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Reddit has never made a lot of money. AI companies scrapped all their data for free which wasn't fair. So they start charging to support the site. I don't see h

Reddit has never made a lot of money. AI companies scrapped all their data for free which wasn't fair. So they start charging to support the site. I don't see how reddit owners are in the wrong here. But mods are behaving as expected, like petulant children.

anaganisk 3y ago
Dude the top AI company, "Open"AI, founded by Sam Altman is a board member of reddit, I'm all for conspiracy but at least get the basics right. I myself have a conspiracy theory that he is pressuring Reddit to build a moat. Also disallowing API access does shit, to stop API companies from scraping anyway, because they can still scrape off the site like how search engines do it, so even my conspiracy may only be true to certain extent. Also mods are volunteers, they keep the community conformant to the sub rules, mods who don't watch their content will lead to comments like "Why is this on this sub", "sub has gone to shit", there are people who genuinely take care of their subreddit. They're kind of unpaid janitors.
- user249 3y ago
  > Sam Altman is a board member of reddit Well then, he's acting responsibly by not letting every other AI company have the data for free. I'm not impugning all mods. I appreciate their work. But some let the power go to their heads
  - anaganisk 3y ago
    The data which he acquired for free in the first place? Hypocrisy much?
batiudrami 3y ago
If it was just about AI scraping they could have given the third party reader apps a free pass on API fees. The recorded phone calls from the Apollo developer have reddit agreeing with the dev’s suggestion that it is about the opportunity cost of having users using apps which are not easily monetised by reddit. Which is obvious to everyone so I don’t see why you’re pretending otherwise.
- user249 3y ago
  > apps which are not easily monetised by reddit I don't see a lot of difference between reddit apps and AI companies. Why do you pretend that apps should make money off reddit data without paying for it? Just because they did in the past doesn't mean they have to keep doing it now that everyone has realized it's a valuable commodity.
  - piva00 3y ago
    You are probably very aware that the main issue the app developers have is not about paying for access or not, it's how heavy handed and in short notice the demand for payment from Reddit came. The 3rd party developers were very clear they were willing to figure out a way to pay for API access, it's just impossible to do it when you have 30 days notice to start being liable for a US$ 20m/year bill...
    - labrador 3y ago
      That's capitalism for you. I also don't like the brutality of it, but it seems to the most efficient system at creating wealth
      - piva00 3y ago
        Could you expand on what's capitalistic about being a dick to 3rd party apps? As a platform you can monetise that, turning it into wealth, the value is already there. These users prefer the experience of the platform provided by someone else than Reddit. In my mind, if principles of capitalism were in play here, and Reddit is well managed, they would find an efficient way to make money out of value that's already being delivered. Forcing apps to shutdown won't be doing that. The current move is just a dick move with the potential to make Reddit less valuable than before, I do not understand what principle of capitalism states that this specific brutality is efficient at creating wealth.
        labrador 3y ago

anaganisk 3y ago

Dude the top AI company, "Open"AI, founded by Sam Altman is a board member of reddit, I'm all for conspiracy but at least get the basics right. I myself have a conspiracy theory that he is pressuring Reddit to build a moat. Also disallowing API access does shit, to stop API companies from scraping anyway, because they can still scrape off the site like how search engines do it, so even my conspiracy may only be true to certain extent. Also mods are volunteers, they keep the community conformant to the sub rules, mods who don't watch their content will lead to comments like "Why is this on this sub", "sub has gone to shit", there are people who genuinely take care of their subreddit. They're kind of unpaid janitors.

user249 3y ago
> Sam Altman is a board member of reddit Well then, he's acting responsibly by not letting every other AI company have the data for free. I'm not impugning all mods. I appreciate their work. But some let the power go to their heads
- anaganisk 3y ago
  The data which he acquired for free in the first place? Hypocrisy much?

batiudrami 3y ago

If it was just about AI scraping they could have given the third party reader apps a free pass on API fees. The recorded phone calls from the Apollo developer have reddit agreeing with the dev’s suggestion that it is about the opportunity cost of having users using apps which are not easily monetised by reddit. Which is obvious to everyone so I don’t see why you’re pretending otherwise.

user249 3y ago
> apps which are not easily monetised by reddit I don't see a lot of difference between reddit apps and AI companies. Why do you pretend that apps should make money off reddit data without paying for it? Just because they did in the past doesn't mean they have to keep doing it now that everyone has realized it's a valuable commodity.
- piva00 3y ago
  You are probably very aware that the main issue the app developers have is not about paying for access or not, it's how heavy handed and in short notice the demand for payment from Reddit came. The 3rd party developers were very clear they were willing to figure out a way to pay for API access, it's just impossible to do it when you have 30 days notice to start being liable for a US$ 20m/year bill...
  - labrador 3y ago
    That's capitalism for you. I also don't like the brutality of it, but it seems to the most efficient system at creating wealth
    - piva00 3y ago
      Could you expand on what's capitalistic about being a dick to 3rd party apps? As a platform you can monetise that, turning it into wealth, the value is already there. These users prefer the experience of the platform provided by someone else than Reddit. In my mind, if principles of capitalism were in play here, and Reddit is well managed, they would find an efficient way to make money out of value that's already being delivered. Forcing apps to shutdown won't be doing that. The current move is just a dick move with the potential to make Reddit less valuable than before, I do not understand what principle of capitalism states that this specific brutality is efficient at creating wealth.
      - labrador 3y ago