Lou PanicciaJun 15, 2023
Jason Kottke

I guess I don't understand why Reddit didn't just make separate API usage rules & rates for a) apps and simple bots (tools built for humans to use) and b) content harvesters like AI companies (tools built for data analysis).

It's more complicated to administrate and manage, but this alienation of their most passionate users is just horrible business.

Jun 14, 2023 at 4:34pmWeb
Show threadMin HeadroomJun 14, 2023
@jkottke +1. I'm not a legal expert but I kind of wonder why they didn't just add something to their terms and conditions saying: "if you use this content to train AI you hereby agree to sell us your company for a dollar" or some more legally-defensible version of that.
Show threadScott AndrewsJun 14, 2023
@jkottke are content harvesters registering for API access?? I’d use an anonymous crawler of the public site, a la Googlebot.
Show threadSpicewallaJun 14, 2023

@jkottke

More and more it seems like businesses are less about making money, and more about building power.

Sure, money is one form of power so its not off the table. But bending other, 'lesser,' people to the will of the elites seems to be pretty common, like ending WFH and doing mass layoffs even when both are actually bad for productivity. What they lose monetarily, they make up for in enforcing structures of domination and control.

Show threadsdfxJun 14, 2023
@jkottke if your plan is to kill of third party apps, this is one way to do it. Short notice, huge price tag, no slow transition to the new price levels.
Show threadNick MessickJun 14, 2023
@jkottke Some mods declaring "We actually own this place! Change or we'll leave!” has been a thorn in the side of Reddit for a decade. A situation where those mods finally leave is probably seen as a win.
Show threadWill ClarkJun 14, 2023

@jkottke I mean, why did they raise $250m in 2021, double their staff and then seemingly spend it all on live streaming that they killed, an NFT wallet and customizable avatars (literally, what else have they shipped in this time?).

Leadership seems to be pretty devoid of actual business strategy.

Show threadMichael GabrielJun 14, 2023

@jkottke 2 reasonable and plausible explanations:

1. The intent was to kill third party apps without saying so.

2. They’re just not that smart.

Show threadJason Petersen (he)Jun 14, 2023
@jkottke tbh I’d wish _just once_ one of these customer-facing sites let me pay them directly for a key I can copy-paste into a client
Show threadRob MathersJun 14, 2023
@jkottke I don’t really understand why they think AI won’t resort to web scraping anyway. I’d assume a lot of them have tools built around scraping already, for all the content that doesn’t have an API.