users choose to post something politically or culturally controversial, you come under editorial pressure from advertisers to remove or modify it…This eventually results in a watering down of the true, authentic content on the site (remember Sears?). It’s one of the reasons Digg failed.”

Reddit wants to be a freemium company (like Evernote and Dropbox) and not depend on ads (like Facebook and Twitter). Makes a lot of sense. If only 1% of the monthly actives buy Reddit Gold, that's $13 million a year in revenues. Not bad.