I feel like the “real reason” behind this stems from the pricing for AI training. Reddit wants to capitalize on its user-generated content for AI training. the safest way to do this, and ensure that no AI company can do this, and those large AI companies can’t argue that they’re getting unfair pricing compared to app developers.

That’s reddit’s big plan: sell user-generated content to large AI companies. That’s how you make a platform like reddit profitable. You resell content you got for free to massive companies willing to pay high prices for that content.

Tbh

HOW THE FUCK DID I OVERESTIMATE SPEZ

The fucking bar was on the ground and he didn’t pass it what the hell

From his responses you can see reddit will continue their path. and if you think about it, everything is going well for them.

the probability that a critical mass of users will leave is still quite low. they will get rid of a lot of moderators that don’t fall in line. what is left will be a community that won’t mind the direction reddit is going.

reddit will turn boring, but the shareholders won’t care. as long as they manage to keep enough users after the api change the site will recover.

the only positive thing here is that a lot of dedicated people may join other platforms and start building new communities.

I understand that Reddit needs to monetise. It’s not a link aggregate site anymore, hosting video/image files is expensive, Reddit operates at a loss and the 3p users cost them even more. They have reason to be dismayed that they operate at a loss while 3p apps using their API do not.

And I understand their concern with adult content. They can’t control if 3p apps will display it with or without checks, but Reddit hosts it; limiting it on 3p apps is probably the better choice to them than removing it from their site entirely. After all, they’re operating at a loss; they can’t afford the fines and fees. Sexual content is heavily legislated.

But goddamn. Limited negotiation with devs, adversarial communication (to the point of outright animosity), frankly absurd timeframe, the use of accessibility as negotiation for the blackout… there’s no good faith anymore.

Reddit is user-generated. The users are the content, their engagement is Reddit’s product. Users that don’t want to engage with their platform give them less sellable product. The users that engage the most (commenting, contributing, moderating) are the minority, and also the ones most likely to use 3p tools.

Reddit has good grounds for wanting to monetise. There are good reasons for bringing devs to the plate about how to do that. Devs were readily agreeing to covering their costs in calls, and expecting to negotiate what the revenue margin should be. Mutually equitable arrangement.

But this was handled so fucking badly, communicated so fucking badly (by one of the devs too tbh), that an equitable arrangement cannot possibly be reached anymore. Nobody wants to bargain in good faith anymore.

Now all the users want Reddit to cancel all the changes, publicly apologise, and remain operating a loss. Now Reddit wants devs to shut up and pay up, and blame them for the situation they’re in.

Now everybody loses, because devs close apps, high-activity users contribute less or outright leave, and Reddit decays down into a pit of low-interaction lurkers picking over ad-bleached bones, until it’s considered so unprofitable and unrecoverable that it is shut down entirely.

What a shit show

I wonder if we can get his karma to 0