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Yes, Reddit is a big dataset and yes, Reddit deserves to make some money off that if other organisations are going to scrape that data, for AI or anything else.

That's what they should be blocking and monetizing. Not those few users using 3rd party apps. Those folks (posters, mods) are amongst the ones creating that data set for Reddit, free of charge.

They are right about needing to make money to continue as a successful business. But they are doing it the wrong way and alienating their key assets.

Which is why I'm here :)

Genuinely don't understand how reddit has failed to make money.

Reddit's entire value is based upon the unpaid contributions of its users- they generate and moderate all the content on the site for free, and these are the things that bring people to the site.

How entitled must one be to think they can ignore all this and be fine?

Also how tf is reddit not able to break bank?

The functionality of their website was relatively simple - not underming the reddit devs here. The costs must've been minimal before the redesign and the dumb ass decision to host their own images and videos. Did they burn up all their money for the redesign and the shitty app?

I don't get it, if 3PA is only 1% of the traffic, why even bother murdering them?

“Reddit represents one of the largest data sets of just human beings talking about interesting things,” Huffman said. “We are not in the business of giving that away for free.”

Wow. Clearly Reddit now believes that they own all of the conversations that people have had on the site. That explains why they've also been restoring comments that people have deleted when leaving the site. That has major implications for data security, privacy, and even safety in some situations.

This episode has revealed Reddit's true colors, and they're not pretty.

Amazing that he can't think of a way to make money that doesn't involve alienating the unpaid people who keep the place running.

I haven't abandoned Reddit entirely, but I'll never use the app...downloaded it once a year or two again and deleted it within an hour because it was ugly and confusing. I honestly think maybe the next phase of the protests, for those who still are active on Reddit, should be mass deletion of the app and using only the desktop site/mobile browser version. The API thing was meant to force people onto the app, so mass organizing to delete the app would hit them where it hurts.

Imagine looking at what Elon is doing to Twitter and thinking "that's a great idea".

"Huffman said in an interview that he plans to institute rules changes that would allow Reddit users to vote out moderators who have overseen the protest, comparing them to a “landed gentry.”"

I had to google Landed Gentry, it still don't make sense; "The landed gentry, or the gentry, is a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate." That's a weird way to describe an unpaid moderator. Either way, there's no reddit to return to if they're going scorched earth on the moderators anyways. This is home now.

The craziest part is these people are volunteers and were the entire reason his stupid site worked to begin with. Why go to war with them? They can just walk away, they never got anything out of this to begin with. And why would anyone new join up if the previous generation is being treated this way? Just super mysterious behavior overall.

So, a moron continues being a moron. I’ve moved on. Would love to see the rest of the world move on, too, but it’s unlikely.

Lol I love how brutal these headlines are getting

“Reddit represents one of the largest data sets of just human beings talking about interesting things,” Huffman said. “We are not in the business of giving that away for free.”

I mean holy shit dude. Do you listen to yourself? Where did that “data set of just human beings talking about interesting things” come from? It came from millions of people who gave you that content for free. And many of them used the site through third party apps because those apps made your site much more useful without charging you a dime.

The entitlement of Huffman is astounding.

He got free content and free app development work and now he’s going around whining about how “we’re not in the business of giving that away for free.”

Yikes.

🤣

also:

Huffman is engaging in the cardinal sin of the internet: trying to charge for something that has always been free. And acting as if he’s entitled to that money, and it’s the people who don’t want to pay who are the problem.

And, again, Huffman seems like all entitlement all the time:

“They need to pay for this. That is fair.”

I mean… the users of Reddit could just as easily turn around and say the same thing to Huffman for all the free labor, content, and data they’ve provided to him.

“Reddit represents one of the largest data sets of just human beings talking about interesting things,” Huffman said. “We are not in the business of giving that away for free.”

🤮

This man just does not know when to shut up.

Deleted my Reddit account today, not gonna let Huffman use my content to make money and his attitude is very concerning tbh

They want to make money while turning reddit into another right wing shit hole.

Why isn't he paying users for their content?

To an extend I understand the lost ad revenue for the 3rd party apps. But it seems like there's a different solution, like requiring apps using the api to either pass through the ads or pay a per user fee, allowing for app users to get all the features they want for free and pay som small monthly subscription to remove the ads...