Title says it all. If you think Reddit’s been trending down lately, just wait.

  • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    However, they do understand that the APIcalypse will make their financial figures look great, and that’s what actually matters in the coming IPO. They also understand that these actions will hurt the site and that the fallout will come at a notable delay. However, by the time it’s clear the site has only a few months to live, the previous owners have already taken the money and left. At that point, it’s a problem for the new owners. Let them figure out how to fix a sinking ship.

    • zurohki@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      they do understand that the APIcalypse will make their financial figures look great

      That would require people to actually pay that API pricing. The apps closing down and AI people scraping the web site instead won’t help them.

      • Paralda@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Also, AI only really needs to scrape a post once. I don’t think there will be much financial gain from openai or someone else scraping reddit

        • awderon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          They don’t even need to scrape it. There is a torrent out there with all the data for the last 10 years or so neatly packaged.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Ahh, but it’s a bit more subtle than that.

        The API pricing was a tool to kill the apps, because Reddit is not able to milk ad money from those users. Now that most of the 3rd party apps are dead and most subs are open, users have no choice but to be exposed to adds. That’s where the real money is.

        • zurohki@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, but Reddit makes pennies per user from showing them ads, so they’re still losing money.

          Rather than laughing all the way to the bank, it’s more of a forced chuckle on the way to the dole office.