6 ms·

They absolutely cannot budge, their investors won't let them. And by now, the investors probably own most of the company. Reddit is targeting LLMs as their main

by majani 3y ago

They absolutely cannot budge, their investors won't let them. And by now, the investors probably own most of the company. Reddit is targeting LLMs as their main API clients and that will give a huge bounce on share price after the IPO. Right now, being firmly in the AI supply chain is probably the biggest driver of share price growth

oldtownroad 3y ago
LLM developers have no need for Reddit’s API: Reddit data is available through a variety of sources that don’t require usage of the API. The API they’re targeting are third-party clients used by humans. Apps like Apollo are the target. Reddit’s comment volume is high but not high enough to drive significant revenue if LLM developers were consuming comments via the API.
- happycube 3y ago
  And even if they did need it, they won't need it nearly as much the way things are going now...
- skilled 3y ago
  Exactly. I think perhaps the biggest value is actually the "links" that get shared on Reddit, as an aggregate. And you can totally get all that somewhere else, in OpenAI's case - that would be Bing.
reaperman 3y ago
How about a per-user API key that users can copy/paste into a third-party app (or use an OAuth solution) which requires a $2-5/month subscription fee (cough *reddit premium* cough) to make more money than they would from showing these users advertisements? This could also be used as a NSFW flag. Enough people use 3rd party apps that this would also cover the high fees that they wish you could charge to LLMs. Which, due to LinkedIn vs. HiQ -- they're just going to scrape publicly anyways. I build anti-captcha systems for bot scraping, it's trivially easy to bypass bot protection...there's no way around this without making logging in and agreeing to ToS necessary just to view comments. Hell they could even still include advertisements that come through the API as native posts and would not only be difficult to filter, but also be against API ToS to filter out. Yeah they wouldn't be as precisely-targeted but I mean, if someone is on a niche subreddit, how much more targeting do you need when you're already getting subscription fees from the same user you'd be showing additional ads to. Point is, they can still be extremely greedy while not kneecapping 3rd party clients that don't suck like their app does.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  > How about a per-user API key that users can copy/paste into a third-party app (or use an OAuth solution) which requires a $2-5/month subscription fee (cough reddit premium cough) to make more money than they would from showing these users advertisements? Two problems with this from their perspective: - It cedes control of the user experience to third party apps, forgoing potential monetization "opportunities" (aggressively pushing NFT avatars, etc) and possibility of keeping users perpetually sucked in TikTok-style - It greatly reduces the amount of data that can be harvested Clearly, they value these things more than the do keeping around "core reddit" (chronological list of posts) users who only care for the base product, even if they contribute disproportionally relative to average users.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    At the end of the day, corporations care mainly about money. I wonder what per-user price would fully offset the potential monetary value of these additional potential revenue streams.
    - opello 3y ago
      Yes! This seems like something a business would consider given the backlash against these choices.
  - basch 3y ago
    >https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/michael-arndt-reveals-rejected-plots-from-star-wars-the-force-awakens-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-95887/ https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/michael-arndt-re... Which the paying subscriber is paying to avoid.
- horsawlarway 3y ago
  I think the mistake is to assume that user interaction data isn't something that they desperately want. Regardless of the AI/ML play on the data - I suspect they just aren't willing to lose the user signals. Frankly - it's a good way to provide more compelling numbers around advertising effectiveness and impact, and it lets them tap into that information to generate more effective campaigns. I think reddit's advertising success depends a lot on being able to help companies approach the userbase effectively (and charge money for that service). Otherwise... it's a really tight position - because companies will just do an end run around paid services by generating their own organic looking content and posting it directly to the site (Why pay reddit for an ad for these boots... I can just generate some posts on r/buyitforlife and then bring it up in the comments)

by majani 3y ago

oldtownroad 3y ago

LLM developers have no need for Reddit’s API: Reddit data is available through a variety of sources that don’t require usage of the API. The API they’re targeting are third-party clients used by humans. Apps like Apollo are the target. Reddit’s comment volume is high but not high enough to drive significant revenue if LLM developers were consuming comments via the API.

happycube 3y ago
And even if they did need it, they won't need it nearly as much the way things are going now...
skilled 3y ago
Exactly. I think perhaps the biggest value is actually the "links" that get shared on Reddit, as an aggregate. And you can totally get all that somewhere else, in OpenAI's case - that would be Bing.

reaperman 3y ago

How about a per-user API key that users can copy/paste into a third-party app (or use an OAuth solution) which requires a $2-5/month subscription fee (cough *reddit premium* cough) to make more money than they would from showing these users advertisements? This could also be used as a NSFW flag. Enough people use 3rd party apps that this would also cover the high fees that they wish you could charge to LLMs. Which, due to LinkedIn vs. HiQ -- they're just going to scrape publicly anyways. I build anti-captcha systems for bot scraping, it's trivially easy to bypass bot protection...there's no way around this without making logging in and agreeing to ToS necessary just to view comments. Hell they could even still include advertisements that come through the API as native posts and would not only be difficult to filter, but also be against API ToS to filter out. Yeah they wouldn't be as precisely-targeted but I mean, if someone is on a niche subreddit, how much more targeting do you need when you're already getting subscription fees from the same user you'd be showing additional ads to. Point is, they can still be extremely greedy while not kneecapping 3rd party clients that don't suck like their app does.

kitsunesoba 3y ago
> How about a per-user API key that users can copy/paste into a third-party app (or use an OAuth solution) which requires a $2-5/month subscription fee (cough reddit premium cough) to make more money than they would from showing these users advertisements? Two problems with this from their perspective: - It cedes control of the user experience to third party apps, forgoing potential monetization "opportunities" (aggressively pushing NFT avatars, etc) and possibility of keeping users perpetually sucked in TikTok-style - It greatly reduces the amount of data that can be harvested Clearly, they value these things more than the do keeping around "core reddit" (chronological list of posts) users who only care for the base product, even if they contribute disproportionally relative to average users.
- reaperman 3y ago
  At the end of the day, corporations care mainly about money. I wonder what per-user price would fully offset the potential monetary value of these additional potential revenue streams.
  - opello 3y ago
    Yes! This seems like something a business would consider given the backlash against these choices.
- basch 3y ago
  >https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/michael-arndt-reveals-rejected-plots-from-star-wars-the-force-awakens-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-95887/ https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/michael-arndt-re... Which the paying subscriber is paying to avoid.
horsawlarway 3y ago
I think the mistake is to assume that user interaction data isn't something that they desperately want. Regardless of the AI/ML play on the data - I suspect they just aren't willing to lose the user signals. Frankly - it's a good way to provide more compelling numbers around advertising effectiveness and impact, and it lets them tap into that information to generate more effective campaigns. I think reddit's advertising success depends a lot on being able to help companies approach the userbase effectively (and charge money for that service). Otherwise... it's a really tight position - because companies will just do an end run around paid services by generating their own organic looking content and posting it directly to the site (Why pay reddit for an ad for these boots... I can just generate some posts on r/buyitforlife and then bring it up in the comments)