I don’t get the AI angle. The data already exists in dumps. How does restricting access to the API stop that?
Sure, you don’t get access to new data but I doubt anybody cares about that given that there’s 15 years of existing data already. Especially if they kill all the interesting subs and turn Reddit into cat picture central.
True, but old data is not what companies want since it is readily available and probably already in models. Reddit produces more data than any other social media website in the text and picture format. I think Tiktok is relatively close but with videos.
Reddit is still also open to indexing, so the data is still currently available with no authentication required to anyone interested in crawling it. The training data for AI theory doesn't hold water.
The other thing to also consider is that Reddit funding is partially attached to investments. Investments for Reddit and many other investment based companies dried up over the government pulling back interest rates to deal with inflation.
Sure, you don’t get access to new data but I doubt anybody cares about that given that there’s 15 years of existing data already. Especially if they kill all the interesting subs and turn Reddit into cat picture central.