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Reddit: 'We Are in the Early Stages of Monetizing Our User Base' (www.404media.co)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

104 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Reddit said in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission that its users’ posts are “a valuable source of conversation data and knowledge” that has been and will continue to be an important mechanism for training AI and large language models. The filing also states that the company believes “we are in the early stages of monetizing our user base,” and proceeds to say that it will continue to sell users’ content to companies that want to train LLMs and that it will also begin “increased use of artificial intelligence in our advertising solutions.”

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Reddit has entered a contract with Google, which will license its content for $60 million a year in order to train Google’s AI models.

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[–] [email protected] 296 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (33 children)

Remember when Reddit had a daily donation goal to cover "site maintenance costs?"

They already monetized their fucking users, they've had users straight handing them money for fucking years now (sometimes for basically nothing in return!), but that's never enough for these god damned vampires.

[–] [email protected] 193 points 8 months ago (17 children)

You know how spez was bitching about how reddit never made a profit? Yeah, now we know why. You know what his compensation was last year? $193,000,000. Fuck that arrogant prick.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (8 children)

I can't understand how investors would fall for this. For the sake of humanity and my own mental health I hope they don't. But I have a suspicion they will, and it goes to shows how fucked up the world is.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It's why they released news of the actual IPO on the same day they released the news of Google buying our data: they want to tie reddit and Google together in the public's mine, make reddit seem better than it is.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It would be HILARIOUS if Google declared Reddit shady AF and bailed on the contract

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It would be HILARIOUS if Google declared Reddit shady AF and bailed on the contract

Google gave up their "do no evil" philosophy a long time ago, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Around the time they re-corporatized into Alphabet. Probably a little while before that, so at least a solid decade since that's been completely out the window.

Also, it only ever referred to putting ads before search results... which is how it is now. They clearly dropped any principles they had a long time ago. It's honestly a little shocking more isn't written about how Google was one of the earliest to begin its enshittification process, probably with the death of Google Reader, which was the death knell for RSS feeds and the Old Internet.

They restructured as Alphabet in 2015, and Reader was shut down in 2013. Google was founded in 1998. So that means it took about 15 years all told for Google to completely shed any ethics or morals they had about being a better company. That's how quickly selling out your principles happens now.