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submitted 1 month ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

Reddit’s advertising revenue grew to $315.1 million, while “other” revenue reached $33.2 million on account of “data licensing agreements signed earlier this year.” Both Google and OpenAI have cut deals with Reddit to train their AI models on its posts.

In a letter to shareholders, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman attributed the recent increase in users to the platform’s AI-powered translation feature. Reddit started letting users translate posts into French last year before expanding to Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. Now, Huffman says Reddit plans to expand translation to over 30 countries through 2025.

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[-] alyaza@beehaw.org 167 points 1 month ago

apparently, the path to profitability was "shamelessly sell out on AI hype bullshit"

[-] JRepin@lemmy.ml 71 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Well and behind it is stealing other peoples' work (posts and comments, moderation and administration) and selling them as yours. The oldest capitalist criminal trick in the book: privatization AKA primitive accumulation AKA enclosure of the commons.

[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 month ago

I mean, to be fair, I'm nearly positive that the Reddit T&Cs will have said they retain rights to anything posted there for ages. And the AI bubble is already showing signs of deflation or bursting coming not too far down the line. Let them enjoy their first and hopefully only profitable year.

[-] Kichae@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 month ago

No one is arguing that they don't have the legal right.

But they believe they have the moral right, and they do not.

[-] BCsven@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

It doesn't really matter because there is not much content to train AI on in a worthwhile manner. The huge amount of content is mostly hostile retorts, and sarcastic meme banter. AI will be a mess after training on that

[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

I never was arguing against that. Also I'm pretty sure their moral compass was pushed by the feds until he topped himself, so nothing about their bullshit has surprised me since.

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 3 points 1 month ago

A few years ago I started a blog where I can post lengthy stuff instead on Reddit. To have more control over my own posts and without the mercy of Reddit or any moderator. Little I did knew this was the best decision I could make, after I saw what happened after Ai hype. (I'm not much active, but still, the principle counts.)

Anyone deleting their content there thinking this will avoid selling to Ai is probably a mistake. Because now Reddit can sell those deleted content from their backup (I assume they have backups...) and no normal user can access the information anymore, which hurts the normal users even more than any Ai or Reddit.

I encourage everyone to start a blog and at least post the deleted stuff there for future access. At least you have more control this way.

[-] Rooskie91@discuss.online 28 points 1 month ago

TBH, it feels like social media always needed some back door business like this to make it profitable.

[-] Sabata11792@ani.social 28 points 1 month ago

It's almost like human communication is not supposed to be a product or something...

[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 19 points 1 month ago

Which is a good reminder to everyone to support your local Lemmy instances.

this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
135 points (100.0% liked)

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