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Reddit is in danger of a death spiral
(www.zdnet.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Technology
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It's literally not "Reddit's content". Says so in the user agreement:
Huffman should be careful calling it "Reddit's content" — by claiming ownership, he's arguably taking on liability.
The [stuff in brackets] is editorial. That's when they add on their own reference to something said elsewhere.
In this case, huffpig didn't actually say content. He said data.
It's actually worse, because it dehumanizes everyone on reddit, via that the data is our only value to him.
So, fuck huffpig
I think the word "data" also supports the theory that this is actually about training data for LLMs rather than ad revenue. If it was actually about 3rd party apps, then why not just require all apps to feed the ads? But according to the Apollo developer, there wasn't even a way to fetch the ads through the API.
I think spez saw what OpenAI/Microsoft were accomplishing using parsed data and got dollar signs in his eyes. The irony is that OpenAI probably already ripped every comment off Reddit up until now, and don't really need more going forward.
I mean it's also true that they could just have read the web pages, but the API actually cost reddit less than rendering the full web page for all the data.
That's just the thing, it has nothing to do with API or server cost. It's all about presenting ads and collecting user data.
Yea, it's clearly not about just money, because they could have fed ads via the API, or made it part of reddit premium for the user to keep using the API ad free. I can't say how many people would have rage quite anyway, but the way they're doing it doesn't give anyone who likes other apps any reason to pay reddit money, that's for sure. And does inspire people to leave.
I hesitate to say I have all these ideas that would have worked better because I haven't seen their research on their existing premium paid product or expected conversion rates for API access (at per user monthly subs), so maybe the research says they've got ALL the paying members they'll ever get and they need to force ever more ads instead for money - but given they've had years and years to think about this and have tried almost nothing makes me think they're either very unimaginative or just are bad at innovation or even just trying stuff other people already have except for tunnel vision on ads.
If it was actually about AI they would have solved the issue quickly by offering different prices for 3rd party apps. The fact that they aren't doing that clearly shows that they want to kill apps.
By that logic I guess he will have to start paying redditors for their content.
I mean, it's only fair.
They really should be paying, all of these data companies should. No other business gets away with not paying for the materials they use to make their product. You can't build and sell a car without paying for the nuts and bolts.
Data companies like Facebook and Google keep telling us the data we give them has no value, yet they use that data they collect for free and sell for pure profit to become some of the wealthiest businesses in the world.
Why not post the whole sub-section:
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I didn't post it all because (1) it's long and most of it isn't directly pertinent, and (2) this is the Web, we have hyperlinks.
:)