30 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: API Updates & Questions
Would it be possible to comment on why the timeline for this has been so aggressive?
My standing suspicion is that the real motivating factor here is to cut off the API usage by LLM developers considering the sheer number of companies pertaining to it that have started up since the introduction of ChatGPT, and their scraping data from APIs to build language models.
My further suspicion is that reddit (the company) looked at this, decided that doing such was the best course of action, and then further decided that anything else affected (read: collateral damage) was an acceptable loss. However, they likely didn't realize the level of blowback that they would received -- particularly because reddit employees don't seem to understand how their own site works or how people use it - as has been echoed by moderators who participated in the "adopt an admin" program.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/06/2023 at 17:03 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
To add to this, Reddit is slated to go public later this year and the valuation by Fidelity had tanked a couple months ago by 40%. This reeks of a desperate attempt by MBAs, who are focusing more on the quarterly financial reports they will be presenting to shareholders than the quality of the product they sell, to monetize the API to make up for that shortfall.