this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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It varies from company to company, but when infinite growth becomes unrealistic they get desperate for new revenue and start doing shitty nickel and dime tactics.
More specifically for Reddit thoughts are they realized that these new AI tools had already pilfered all of “their” content and they did not see a cent from it and responded wildly.
Not only Infinite growths, but infinite money. Since at least 2008, money was almost free for tech companies and somehow nobody cared, that they never made any profit - Twitter had like 2 profitable quarters in its entire history.
Now that interest rates went up, investors want to see results and if you can't burn through venture capital anymore, you have to get money somewhere else.
The AI training is one thing, but they are also looking to drive all traffic into their own mobile app and site with their own ads.
Reddit's decision about 3rd party apps and API changes actually made business sense. Not only was their content being pilfered on Reddit's expense, but a decent portion of their user base were using 3rd party apps that didn't collect as much data nor serve Reddit ads like the official app. At the expense of losing a decent portion of their community, moderators, and any goodwill their userbase had towards them, Reddit now has all their mobile users on a single, add ridden app that they own and can collect as much data as they want going forward as well as ensures that they get paid for AI API usage
Not really. I just patched my app, and the app of others, so it doesn't display anything nor track anything. Reddit caused themselves way more unnecessary harm and damage/ self inflicted wounds than they should have. That's all if i/we actually still need to go to reddit for anything. I've been purposely avoiding them and their search results and doing fine. The traffic I/we would've given them is significantly less.