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BotDefense is leaving Reddit
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
They do have a choice though. They can just not use Reddit at all, and/or come here.