mpfh

You hit the nail on the smoking gun.

I think Rands had too much coffee.

You’re in a whirlwind of propaganda at the moment. The talking points and takes are mostly planted. Even the title has an inner circle nod to it.

Well played.

I don’t blame them because I don’t know all the variables involved. Neither does the media reporting and we don’t know what a company of their size is going through with prices going up and suppliers being unwilling to sell parts needed to manufacture these things.

I bought a used Xbox one a few years back. I’m not a heavy gamer anymore so I usually buy the previous generation or even two generations ago hardware, get the games I want from eBay and I’m good. And I was looking forward to getting a Series X, but at this point it looks unlikely unless the brand completely tanks and they’re selling them off to get rid of inventory. Otherwise, my Xbox one is going to be worth more in the future than what I paid, and I don’t want that situation for anyone.

I get that. All the stupid things that Reddit did along the way, the redesign, the login/app wall, the Pao thing, now requiring login when using ‘old.’, and the lack of the actual community standing up, points to the leadership that it is acceptable to do these things if it means more money for shareholders. So did they torch it if everyone stayed and continued? Hard to say.

Having said that, let’s suppose Reddit did everything right. They would still be overwhelmed by bots. Their inventory of comments and threads would still be copied over to LLMs just like how all the books and movies and music has been copied over. So ultimately this call that occurred where they cite numbers are down would still happen. Not 100% guaranteed of course, but highly likely.

This was flagrant disregard for copyright by all these AI firms, done much around the same time. It was a coordinated move in private, meanwhile the public face they give of being competitors, not speaking to each other, not shaking hands, is pure play. It’s theatrics because it helps them as a group if they’re seen to be enemies.

Folks, as fun as it is to harp on Reddit, much of the web has felt a sharp decline due to the intermediaries either scanning content and presenting it at their shopfront, or in the case of something like YouTube and other creative spaces, outright stealing the voice, look, and other features of the people involved.

There is a problem, but pointing at Reddit and laughing as some kind of schadenfreude at this point means it’s a matter of time before it is pointed at you.