this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Reddit isn't just trying to balance the budget - they are specifically scrambling to make things work (or at least, look like they will work) for an IPO, which is a beast in and of itself.
Guessing that the whole "data scraping AI" thing also kick-started a bit of a panic with them
Possibly. I'm not entirely sure how to interpret that part.
One plausible scenario is that they brought in a consultant, who said their data would be worth $XXXX on the open market. A common element of MBA thinking is that any potential profits are something you are entitled to, regardless of the consequences. It's also pretty clear they don't have a mature management team, or a viable path to realize those profits. But they had to stop someone else from getting it, so there was a rushed decision. I don't quite know how it coincided with killing 3rd party apps, though, unless it was just more really incompetent management.
Yeah for a lot of companies they don't seem to separate blood-from-a-stone unrealized profits from losses, even when aggressively persuing the former may well result in loss.
I could definitely see FB, Reddit, etc going "company X is making money from AI using our data, we need to stop that and do so instead" while completely overlooking the costs inherent in building the AI system or user-impact.
Kinda like when all the ISP's decided Netflix owed them money because users were accessing it through their networks (and completely disregarding that the users already paid for that access), because corps are greedy fucks that way.
It makes me think that the third party thing was the original intent and the data scraping was the cover. Also u/spez kinda said as much with his Elon love fest.