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Interesting. There have been all sorts of "Reddit's content is key to search results, adding 'reddit' to search results makes them good" stories. And there's be

Interesting. There have been all sorts of "Reddit's content is key to search results, adding 'reddit' to search results makes them good" stories. And there's been a lot of talk about how some of the big ML makers, notably Google, depend on Reddit's content to train their AI. And Google has that recent $60 million deal for content. So clearly Reddit's execs have been talking about how their content is valuable and they shouldn't give it away for free. But at the same time, blocking search engines from indexing your social media site is a dangerous game. Any search engine that respects this is gonna effectively de-list Reddit. That's no good for views, and views is what makes Reddit money. Presumably they have negotiated private deals with Google and probably Microsoft for this and are trying to sell their data to ML companies, because otherwise this would seem suicidal. Kind of a shame. The information is still going to get shared around to all the giant corporations, but Reddit will presumably make it harder to access for all the little guys. And the more they tie the content to dollars, the more managers on the inside will start doing stupid things to try and generate more of whatever the most valuable kinds of content are.

deleted 2y ago
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swarnie 2y ago
> So clearly Reddit's execs have been talking about how their content is valuable and they shouldn't give it away for free. Yeah see the API changes from last year and their pre-IPO investor roadshow. This ground is well trodden.
elaus 2y ago
In my personal experience, Reddit has become mainstream in the past few months/years. Even my completely non-tech friends use it, having not even heard about it 1-2 years ago. So maybe they can afford to be delisted from search engines, because the site is addictive enough to bring back its users – and new ones because it's mentioned everywhere. Like Discord or Facebook, where most content is also unavailable to search engines (although they probably rely much more on the social aspects).
- chipdart 2y ago
  > In my personal experience, Reddit has become mainstream in the past few months/years. Even my completely non-tech friends use it, having not even heard about it 1-2 years ago. Since the moderator revolt, I've noticed an increase in claims that there is an overwhelming volume of AI-generated content on Reddit coupled with boosting. Either that started with reddit's strike-busting efforts or was made more obvious by it. Since then, this is becoming far worse. Reddit's front page is dominated by random reposts by random low-karma user accounts that all of a sudden create the top post in the whole Reddit universe. Then there are reposts by other random low-karma user accounts on other subreddit that benefit from the same exact treatment. I'm convinced that the reddit revolt motivated reddit to take a more direct and involved approach to generating and boosting content, and now the effort targets specific segments. This also includes the creation and boosting of subreddits dedicated to mainstream topics. Regardless of this coming from reddit itself or marketing/PR companies, I would not be surprised if the bulk of this content was machine-generated fluff.
  - dageshi 2y ago
    They are for sure fucking around with peoples personal feeds. I am forever bombarded with "new" posts from the subreddits I sub to in my main feed. For any sub where people ask a lot of questions it's very annoying. I've already unsubbed from a bunch of subs because I didn't want to see the inane/clueless questions being asked. I have to assume they're promoting these dumbass questions into peoples feeds because they're precisely the type of content AI will love. People asking questions and humans giving answers, but boy it sure does make the experience as a user worse.
  - aydyn 2y ago
    Reddit has never been organic. Theres a video by an ex karma farmer explaining his strategies for creating the most engagement. Surprise, 2016 was a huge boost to his metrics for obvious reasons.
arcticbull 2y ago
> "Reddit's content is key to search results, adding 'reddit' to search results makes them good" stories. The biggest issue for me personally is that Reddit's built-in search is about as good as it's built-in mobile video player. Which is to say it is one of the worst pieces of software ever foisted upon humanity despite having been an objectively solved problem with off-the-shelf solutions available for decades. This wouldn't really bother me if Google weren't the only way to effectively search Reddit.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ninkendo 2y ago
I’m not convinced Reddit wants web traffic at all. Every single time I have the misfortune of trying a Reddit link on mobile, I have to fight prompt after prompt after prompt telling me, no begging me, to use the app. It’s like they hate me so much for having the audacity to not install their app, it’s insane. I guess they only bother keeping the web site around at all is for the faint hope that it’ll act as a funnel to their app? They certainly don’t want anyone actually using the website, they’ve made that perfectly clear.
- daft_pink 2y ago
  I found using arc search as my browser on iPhone helps with this

deleted 2y ago

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swarnie 2y ago

> So clearly Reddit's execs have been talking about how their content is valuable and they shouldn't give it away for free. Yeah see the API changes from last year and their pre-IPO investor roadshow. This ground is well trodden.

elaus 2y ago

In my personal experience, Reddit has become mainstream in the past few months/years. Even my completely non-tech friends use it, having not even heard about it 1-2 years ago. So maybe they can afford to be delisted from search engines, because the site is addictive enough to bring back its users – and new ones because it's mentioned everywhere. Like Discord or Facebook, where most content is also unavailable to search engines (although they probably rely much more on the social aspects).

chipdart 2y ago
> In my personal experience, Reddit has become mainstream in the past few months/years. Even my completely non-tech friends use it, having not even heard about it 1-2 years ago. Since the moderator revolt, I've noticed an increase in claims that there is an overwhelming volume of AI-generated content on Reddit coupled with boosting. Either that started with reddit's strike-busting efforts or was made more obvious by it. Since then, this is becoming far worse. Reddit's front page is dominated by random reposts by random low-karma user accounts that all of a sudden create the top post in the whole Reddit universe. Then there are reposts by other random low-karma user accounts on other subreddit that benefit from the same exact treatment. I'm convinced that the reddit revolt motivated reddit to take a more direct and involved approach to generating and boosting content, and now the effort targets specific segments. This also includes the creation and boosting of subreddits dedicated to mainstream topics. Regardless of this coming from reddit itself or marketing/PR companies, I would not be surprised if the bulk of this content was machine-generated fluff.
- dageshi 2y ago
  They are for sure fucking around with peoples personal feeds. I am forever bombarded with "new" posts from the subreddits I sub to in my main feed. For any sub where people ask a lot of questions it's very annoying. I've already unsubbed from a bunch of subs because I didn't want to see the inane/clueless questions being asked. I have to assume they're promoting these dumbass questions into peoples feeds because they're precisely the type of content AI will love. People asking questions and humans giving answers, but boy it sure does make the experience as a user worse.
- aydyn 2y ago
  Reddit has never been organic. Theres a video by an ex karma farmer explaining his strategies for creating the most engagement. Surprise, 2016 was a huge boost to his metrics for obvious reasons.

arcticbull 2y ago

> "Reddit's content is key to search results, adding 'reddit' to search results makes them good" stories. The biggest issue for me personally is that Reddit's built-in search is about as good as it's built-in mobile video player. Which is to say it is one of the worst pieces of software ever foisted upon humanity despite having been an objectively solved problem with off-the-shelf solutions available for decades. This wouldn't really bother me if Google weren't the only way to effectively search Reddit.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

ninkendo 2y ago

I’m not convinced Reddit wants web traffic at all. Every single time I have the misfortune of trying a Reddit link on mobile, I have to fight prompt after prompt after prompt telling me, no begging me, to use the app. It’s like they hate me so much for having the audacity to not install their app, it’s insane. I guess they only bother keeping the web site around at all is for the faint hope that it’ll act as a funnel to their app? They certainly don’t want anyone actually using the website, they’ve made that perfectly clear.

daft_pink 2y ago
I found using arc search as my browser on iPhone helps with this